The blue lines had blurred near one fold.
The corner was torn.
The handwriting showed through the crease even before I opened it.
For one second, I did not want to read it.
The boy was still in the box.
The girl was burning against my chest.
My cruiser engine hummed behind me, uselessly calm, while the whole highway stretched empty in both directions.
I forced myself to peel the note back.
The handwriting was frantic.
Shaky.
Pressed so hard into the paper that some letters had nearly torn through.
I read the first sentence.
They had been hidden.
That was all I took in at first.
Three words.
Then the rest of the line found me.
Please don’t take them back to him.
The heat around me disappeared.
Not because the day changed.
Because my body did.
The desert was still 104 degrees.
The cruiser was still running.
The gravel was still hot enough to burn through my pants.
