Chapter 2The Last Paper Star

I stared at the door, but my mind uncontrollably drifted back to something long ago.

The winter I was eight, Mom brought a boy home.

He wore an ill-fitting black coat, and his hair covered most of his face.

Mom crouched beside me and said, "Hannah, this is Mason. He'll be living with us from now on."

I skipped over, took his hand, and looked up at him.

"Hi, Mason. I'm Hannah Whitaker."

His hand stiffened, then pulled away.

Mom sighed and explained that his parents had died in a car accident and gone somewhere very far away, so he would be living with us.

Later, I secretly went to knock on his door.

"Mason, I'll give you half my strawberry cake. Please don't be sad, okay?"

The door didn't open, but I heard muffled crying from beneath his blankets.

From that day on, I followed him around like a little shadow.

At first he ignored me. Eventually, he got used to me.

But he never smiled, and he never said anything sweet.

Still, if a boy in class pulled my braid, that boy would show up the next day with a black eye and apologize.

If I scraped my knee, Mason would crouch down and carry me home from school, walking forty minutes without letting me get off his back.

I took a deep breath and turned the doorknob.

Mason leaned against the frame, half his face hidden in shadow.

When he heard the door open, he turned slightly and pulled a folded paper star from his pocket.

Once, after we had an argument, we went three days without speaking.

The next morning, a paper star appeared in my desk drawer. When I unfolded it, the word sorry was written inside.

After that, the stars became his standard apology. Whenever he upset me, he folded one.

Sometimes it said "Sorry." Sometimes "Got it." Once, it even said nothing but "Okay."

I kept every star in a clear glass jar in the most noticeable spot on my desk.

During the second half of freshman year, I joked with him.

"Mason, once this jar is full, it means you've made me mad too many times. Then I'll have to leave you."

His fingers paused.

"Then stop getting mad all the time."

The jar had remained nine-tenths full ever since.

Until today.

I reached out and took the star from his palm.

He froze.

Before, whenever he handed me a star, I would deliberately glare at him for a long time.

But today, I neither glared nor smiled.

I took the star and closed the door.

"Han..."

His voice was shut outside.

I walked to my desk and dropped the star into the glass jar.

It filled the jar exactly to the top.

I screwed on the lid, removed the jar from my desk, and placed it in the deepest corner of a drawer.

Then I opened my journal again and lowered my pen.

"I came back from ten years in the future."

Early the next morning, I knocked on Mom's bedroom door.

"Mom, I'm taking the day off. Come with me for a checkup."

She was brushing her hair and stared at me.

"I feel perfectly fine. Why would I need a checkup?"

I couldn't exactly tell her that one day, she would suffer a sudden heart attack, call Mason as her final attempt to reach someone, and he wouldn't make it in time.

By the time I got home from school, her hand would already be cold.

I dragged Mom to the hospital. The doctor frowned at her test results.

"I recommend admitting her for observation and running a more thorough cardiac workup."

Mom waved it off, but I firmly completed the admission paperwork and settled her into a room.

In my last life, on the tenth anniversary of Mom's death, Mason and I visited her grave.

Mason crouched beside me with a bouquet of white lilies.

"Mrs. Whitaker, I'll take good care of her."

The clicking of high heels came through the wind at the worst possible moment.

Despite Mason trying to stop her, Paige had insisted on following us.

"Hannah, I've thought about this for a long time. Today, in front of your mother, I think I should finally explain everything.

"Your mother's death wasn't Mason's fault.

"She called him that day and said she felt sick and needed a ride to the hospital.

"But he couldn't go because I called him. I'd been drinking and couldn't get home alone, so I asked him to pick me up.

"By the time he reached your house, your mother was already gone.

"Hannah, it was because of me. I caused it, not Mason. Stop using gratitude to keep him tied to you. Just because your family raised him doesn't mean he owes you his whole life. It's been ten years. Let him go."

Those words, let him go, became the nightmare that woke me in the middle of the night.

So all those years, I'd been binding him to me with a debt of gratitude.

Tears fell in heavy drops onto my school uniform. I wiped my face carelessly and returned to school.

When I was solving problems, Paige approached with a test paper.

"Can you explain this question to me?"

I didn't turn my head.

"After I finish this problem."

Paige suddenly bent her knees and dropped straight to the floor.

"Hannah, I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have made that video or played that kind of joke. I really know I was wrong."