(Nisha)
I woke up feeling empty. I turned to reach for Cameron even though it was past dawn. I needed a small last bit of comfort before today started.
But he wasn’t there.
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and sat up, searching for him. He must have let me sleep in. But his bedroll was already packed, and then I realized that everything else was too. The fire was even put out; the last faint tendrils of smoke wafted through. There were no embers left; it was intentional.
I scrambled up and walked around the clearing, trying to keep the rising panic at bay. He had to be close. He was just getting ahead on packing. Today was the day we were supposed to go to Soleil, and he probably couldn’t sleep. But even as I tried to rationalize it I knew it not to be true.
I knew deep inside me that he
