Life was a lot quieter away from that college campus where it all began some six months before. Of course, Dominic still had plenty of school left on his way to his international business degree, and he didn't seem upset that I wasn't like him in that way.

Plenty of successful people never finished college. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner—none of them had a degree, so I didn't need one either. Besides, I liked my job in a little magic shop with a woman named Bridget who called herself Butterfly. It wasn't much, but it was enough for what I needed. And although there were still plenty of shiny things that decorated the shelves, I didn't swipe any of them as a bonus to myself. Instead, I put the pretty ring that I took once upon a time right back where I found it.

That gesture had to be worth a million good vibes.

I really didn't have much to move out of my dorm with Sierra when I decided to go. All I really had was my talisman, my metal detector (there had to be something else waiting for me somewhere—I was sure of it), and all of my clothes and jewelry that she wouldn't be able to steal anymore. She claimed that she would miss my earrings more than she would miss me, but that was a lie, and we both knew it.

Dr. Reed said I could continue to use her email address when I inevitably had questions about the talisman or just needed someone with some life experience to talk to. She also said I should start calling her Cora. I still wasn't the biggest fan of that idea.

As for Jack, when he visited me every week at my apartment just far away enough from the hellholes known as Sherwood and Tillamook, he claimed that he saw my "it's not a failure, Lindsay, so don't say that" coming from a mile away when I never did get that money from my parents. But I didn't want their money anymore. I had what I wanted, and I had what I more importantly needed.

With Dominic on a lighter class schedule for the summer (because taking a break from education and impressing authority figures would be ridiculous, of course), it was like everything had never changed, even though it couldn't have possibly been more different than when I first picked up the talisman. But I didn't mind different. It just meant things were maybe getting better. In my case, things most certainly were.

For example, instead of having my mother reminding me every day what was wrong with me, I had Dominic to do a much more considerate version of that.

"Lindsay, when is the last time you dusted this empty bookshelf? It's disgusting," he said.

"We'll, I'm sorry. I haven't gotten around to dusting or reading. Being an adult is a lot harder than they lead you to believe. You just have to keep cleaning things until you die," I replied. He was lucky I cleaned my hair off the bathroom sink before he arrived.

"You've never dusted in the whole six months you've been here?" He shook his head. "You really need some sense of order in your life."

And I had found it in him, just like how he found some spontaneity and maybe even a connection to his long-gone ancestors in me. It wasn't a bad system for either of us, really.

Besides, I'd get around to it once the magic of his presence wore off. It was nice to keep my mind busy with something exciting. And that was still the talisman, of course, but there was room for more than one thing to live rent-free in my head.

Rent was also bullshit, too. The talisman was pure chaos and didn't have to pay me anything, so why did I have to pay so much to live somewhere when I wasn't nearly as badly behaved? My little apartment certainly wasn't anything like I had grown up in, with its little white refrigerator and peeling cabinets and with a questionable ring around the toilet bowl that didn't go away after I scrubbed it when I first moved in and many times after. Why did it take up so much of my paycheck?

Well, Lindsay, room and board was also expensive, and all you did was click a little box that said it was a problem for future you.

I shook my head at my thoughts. That was a conversation I could have with myself on a different day.

"It's fine though. I just won't look at it," he said and looked up at me. "You're gonna have to distract me though."

"I think I can do that. There's this really cool bubble tea place that I discovered when I was walking around town—"

Dominic interrupted me. "Do we actually have to do that?"

Did he want a distraction or not? Bubble tea was awesome. "Well, now that I'm thinking about it, I kind of want bubble tea."

He rolled his eyes. "And once we're done with that, we can make out?"

I nodded.

He let out a sigh. "I drove all this way for you, Lindsay. Not tea."

It really wasn't that far, only an hour and a half, and it gave him time to listen to a podcast or something, which he claimed he never had a chance to do with all of his summer class work. "Okay, but you haven't tried this tea."

"Then let's get this over with," he said as I grabbed my keys. "There are times that I can't stand you."

There were times when I couldn't stand me either (and him too, but that was a different story), but there were many more times when being together was better than being with someone like Keanu Reeves.

With the talisman in a box under my bed to keep it safe from myself and anyone else, it had done its job of getting out of the ground and dragging me around like a dog on a leash. And when it had a new adventure for me, it'd let me know. But for now, it won, and I certainly didn't lose.

I paused for a moment. Going without the talisman was a little like the nightmare of going to school naked, but much more scary and much less embarrassing.

"Can we just go? I'm getting impatient," Dominic said.

"You know what? I'll be fine without it. Let's just stay here and do whatever you want," I said.

A small smile snuck on Dominic's face, and he didn't even try to hide it when he said, "I can't wait until the day I lose my hearing if this is what my life is going to be like."

I smiled too. "Sure you do."

We certainly had come a long way from our first day in Dr. Roberts' ASL class (who had made a spectacular recovery from his heart attack). And I probably didn't need the talisman to figure Dominic out, but it sure helped. I was glad it did.