Chapter 66. Gone Again

TESSA

I didn’t know how long I had been there. The lake lay still before me, dark as a sheet of glass, reflecting the rising moon and the gold-streaked sky above it before the last traces of light completely vanished.

My eyes were puffy—perhaps even a shade of red. I had cried for far too long, and here I was, reduced to this state. A small chuckle escaped my lips as I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the darkening waters. My eyes looked like they had been devoured by a hundred cockroaches. However, that fleeting amusement faded quickly when I remembered the situation I was in.

If I told Arden about all this, maybe I wouldn’t feel so impossibly lonely. Maybe she’d say something that would make everything feel normal again. She was the only one who could do that, the one who wouldn’t look at me with either pity or confusion.

Nobody knew what had really happened—not even Rowan. Only my older sister was aware of the details, and even then, it wasn’t the whol