The Third Message novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cake
Reborn on her twentieth birthday, Lana cancels her transfer, ends it with Burke, and sees Bree watching her face instead of his.
At the memorial, the dean read my boyfriend's last three messages to four hundred people.
The first was his survey numbers.
The second begged his parents to forgive him.
The third said, "Bree, you are my Quaternary Glaciation."
I never saw the messages on his phone. Bree read them out from her own screen, and the dean repeated her.
Bree was my best friend. She and my boyfriend were the two brilliant geologists, and I was the girl who carried their boxes.
I had switched my whole major to geology to understand what they were saying to each other.
I never did.
Two months later Bree died in an accident too, and the university buried them side by side.
I lived the rest of my life sorry.
Then I opened my eyes in my dorm, on the night I was supposed to hand in my transfer form.
The group chat glowed on my phone. Burke and Bree, my boyfriend and my best friend, were laughing about rock layers and had scrolled right past my last three messages.
I smiled and cancelled the transfer.
Then I texted: "Have you eaten?"
Nobody answered, so I left the group.
Burke called inside a minute, in his patient voice.
"Lana, Bree made that group. You really hurt her feelings. Add yourself back, and we'll talk tomorrow."
They had ignored me first, and he was still asking me to apologize to her.
I rejoined and said nothing.
In the morning, Bree flung herself into my arms in front of my dorm. It was my twentieth birthday.
Burke stood behind her, smiling, looking exactly like her boyfriend.
Bree held out a pink box. "We picked it out together. Open it!"
I did not need to. It was a doll with a ribbon and a frilled dress, the same one as last time.
Last time I had cried happy tears over it.
Three months later, for Bree's birthday, Burke got her a real piece of the moon.
"Thanks," I said, and handed the box back unopened.
Bree pouted. "Why aren't you happy?"
"She's tired from the major paperwork," Burke said for me.
He knew about the paperwork. He had talked me into it.
In the dining hall, he brought out a cake covered in chocolate icing.
"I don't eat chocolate," I said.
"You don't like cake anyway," Burke said. "So we let Bree pick."
Bree clapped. "Chocolate is the best! You've got to change your habits, Lana."
Both of them knew I hated it. They had known for years.
Bree turned off the lights before Burke could look at my face.
The candles flickered, and I closed my eyes for my wish.
Bree had a paper crown on her head. She had pulled it from her bag before anyone lit a match.
Her eyes were already shut for her wish before mine.
Burke watched her over the candles, soft and proud.
So that was where my birthday wish went every year.
That was why I had never once gotten it.
After dinner, we walked back toward campus.
At first I was between them. Then they started on their coursework, and I was pushed off the sidewalk into the gutter without anyone noticing.
At the Ridgemont gates, Burke finally looked back at me with a tired smile.
"You fell behind again. I won't walk you home, okay?"
Every couple on the sidewalk went through those gates together.
I laughed out loud.
Three years ago the three of us had agreed on one college. An hour before the deadline, they both switched to this one, and told me when the letters came.
I had walked home alone every night since.
"Fine," I said.
He stared. Then he said, "Wait, I'll walk you."
Bree sighed from the gate. "Oh, but we've got class, Burke."
I said, "Don't worry about me."
His forehead smoothed out. "Next time, then."
I walked a few paces and texted him: "Let's break up."
Fast feet came after me, and he caught my wrist.
"You're joking. Don't joke like that."
"I'm not."
He laughed softly and tucked my hair behind my ear. "You're in a mood. Cool off, and we'll talk."
Then his eyes went toward the gate.
"Just don't tell Bree. She's stressed about finals."
I stood there with my wrist in his hand.
He had not asked me why. He never asked.
When we were nine, he fought two boys for calling me stupid.
When my parents divorced and left me, he paid my tuition out of his tutoring money.
Since Bree, every fight we had ended with him telling me to cool off, and the problem was always me.
My bad leg throbbed from the walk, and I let it.
So I pulled my wrist away.
Over his shoulder, Bree had stopped typing on her phone.
She was not watching him.
She was watching my face.
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