Natalie and I didn’t speak much after that. She stopped coming to school all together. Not that I didn’t see her. I still couldn’t resist the instinct to run to the clearing when a new outer-dimensional being appeared. Thanks to Laura, I managed to keep my grades passing. Sometimes she would appear in the clearing as well and help. But I think Natalie would have preferred to fight alone anyway. Every time a monster was killed, before I returned to where ever I had been before and Natalie left, Natalie would shoot me a look, just a look of recognition. Sometimes she nodded at me. I nodded back and then she would disappear back into the woods.

That was how my sophomore year ended. I don’t know what will happen in the future, whether Natalie will come back to school at all, or if Laura and I will become better friends, or if the portal will finally close. Summer changes things though. It gives us time to reflect and grow. Most importantly, it allows us to start over, so we’ll see. We’ll just have to see.