When he reached page twenty-seven, which arrived sooner than he could have imagined, he found another note settled there. A whole reading list, of which To Kill a Mockingbird was the very first. This book had kept Melanie from his mind—kept her in that little box, with a tiny wooden lid—so he didn’t have to feel his pain and doubt fizzing through his veins every minute. Those first twenty-seven pages had given him something he hadn’t felt since the breakup: hope. The list was for him—he knew it. He thought of that scripted message at the top: Just in case you need it. He felt like he’d never
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