The other letter my mother had given me included a ticket and single flier with three words written in bright red marker.

The flyer was for an art contest, and Lachlan’s name was listed as one of the finalists. I told myself I wouldn’t go, that it would hurt too much, that nothing good could possibly come of it. I was still telling myself that on the three-hour drive here. When I got here, I’d sat in my car, watched each and every one of the Prestons, people I’d once considered my family, enter the parking lot, get out of their cars, meet by the front door, and walk into the building together. I stayed in my car, tried to convince myself not to come in. But then I looked at the flier again, the invite from a little boy who owns a piece of my soul and the words he’d written… the only three words he knew he’d need to get me here:

And now I’m here, sitting next to a boy who owns every piece of my heart, and I struggle to breathe. Struggle to keep my emotions in check. If I’d known I’d be sitting next to him, I would’ve stayed by the door, watched it from a distance.

I keep the hood of my coat over my head, try to hide my face. The last thing Logan needs is to see me, to realize that the freckles half the shade of scarlet, the upturned nose he loved so much… they were things I got from my father.

The man on stage is talking, but my fear has tuned me so far out of reality that I can’t even comprehend what he’s saying. In a daze of emotion, I keep my eyes forward, focused on Lachlan, and fist my hands on my lap. My heart pounds, pulse beating in my ears. I’m covered in goosebumps, and my stomach is rising, falling, flying, head-diving. I can’t breathe. I look behind me, back at the door I came in from.

I could sneak out.

Make another scene.

It wouldn’t matter; I’ll never have to see these people again.

But then Lachlan’s name is called, and I’m watching the stage again, my entire body lifting with anticipation. When he gets behind the podium, a step stool is offered to him, and the audience laughs. He’s the youngest one here, the others in their late teens, and the idea of his greatness brings a smile to my lips, a tear to my eye.

He says, into the microphone, “I was told that I had to say something about myself before I talked about the work I’d submitted. I don’t… I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say…” He shrugs. “I’m just a kid who likes to draw.”

I smile wider.

Lachlan adds, “I’m also a kid who likes to run. At one point, I thought it had to be one or the other… but then someone really special to me said something really important… she told me that I never had to stereotype myself. That I am who I am and I like what I like and that I never had to choose. It meant a lot to me—what she said—and I guess that’s why she became my muse for the artwork I submitted.”

My breath catches in my throat, and I find myself sitting forward, my hands shaking, my heart racing.

On the stage, a giant projector screen lowers behind Lachlan, and the lights dim, and then the entire screen is filled with what looks like a comic book cover. The girl on the drawing seems to be floating high above the buildings, bright blue leather covering almost every inch of her body, the letters RR across her chest, and enough red hair to fill half the screen. She’s holding a pen, a laser shooting out of it, directed at a body below her—a body of a boy with something strapped to his chest.

My mouth opens, and I force an inhale, hold it there.

Lachlan clears his throat, the single sound haunting the entire room. “Once upon a time, there was a superhero with fiery-red hair. Some people described the color of her hair as scarlet. She had an upturned nose with freckles all across it. In her village, she was known as The Red Raven…”

I choke on a sob, cover my mouth with my hand to muffle the sound.

“In the same village as Red Raven lived a boy. A boy who had a past that no one knew of, no one spoke of. A boy who hurt in ways no one could ever understand. This boy would spend nights alone in his bunker, tinkering with his tools, pulling apart electronics just to put them back together again. Sometimes, he’d incorrectly rewire the units just to see the destruction it would cause.

“One night, he gathered an old alarm clock, a camp stove, and a stereo and pulled them all apart. When he was done, he started the task of joining them all together, wiring them all wrong. But before he could, the boy gave in to fatigue, and instead of packing up all the parts, he fell asleep on his bed with all the parts next to him. When he awoke the next day, the pieces of his broken project had somehow attached themselves to him. Right across his chest.

“He startled as he sat up, confused, and that’s when he heard the tick, tick, ticking of the clock. When he looked down, he noticed that everything had been wired wrong. Too wrong. In his sleep, without his knowledge, his creation had become a ticking time bomb… right over his heart. The boy got up, stared at himself in the mirror, his blue eyes scared. And he knew that without meaning to, without wanting to, he’d become self-destructive.”

My eyes drift shut, allowing the silent tears to fall along with my silent cries.

“Meanwhile, The Red Raven watched the boy from just outside his window. She could hear the bomb ticking but could see no change in the time of the clock. There was no exact hour, minute, second. There was no countdown. All she knew was that at some point, at any point, the boy was going to explode. She looked down at her pen, her superpower, and knew that with a wave of the pen, a scan with the laser, she had the power to remove the bomb, to rewire it, to rewire him. But the problem was, she didn’t know him… this self-destructive boy who looked so broken, so sad…”

I wipe furiously at my tears, try to contain my cries as best I can. My hands settle on my lap, shaky and wet, and I inhale, exhale, too quick, too sharp, and I can’t catch my breath. Then a single sound echoes through the room, through my entire body. Logan sniffs. And I’m too afraid to look, too scared to watch.

Lachlan goes on, “And so she made a promise to herself to get to know the boy, to see if he was worth saving…”

I can’t see through the tears, can’t breathe through the heartache. And then a stroke of warmth flows across my wrist—Logan’s finger. My throat closes, and my eyes drop to the connection. He shifts my hand until the back of it rests on my leg. The tips of each of his fingers connect with mine, dragging them up, up, up, opening my hand for him, revealing the Hope Penny I’d been holding on to since I got here. His heavy breath lands on my head, and then his fingers are sliding through mine, lacing, joining, curling, and then…

Then he holds my hand.

He holds my hand and everything inside me breaks, crumbles to ashes. A second later, his lips are on my temple and my eyes are closed, and I feel all the broken pieces, the leftover ashes formed by our destruction, get swept away with the touch of his hand, and I’m being rebuilt, rewired from the inside out, and Lachlan continues: “The self-destructive boy glanced out his window and saw The Red Raven watching him. Their eyes met, and they held each other’s gaze: the boy’s pleading, the girl’s concerned. And then the boy blinked, pulled them out of their stupor. He walked to the window, lifted the glass, and said the few words that would forever change them…‘Save me, Red.’”