I used to write down verses from the book and then tear them from my journal, leaving them on her balcony the few times a year I visited Boston. Of course, I hadn’t known it was her balcony; I’d thought it was her mother’s, and back then, I didn’t understand how evil Carmen was. It hadn’t fully registered what she’d done to me, so I was still stuck in a cycle of confusion. It wasn’t until Elena was eighteen and approached me at a cocktail fundraiser that I learned she’d been the one collecting the notes and sometimes leaving her own in return. That night, she asked me to take her. To give her
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