Twelve hours after arriving in Kansas, Elyse sits with Jonas in the basement of his family’s home. His parents have been welcoming and kind. They have given her a guest room in the basement, which she appreciates for the space and privacy.

Jonas has been warm and affectionate. Sitting on the sofa with him, Elyse suddenly regrets the fact that upon her arrival she told him that he was not allowed to kiss her. She wants to kiss him now, but she stubbornly adheres to her own rule, knowing that she imposed it because she is “terrified of healthy relationships and will do almost anything to get in [her] own way” (219).

As they talk, Elyse internally panics over how to categorize their relationship. She does not know if this five-day visit is one long first date, nor does she know what should happen next. She fears that a more “sane person” (220) would have thought through these issues before arrival. She decides to put some distance between them, so she announces that she is going to sleep.

She walks to the door of the guest room and makes a bad joke, hoping to break the tension, but the gambit does not work. Jonas leans down and asks to kiss her, and although part of her wants to say yes, she reminds him that he promised not to. He steps back, demonstrating that he is listening to her and she is safe to say no to him. He bids her goodnight and leaves. Elyse is sorry that she did not kiss him, but she is not sorry that she maintained a boundary. She kisses him the next day.

This section replicates an entry from Elyse’s diary, using a handwriting font. The entry is dated two days after her arrival in Kansas and describes the herd of cattle that Jonas and his family own. She also fears that everything is happening too quickly. Part of her wishes that she and Jonas had maintained their long-distance quasi-relationship, as a potential break up would not have been as painful.

She reflects on the different versions of herself that she has attempted to be and to present to the world. She fears that she will not be what Jonas wants or expects. At the same time, she realizes that she does not want to pretend with him. She is afraid because he sees who she really is. People who have left her in the past only left a “version of [her] that barely exists” (229), and the breakups therefore hurt less. If Jonas leaves, he will be leaving the person she really is, but if he stays, he will also be choosing her authentic self. Both outcomes scare her equally.

She remembers that when she first decided to accept the plane ticket to Kansas, Tessa had been supportive and even her mother had been enthusiastic. At the time, Elyse wondered if she was the only one who thought that flying to Kansas to visit a boy she had only seen in person twice was “at least a little bit crazy” (231).

When she expressed her concern about this to Jonas, he reassured her, saying, “Even if you get here and you realize you don’t like me as much as you originally imagined, at least I got to have five beautiful days with you” (233). Hearing this, her anxiety evaporated.

Later, she tries to write down everything that Jonas said because she never wants to forget what it feels like “to be wanted by Jonas Myers this much” (234). She idly thinks that the name “Elyse Myers” sounds good.

Elyse writes a letter to an unidentified “you” whom she hopes will be disappointed when they read her book. She has written their tragic story many times and then deleted it. The story is beautiful, not because of them but because of what came afterward. Though she will tell the story many times, she will strip it and fictionalize it so that they will “feel all the heartbreak and none of the glory” (237). The impact will remain, but the person will be forgotten. She hopes that they are happy and healthy, but she also hopes that they are disappointed to be erased and forgotten.

Elyse drives 12 hours to reach Jonas. When she sees him standing in a parking lot, waiting for her, she parks her car and runs to him, but he does not look at her. When she reaches for his arm, he says he does not know her. Elyse begins to cry.

Suddenly, the alarm clock wakes her, and she realizes that she was having a nightmare. That morning, she leaves for her real 12-hour drive to Omaha, Texas. The words on the page drift and scatter into an illustration of a car’s rearview mirror.

The next page is formatted in smaller font, in two columns like a newspaper layout, and the text employs nonstandard capitalization. As she drives, Elyse wonders how the Sun and Moon feel. She imagines the Moon becoming bored and wanting to trade places with the Sun. Then she wonders if the Trees can speak to the Birds. She wonders if the Sky is lonely or if it is proud of being “the keeper of All Things” (246). She wonders if her car hurts the road beneath it.

As Elyse nears Omaha, her cell phone signal dies, and she loses her GPS. She feels nervous and tells herself that she is not anxious but excited, and her brain simply cannot “tell the difference” (248). She reaches a long gravel road, and the loud noise beneath her tires scares her. She stops and turns around, hoping to find an alternate route. She begins to panic but keeps driving toward Jonas.

Eventually, she reaches Jonas’s building and finds his car in the parking lot. She parks at the far end of the lot and sees Jonas walk out of the building and head toward her. She climbs out of her car but freezes as her panic intensifies.

Jonas teases her about parking so far from the entrance. As he continues to approach, Elyse’s panic shifts from a freeze response to flight. She turns and runs, even though she does not know why she is running from her “favorite person in the whole world” (252). As she reaches the end of the parking lot and heads toward a field of tall grass, Jonas warns her to watch for mice and snakes. She stops.

Jonas reaches her, picks her up, and carries her to his building. Worried that she is afraid of him, he asks why she ran. She explains that she panicked because she is afraid he will decide that he does not actually like her. Jonas explains that on the day they first met in the grocery store, he immediately thought about what it might be like to marry her. Every conversation they have had since then has only confirmed that he loves her.

Elyse reflects that they are doing everything backwards. They spoke for months on the phone before their first date, and then the first date was a five-day visit in Kansas. Now, she has driven 12 hours to move in with him, and he is already talking about wanting to marry her. Even so, it feels right to her. Her previous experiences with love felt crushing, but her relationship with Jonas is the safest she has ever felt. They kiss, and Elyse privately reflects that she might spend the rest of her life with him.

This chapter employs third-person narration. A 13-year-old girl opens her brand-new notebook to write the first lines of her first novel. She writes the words:

Cynthia packed a VW Bus with her favorite things,

And all her favorite people.

This road trip is going to change her life!

She is running away from home.

She is the only person who knows that. (259)

For years, every time she has started a new notebook or journal, these are the first lines she writes. She has written these lines on every bit of paper she has received in school, on napkins, on every computer she has borrowed, and on every computer she has owned. However, every time she writes the lines, she never gets any farther. She fears that if she cannot finish her first novel, she must not really be a writer.

One day, she realizes that the novel is finished; it is simply very short. Then, when she is 22 years old, she writes the sequel to Cynthia’s story in her own journal. In the journal entry, she writes about her 12-hour road trip to move in with her new boyfriend. She reflects that she sometimes feels an “urgent desire to change everything about [her] life” (263). Many times, she has packed up everything and left for a new place, convinced that this time she would be making the right choice.

She now realizes that she can never escape herself, no matter how far she runs. She hopes that she can make herself a “home” this time. She also realizes for the first time that she is Cynthia. She writes herself a new ending, saying, “Eventually, Cynthia found home in herself / then she found home in someone else, / and then she learned how to fall in love with staying” (266). The final illustration is a notebook lying open on a desk.