The Distance Between Lost and Found (29 page)

“That's so great, Hallie.” Jonah grabs Hallelujah's hand and gives it a squeeze.

“Luke's not off, I don't know, plotting his ultimate revenge or something. Is he?” In an instant, the knot is back in her stomach. Tightening. This might all be too good to be true. “Do you really think he'll leave me alone now?”

Jonah's grin drops away. “He better. But if he does start messing with you again, you'll make him stop.
We'll
make him stop. Right?”

“Right,” Hallelujah echoes. “Right.” And just like that, she doesn't want to talk about Luke anymore. If she could never talk about him or think about him again, that would be amazing. “Can we change the subject?”

“Sure. Do you want to, um, sit? Up here?”

The open bit of mattress next to him. Jonah smiling, now looking a little shy. His shyness makes her shy. “Okay,” she says.

Jonah scoots over, wincing as he moves his right leg. When he's settled, resting back against his pillows, Hallelujah takes hold of the bedrail and climbs up to sit next to him. Her legs are surprisingly shaky, and she's happy to stretch them out next to Jonah's. She pulls her IV pole closer to give the line some slack, then leans into his pillows, too.

Jonah takes her hand again, giving her a look like,
Is this okay?
She nods. “How's Rachel?” he asks.

“She's okay. We talked for a few minutes. She has to stay here for a couple days.”

“She was really bad, just before the rangers showed up. She couldn't stop puking, even though nothing much was coming up, and all I could do was sit there and bleed.” He pauses. “How was yesterday for you?”

Hallelujah thinks back. Yesterday is a blur, from the bear until the two bikers and beyond. “I just remember walking and walking and feeling like I couldn't walk anymore and still walking,” she says. “Thinking about everything. With Luke. And with you and Rachel. And then there was the road, and I knew I could make it. I sang for a while,” she adds as an afterthought.

He nods. He gets it. They're both quiet for a few moments, listening to the dripping of their IVs and the beeping of an alarm down the hall and the voices of people at the nurses' station. A car honks in the parking lot outside. There's an announcement over the intercom. All these sounds of civilization, and again Hallelujah misses the birds. The morning birds and the afternoon birds and the night birds, swooping and calling.

“You sang,” Jonah says, sounding thoughtful.

“Yeah.”

“How'd it go?”

“It was .Â .Â . I mean, I was terrible.” Hallelujah laughs, shaking her head. “But I guess that wasn't the point. It felt .Â .Â . good. It felt right.”

He squeezes her hand again. “Think you'll come back to choir? In the fall, maybe?”

She knows he knows how hard it is, what he's asking. But she's happy he asked. “Maybe,” she answers.

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

“And you and me, we're .Â .Â . ?” He doesn't finish the question. He doesn't have to.

“Yeah,” Hallelujah repeats. “You and me.”

Jonah tilts his head so it meets hers on the pillow. They lie there, side by side, with him under the sheets and her on top of them, holding hands and touching foreheads. Jonah's eyes are closed. Just when she thinks he must have fallen asleep, he murmurs, “Stay.”

“Okay.”

Outside the window, clouds are rolling in over the mountains. A storm. But beyond the band of rain clouds, the sky is blue again. Bright, shining blue. The storm won't last long. And, Hallelujah realizes, sometimes you need the storm to really appreciate the sun and the blue sky.

Jonah is breathing evenly. She can feel each exhale on the side of her neck.

She smiles, and she stays.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my editor, Alexandra Cooper, for loving this book as much as I love it and for pushing me to make every scene, sentence, and word count. Your incisive, encouraging feedback made the revision process a joy and the final product everything I'd hoped it would be. Thanks also to Alyssa Miele for your thoughtful comments, and for helping to usher me through the debut-author whirlwind. And to the rest of the team at HarperCollinsâdesigners Erin Fitzsimmons, Heather Daugherty, Laura DiSiena, and Cara Petrus; production editor Bethany Reis; production managers Allison Brown and Lillian Sun; marketing manager Jenna Lisanti; and publicist Olivia deLeonâthanks so much for all of your hard work!

Thanks to my agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, for your enthusiasm and for believing in me and in Hallelujah's story. From our first phone call, I knew my manuscript and I were in excellent hands. I'm so thankful I have you on my team.

To all of my writer friends who've been there during these last few crazy years: you are my community, my people, and I'm lucky to know you. Thanks to Michael Ann Dobbs, Elizabeth Dunn-Ruiz, Benjamin Andrew Moore, Ghenet Myrthil, Jodi Kendall, Gina Carey, Kristi Olson, Cassie Bednall, and Lauren Morrill for reading and critiquing early drafts and for cheering me on. Thanks also to Kim Liggett, Bridget Casey, Bess Cozby, Michelle Schusterman, Rebecca Behrens, and Gabriela Pereira for your friendship, support, and inspiration. Write Night forever! And to everyone else who, by asking how my book was coming along and being excited for me at each milestone, kept me excited and motivatedâthank you. You're more important than you know.

A big thank-you to Clay Jordan, the chief ranger of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, who was kind enough to answer my questions about the logistics of getting lost in the woods and about the GSMNP's search-and-rescue procedures. Special thanks to Kohli and Jimmy Calhoun and their daughter Clara, for Hallelujah's nameâthe germ of inspiration that became this book.

Some of my earliest forays into creative writing were guided by Aleta Ledendecker at New Horizon Montessori School. In Maryville High School's powerhouse English department, John Kerr, Gail Rhodes, Penny Ferguson, and Cynthia Freeman whipped my writing into shape. At Goucher College, Jonathan David Jackson nurtured my creative writing while urging me to venture outside my comfort zone. And at the New School, Hettie Jones, Tor Seidler, Sarah Weeks, David Levithan, and Honor Moore helped me discover what kind of writer I wanted to become. Thank you all.

I've been a bookworm since the day I learned to read. Thanks to my parents, Laurie and Greg Holmes, for encouraging my bookish tendencies, for backing my writing aspirations wholeheartedly, and for reading everything I write. Mom and Dad, I'm so proud and happy to be able to dedicate this book to you. Thanks to my sister, Mary-Owen, for being a cheerleader, a careful reader, and a sounding board during revisions. Thanks to my brother, Ben, and my sister-in-law, Kate, for supporting me every step of the way. Thanks to my husband's familyâSheila, Jack, Niki, and Edâfor celebrating with me. I've truly hit the family jackpot.

And on that note, to my husband, Justin: Thank you for taking a chance and going on a date with a graduate student who was struggling to write her first novel. Thank you for being by my side through the ups and downs, the queries and submissions and revisions and every other moment in this journey. Thank you for always making me smile. I love you and I couldn't have done this without you.

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