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before. How on earth could I have forgotten a person like him? He’d said the same thing. He felt he knew me too. Maybe that was why his father had stared at me the way he did back at the motel. Perhaps he knew me too.
                  But where? I hadn’t done much travelling outside of Addison in the past decade. Marley didn’t like flying and Dad was often too busy with work to consider luxuries like time off. Most of the holidays we did take involved weekends in hotels with waterslides and hot tubs for the adults. Occasionally in the summer we’d go camping but we hadn’t done that in ages because of Granny’s deterioration. The thought of her wandering off into the woods was enough to keep the Evan’s family out of the wilderness. There was a possibility that I might have met Kian at one of those places but it seemed unlikely. He didn’t seem like the type to hang out in hotels and neither Micah nor he looked like the outdoor adventure types. No, he was more mysterious. More sophisticated. He’d be the type of person you’d meet on a train in the middle of the night or in a fancy restaurant in New York. He’d be the person you’d meet halfway up the summit while rock climbing or in the small poverty driven towns of Mexico. He’d be deciphering the Rosetta Stone in London or sketching the artwork at the Louvre in Paris. So why had I met him on the northern highway in the middle of nowhere? What was he doing here?
                  And why was I so determined to psychoanalysis the crap outta him?
                  “Hey, Mai!” Claire’s voice sounded so far away. “What are you dreaming about?”
                  Was that what I was doing? Dreaming?
                  “I was just thinking about something,” I muttered.
                  “Whoever his name is, don’t let Connor know,” Amber joked.
                  I glanced nervously at Connor but he was completely oblivious, laughing with Eugene, the headphones still stuck in his ears.
                  “Wow, guilty look,” Amber said. “There is another man!”
                  “No,” I said. “There was a bad accident on the road today. Dad brought some people to the shop. They were fine but their car was totalled. I was just thinking about it.”
                  “Let me guess,” Claire said. “You got the whole dangerous driving lecture over dinner? Remember when you rear ended that guy, Amber?”
                  “Don’t remind me,” Amber said. “Mai, we need to get your Dad a new career. Maybe he could become a pilot or travel agent or something cause then he could get us cheap flights. I’ll let him lecture me if he does it in Mexico or Australia.”
                  “Cancun would be nice,” Claire chimed in. “Ooo, let’s go to Panama!”
                  “He’d still manage to bore you to death,” I said with a grin.
                  “At least I’d be getting a tan.”
                  I put my hand on my mouse, prepared to get back to my English paper. But something happened. The computer screen faded away in front of my eyes. I blinked twice and the coffee shop began to melt. I could see my friends watching me with wide eyes. Claire opened her mouth but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Connor reached out to touch my arm but I never felt his fingers.
                  Instead the chair beneath me began to fade. I jumped up to keep from falling. The coffee shop turned dark. I stepped forward, off of the tiled floor and onto soft earth.
                  I was in the middle of a field. As far as I could see there was nothing but wild flowers and high grass. Blue skies opened up above me and went on forever to the furthest corners of the world. Puffy clouds floated gracefully and aimlessly. There were no trees. No mountains.