I say, “I don’t have the grades for a scholarship.”

“Maybe not, but there are a ton of them out there and not all of them are academic based. There are some for single-income families,” Coop says, pointing to my dad. “There are some ridiculous ones, too, like if your birthday falls on a certain date. They’re not much. I mean, a single scholarship won’t get you all the way through four years, but if you get enough of the smaller ones, it might help.”

“Lo’s a senior and it’s halfway through the first semester now,” Dad tells him, “Isn’t it too late?”

Cooper shrugs. “It can’t hurt to ask, right?”

I skip dessert, a surprise to everyone at the table. But seriously, those four brownies are still playing havoc on my stomach.

“I have one more gift,” Dad says, reaching into his breast pocket. He pulls out a square velvet box and I gasp, cover my mouth.

“Dad, you’ve already given me so much. I can’t take that.”

“It’s not from me,” he says, sliding it across the table. He reaches into another pocket, reveals an envelope. “Tom wanted me to give it to you.”

Cooper goes rigid beside me. “Tom Preston?”

Dad nods at him, looks at me. “Lois?” he says, and I tear me gaze away from the box and up at him. “It’s from Kathy, sweetheart. She left it in her will for when you turned eighteen.”

My hands shake as I pick up the box, lift the lid. It’s a gold necklace, a simple key charm attached to it. On the inside of the lid, there’s a note in Kathy’s handwriting:

Lois Lane,

It will make more sense when you read my letter.

I choke on a sob, pick up the envelope. “Excuse me,” I whisper, standing up and taking the box and the letter with me. “I need to uh—”

“It’s okay,” Dad cuts in. “Go.”

I run to the bathroom, close the lid on a toilet seat, and sit, my knees bouncing, my hands shaking. I try to contain my sobs, but it’s hard. So hard.

When I finally work up the courage, I tear open the envelope, pull out the letter.

Dear Lois Lane,

Happy birthday, sweetheart. It saddens me that I won’t be there to see you grow up, to see the kind of woman you’ve turned into. As silly as it sounds, I hope you haven’t forgotten about me. I hope that deep down, I’m still in your heart because you’ll always be in mine. I didn’t know you very long, but I feel like I knew you well. You brought so much laughter and joy to my family, and I’m forever grateful for that summer you spent with us.

I wanted to give you something that my mother gave to me when I turned eighteen. Don’t worry, Lucy gets my engagement ring and everything else.

It’s a key to your world, Laney, and I want to tell you the same things my mother told me when I was your age, just in case yours isn’t around to pass on a similar message.

Love hard, love fierce, but love right.

Be careful with your heart, guard it, and if you feel the need to be reckless, make sure you are the one making that choice.

See the world, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Learn. Never stop learning, Laney.

And lastly, take your time, but don’t waste it. Trust me on that one.

You now hold the key to your world. You choose which doors to lock, which to open. You choose who to let in and who to keep out. But do me a favor? Don’t shut out too many people. You’re too good, too precious to be kept hidden.

In case I don’t get a chance to tell you before I pass away, I want you to know now that I love you, sweet girl. And I hope that you and Lucas are still in touch, still friends—maybe more?

If not, I hope one day you find it in your heart to forgive him his mistakes. He’s learning, Laney. Always learning.

- Kathy.

Chapter Seventeen

LUCAS

As soon as my phone rings, I know it’s Laney. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t know how to feel about it.

“I don’t really know why I called,” Laney says, her voice weak.

I frown, looking down at the bottle of beer in my hand. “Where are you right now?”

The silence stretches the space between us. She sniffs, exhales. “Remember that restaurant you took me to for my sixteenth birthday?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m in the bathroom, sitting on a closed toilet seat, crying.”

Leaning forward, I place the beer on the coffee table. Then I move back on the couch, tilt my head up and stare up at the ceiling. And even though I know the answer, still, I ask, “Why are you crying?”

“Did you know?” she whispers.

I close my eyes, let the effects of the alcohol kick in. “Dad told me a few days ago.” I hear her breaths through the phone, short and sharp, piercing my chest with each intake. “Do you like it?”

“It’s so beautiful, Lucas,” she whispers.

I swallow, thick, my own emotions threatening to escape. We’ve never spent a birthday apart. Until now. Maybe that’s why I’m sitting in my dark apartment, drinking alone. “Then it’s fitting you have it.”

“There was a letter, too.”

“I know.”

“Did you read it?”

The sadness in her voice turns my insides to dust. “No. I didn’t read it.”

She sniffs again, and I imagine her in a beautiful dress, sitting in the bathroom, her hair braided to the side, her eyes filled with tears—tears she doesn’t want to release, so she looks up at the ceiling, just like I am, in the hopes that gravity’s on her side. She says, her voice hoarse, “Sometimes I imagine hearing the knock on my bedroom door late at night as if you’re on the other side waiting for me to answer. And I know it’s not real and that you’re not there, but I’d gotten so used to it and…” Her breaths are shaky, her voice even shakier. “What happened to us, Lucas? You were my best friend.”

I sit up. “I still want to be that, Lane.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“Losing you…” I can’t even begin to describe what I feel. I tug at my hair, hoping the physical pain will outweigh the emotional one. “I’d give anything to be that again.”

I hear her shift, hear her breaths even. “I have to go. Cooper’s waiting.” Then she hangs up, and I look over at the empty beers scattered on my coffee table. I don’t count the bottles, the calories, the number of miles it’ll take to burn off. Because numbers stop having meaning when there’s no end in sight.

I don’t know how long I sit on the couch, the sole invitee to my own pity party. Someone knocks on my door and I try to make out the time on the microwave, but it’s too far away and I took out my contacts a while ago. The knock sounds again, and this time, I force myself to stand. I don’t bother putting on a t-shirt as I shuffle my feet to the door.

Seeing Laney on the other side has me instantly tensing. I stopped drinking after she hung up—when I realized that alcohol didn’t help take away the pain and frustration of not being the one to celebrate with her. “Hey,” I say, standing straighter.