"You gave me a giant lollipop and then vanished." I close the battered sketchbook like it's a secret that's not supposed to escape. "Do people actually write notes to their childhood crushes?" Hilary says from the beanbag. She flips her hair and mines for sarcasm like it's a hobby. "Only the romantic ones," Everly answers, rifling through a pile of fabric swatches. "Or the delusional ones." "I'm neither," I say. I flip the page back to the corner where the paper has gone soft from being folded a hundred times. The handwriting is my mother's, looped and careful, but the scribble inside is mine—a seven-year-old scrawl that reads: 'You gave me a giant lollipop. Keep it. —J.' "Read it," Johanna orders. She is the brutal truth-teller who treats secrets like short-term loans. I clear my throat. "He said, 'Keep it for luck.' He had a green hat that he wore sideways and—" "Stop. You're making this too cute," Everly says, but she's smiling. "Green hat?" Hilary parrots. "Was the hat ironic or actual fashion crime?" "He ran off," I finish. "He didn't leave his name." "A mystery man. Classic," Johanna says. "Did he vanish into a portal or into Mr. Thompson's vending machine?" "Shut up," I say, but my voice is small and soft. I don't add how I kept the lollipop stick in a shoebox until it broke into a fossil. "Are you actually