The Project

by Courtney Summers

Having a sister is a promise no one but the two of you can make—and no one but the two of you can break.

Lo wants to be a writer. Bea is tormented by all the stories her sister will never get the chance to tell.

proof of God was absent and religion struck her as a sort of magic show, the success of which was entirely dependent on an audience’s willingness to pretend a trick could be so much more than it really was.

So why, after all these years, did she put my name in a dead boy’s mouth? And what was he telling me to find?

To give the gift of atonement, Bea must first be redeemed. To be redeemed, Bea must let go of all she knows she is.

Lo, I need you to know something, Bea says quietly into the phone. This is where I’m supposed to be. One day, you’ll walk the same path. We’ll see each other again. But for now, you need to know that I love you so much.

But where is the line between what circumstances have turned you into and who you choose to be?

She thinks that if being a sister is a promise you make, then being a mother must be a promise that you are.

Will you suffer your way back to me, Bea? To save your daughter? I’ll do anything, she whispers. He tells her to stand.

“If you tell a story—something real, something true—you get to be alive in other people. And writing feels like the most … the greatest chance I’ll ever have at being—alive.”