But now it lay flat, hollow, empty.

"Stop pretending. Just tell me the truth, okay?"

Jordan wouldn't meet my eyes. He fumbled for the words. "There's a scene in the haunted house that needed a ring as a prop. To make it feel more real, I gave it to Penelope."

"But it doesn't matter. That was just a rehearsal. I already ordered a grander wedding ring—that's the one I actually want to give you."

By the time he finished, my mouth was full of bitterness.

"You rehearsed a proposal with a haunted house actor? Then what am I?"

Jordan looked bewildered. "What do you mean, rehearsed a proposal? I already told you, it was an accident!"

I waved my hand again and again, refusing to keep talking about it.

"Jordan, I honestly don't know how to talk to you anymore."

The low pressure hung over the whole night.

The next day, a childhood friend of Jordan's, just back in the country, asked him out to dinner.

To break the cold war, Jordan told me to come along. Halfway through the meal I went to the restroom to touch up my makeup, and coming back I stopped outside the door of our private room.

The door hadn't shut all the way. Dudley Sanchez's voice drifted out, clearly needling him. "Jordan, why is it that for all these years you only ever fall for mutes?"

My fingers were already on the handle. I didn't move.

"First there was Rebecca Fox, your one great love—deaf and mute, and you wouldn't let her go, still carrying a torch even after she died."

Dudley was grinning through it. "And this Caroline now, never mind her—you kept her around long enough that you basically nursed her back to health. But then where does Penelope come from? Man, are you running a shelter for the disabled?"

I heard Jordan laugh once.

"It's not as dramatic as you make it sound."

"Caroline really does look like Rebecca. When we first met, even the way she talked was exactly the same."

"Later she slowly got her voice back, and I honestly couldn't get used to it. Looking back now, the reason I was willing to get close to her back then was probably that mute quality. It overlapped with the person in my memory."

Dudley whistled. "So Caroline was just your stand-in? Then what about Penelope?"

Jordan's voice went flat. "Penelope was an accident."

"You know the feeling I get around Penelope? Like my heart's been silent for a long time, and then she showed up, and all at once there was an echo again."

"Once Caroline was cured, I never felt that anymore."

"She's too normal. More and more like an ordinary person. Sometimes I look at her and I miss that little girl who used to hide in the corner, unable to make a sound."

Dudley asked, "That diary of Rebecca's… do you still have it?"

"Mm."

My fingers slid off the handle.

That loss of speech from when I was fourteen was crawling back, inch by inch.

I fled home like a refugee.

I dug out the diary Dudley had mentioned. The first page, all of it, was Rebecca.

I don't know how long I turned pages before I finally found my own name.

"A new girl transferred into class today. Her name is Caroline Butler."

"A little mute. Another little mute."

"I asked the teacher if I could sit with her, and the teacher was surprised—said I'd never sat with anyone before."

"Maybe it's because there aren't many girls like Rebecca, and she's one of them."

I closed the diary, tears breaking loose, my whole body shaking beyond control.

"Why aren't you back yet? Does the restroom really take this long?"

Jordan's call came through. I fought to force out a single syllable to answer him, pressing frantically at my chest, and no sound would come.

I wanted to ask him who Rebecca was.

Whether he'd sat down beside me back then only because, like her, I couldn't speak.

"Still sulking? Come on. There's a big event at the haunted house tomorrow. Penelope texted me asking if you'd come, so I signed you up. Let's go together, get your mind off things."

My knuckles went white around the phone.

He'd forgotten again.

I had night blindness. I was afraid of the dark.

Somewhere on his end people were pushing drinks on him. Jordan said, quick and careless, "That's settled, then. If you get home first, just go to sleep."

The dial tone hummed in my ear, and I broke down all over again.

The next day, at the entrance to the haunted house, Jordan walked ahead, holding my hand.

Penelope trailed behind us. Today she wasn't playing one of the actors. Today she'd come as Jordan's invited guest.

The first time an actor lunged right up into my face, my whole body seized and I flinched back on instinct. Jordan pulled me in to steady me.

"Don't be scared. None of it's real."

Beside us, Penelope let out a low little whimper.

Almost at once, Jordan's head turned toward her, and his grip on my fingers went slack.

"If you're scared, say so. You all right?"

Penelope shook her head. Before she could get anything out, we hit the fork in the path, and the crowd began to shove.

Penelope stumbled from the press of it.

I clutched Jordan's fingers, but he left me without a flicker of hesitation.

His arm went right past me. He turned, put himself in front of her, and gathered her into his arms.

The crowd was still splitting and scattering. I was carried along, pushed deeper inside.

When I looked back, Jordan and Penelope had already disappeared into the entrance of the stairwell on the right.

When he came out through the exit, Jordan narrowed his eyes for a moment.

Then he looked down at Penelope. "You're not hurt, are you? You lost your footing back there. Did you twist your ankle?"

Penelope was just starting to gesture when a staff member came rushing past them.

"There's a girl who didn't come out on that other path. Call the others, quick. Somebody's going back in to find her."

"Is it that girl with the flaxen curls?"

"Yes, that's the one! On the security feed it looked like she fell, clutching her stomach…"

"She's not pregnant, is she? You can't let that kind of thing wait."

The moment Jordan heard it, the color drained from his face.

Only then did he realize Caroline was gone. When had they even gotten separated?

With a shaking hand, he dug out his phone.

"The number you have dialed is switched off."