This isn't weird.

Lost Lost Twins

Ben had had scarcely ten minutes to enjoy the beautiful silence of Tess's absence when his phone rang. At first, he was miserably sure that she had changed her mind, that he would have to turn right back around, but when he looked down at his phone, it was Indigo's name on the caller ID.

"Indigo! Hey!" Ben answered, relieved. "Sorry I haven't had a chance to call—"

"Are you with Tess?" Indigo cut him off without greeting him. As abrupt as the inquiry was, he sounded as utterly disinterested as ever.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you—"

"I don't care. Are you with her now?"

"No. I just dropped her off at a car rental. We were looking for—"

"Millie. I know," Indigo interrupted. "My camera was on."

"Oh, shit." Ben winced. It seemed obvious now, but it hadn't yet occurred to him that the awkward, ugly chaos of the previous morning might have been immortalized on film. "Of course it was. I guess I don't really have to explain things then."

"Detroit," Indigo said.

"What?"

"That's where Millie's brother died. I had my private investigator look into it. And Millie never checked in anywhere on Instagram—her phone never left Texas, though she did use an ATM at a Shell station in Ohio."

"Wait, hold on, you have a private investigator?"

"Well, not me, personally, but my family keeps one on retainer."

"Seriously? Why?"

"My sister has poor taste in men."

"Oh. That... makes sense." Ben had met his sister once. It did make sense. "Wow. So the brother was actually real. Indigo, you are amazing for finding all that out, but it turns out it doesn't really matter after all. Millie never actually said any of that. Tess had a tracking device in her car. She made up the whole story to get me to take her to Millie without telling me the real reason she knew how to find her."

"A tracking device," Indigo repeated, a hint of incredulity in his otherwise toneless voice.

"I know. It's fucked up. But Millie found it and ditched it on the side of the road in Wyoming, so... Wait, you said her phone never left Texas?"

"Correct."

"So she wasn't ignoring my calls!" It was hardly the most important detail to fixate on, but it soothed the lonely sting of the previous night, lying in bed and desperately willing her to answer. Relief morphed all too quickly into hope, and quicker still into excitement. "And if she doesn't have her phone, I bet she doesn't even have my number. She can barely even remember her own. And Wyoming—it's on the way from Texas to Oregon! Oh my god, she's going back to Corvallis. She's coming back for me. I have to get home—"

"No, she's not," Indigo interjected.

"What?"

"She's not coming back."

Ben's heart sank. "How do you know that?"

"She sent me a letter."

"You? She sent a letter to you?" There was an unmistakable note of indignance, even jealousy, in his voice. "When?"

"Yesterday morning, I believe. It was overnighted from Ohio."

"What did it say?" Ben demanded. The beat that passed without a response was excruciating. "Indigo. What did it say?"

He heard Indigo sigh, and the soft rustle of paper. "It just says... 'I love him too much to come back. Please don't let him forgive me.' Dramatic, I know."