Hearing him say that jabs me in the heart. It’s been five years or more since I’d heard those words.

  I kind of smile, and I kind of want to cry.

  He smiles. Knowingly. He got me. He knows that.

  “Okay. At the vigil,” I say.

  He nods his head and walks off. He looks so much like the Daniel I used to be friends with that it feels like I’ve gone back in time. Except I haven’t.

  Chloe is still gone, and I still don’t know what happened that night.

  And tonight, I have to face the crowds at the vigil.

  Eleven

  The rest of the day passes in a blur. I go to class, but I’m not really there. My mind trips over everything—the looming vigil, the video, Chad’s info about the night of the dance. Basher. Even Daniel. Halfway through the afternoon in physics lab, I realize that having so much to think about has really helped me ignore the stares and the whispered comments.

  Between the last two periods of the day, Olivia approaches me in the hall. When she started at Garrett Morgan, she complained—loudly—to anyone who would listen, that I acted like I didn’t know her. Yes, I drove her to school in the morning, but she claimed I practically pushed her out of the car while it was still moving in order to avoid being seen with my tagalong little sister.

  It was an exaggeration, of course. But there was some truth in what she said. Mom died when I was fifteen and Livvy was twelve, so Dad asked me to do a lot. I’ve cooked for her, watched over her, walked her to the bus stop, taken her trick-or-treating. And I hoped when she reached high school, she’d blossom a little, come out of her shell and assert her independence.

  I didn’t need to worry. Her personality grew like a balloon expanded to its breaking point.

  So when I see what she’s like now, I feel a little lift. And also a sense of pride. I didn’t do all the work of raising her—Mom did a heck of a lot before she died. And Dad, in his own way, is a rock we can always count on. He may be a little clueless, but he’s completely dedicated. He’s barely socialized since Mom died. He’s home with us night after night after night. But still…Olivia wouldn’t have bloomed like an overwatered weed if it hadn’t been for me. And it’s not a one-way street, either. It hit me in the last year that Olivia is about the best younger sister anyone could have, and the past week has truly confirmed that.

  We make eye contact. She smiles, and I feel better than I have all day. She’s holding hands with Gabriela, but Olivia breaks loose and runs over to me. She throws her arms around me and gives me a hug right there in front of everybody.

  “What’s that for?” I ask.

  “For you. Just because you look like you need a pick-me-up.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Gabriela joins us. She has jet black hair past her shoulders with a purple streak that matches Olivia’s. Gabriela doesn’t talk nearly as much as my sister, but when she does, she exhibits a wisdom beyond her years. It seems like Gabriela is really a thirty-year-old posing as a teenager. Dad says her unflappable maturity comes from being the child of immigrants. Gabriela came to America from Mexico when she was five and didn’t speak a word of English. Now, she’s the top reporter on the school paper and writes more clearly than most of our classmates.

  “I don’t need a ride home,” Olivia says.

  “Are you two doing something?” I ask.

  Gabriela rolls her eyes and looks away. She taps her foot.

  Olivia just shrugs. It’s the rarest thing of all for her to not speak when asked a question.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “She has detention,” Gabriela says.

  “What for?” I ask.

  “Just a stupid misunderstanding,” Olivia says. “And not very fair. I was fully justified in everything I did. I might write a letter to the school board. Or Gabby might do an exposé for the paper.”

  “I’m not doing an exposé,” Gabriela says.

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  Olivia looks at her phone. “I’m going to be late.”

  “Livvy,” I say, “you’re always late.”

  “Just forget about it, Hunter,” she says.

  Gabriela is still tapping her foot. She shrugs and says, “So here’s the thing, Hunter. Liv punched a guy in study hall. He was talking shit about you, calling you a murderer, so she decked him.”

  The knuckles on Olivia’s tiny hand look raw and red. She hides it behind her back. When Olivia was in kindergarten, she once punched a boy who was bullying another student. But there’s been nothing like this since then.

  “Who did you hit?” I ask.

  “Some meathead from the lacrosse team. A freshman. He had it coming. And anyway, I just grazed him. No blood or anything. But he looked scared, didn’t he, Gabby?”

  Gabriela rolls her eyes again. “Uh, the guy’s two feet taller than you, and he thinks you’re a psychopath. Everybody does now.”

  “Good. Let them. But I got three days’ detention.” She lifts her hand, placing her index finger under my nose. “Don’t tell Dad. He has a lot on his mind already. Besides, I don’t need to hear shit from him, too. He’s so clueless he won’t figure out I’m getting home late.”

  “I’m going to the library while she’s in jail,” Gabriela says. “My mom will pick us up.”

  The visual pops into my head. My tiny sister, all five feet nothing of her, hauling off and punching a lacrosse player to defend my honor.

  A laugh rises inside me and bursts out of my mouth. A real, genuine laugh. It feels really, really good, like letting out a long-suppressed sneeze.

  “Oh, Livvy,” I say, “you’re such a little nut.”

  I give her a hug and continue to laugh on my way down the hall. And more people gawk. What are they all going to think of our family now?

  Twelve

  Since I’m not driving Olivia home, I stop by the English department, which is on the second floor near the gym. Before I get there, I hear voices raised, commotion, and laughing.

  At the entrance to the gym, there’s a giant landing with trophy cases that display prizes from way in the past. A tarnished victory cup from the team’s lone state basketball championship in the 1960s, old and wrinkled jerseys that belonged to former players who are most likely dead, and yellowing newspaper clippings for games no one remembers. This is the spot where Chad told me Chloe and Hannah talked on the night of the dance.

  Students are all over the hallway. Some are dancing around on one side of the landing while another films them. A few more stand off to the side in a group of four. They all hold phones, gesture wildly, and laugh. They’re part of school’s new TikTok Club. They meet after school once a week and post videos they hope will go viral. A month ago, a freshman uploaded a video of her dancing with her eighty-year-old grandfather, and the thing took off. Millions of views. Now it seems like every kid in the school wants to make something like that. The club is officially sanctioned. It even has a faculty sponsor—Mr. Williams, who teaches journalism and new media.

  They ignore me—even the kids I know—because they’re too busy to notice anything. At least that’s how it looks until someone in that group of four sees me. They all grow quiet and stare at me, and two of the kids who were dancing like maniacs stop moving and look as well.

  Why are all eyes on me? Am I really such an object of fascination that even the inane TikTok Club comes to a halt when I walk by?

  When no one says anything and when they don’t go back to filming, I lift my arms. “What?”

  They continue to stare, like I’m a piece of furniture that suddenly started talking.

  I give up and turn around, heading back toward my original destination, the English department. I want to see Ron Hartman, who teaches creative writing and runs Ex Libris. Ron is the real deal. It seems strange to see the TikTok kids meeting so close to his office since he detests social media, cell phones, and anything that goes viral on the internet. He’s a poet, even published a book twenty years ago. He says he wants to write more, but teaching takes too much time and energy. The rumor is he used to teach at a college in Colorado but got fired or left because he thought the higher-ups were too uptight. He taught for a while in Europe, too, and then came to Bentley because his grandparents were from here.

  Chloe and I both belong to Ex Libris. Even though Chloe plans to study chemistry in college, she’s always loved to read and write. That explains the journal, and it explains why she joined the club sophomore year when Ron heaped praise on every poem she wrote. I didn’t know Chloe very well then. I knew who she was—a beautiful, unattainable girl way out of my league. Obviously, we never hung out, and whenever Ron praised her writing, I felt a sting of jealousy deep in my chest.

  But the jealousy didn’t last. She is that good. And poetry isn’t really my thing. Verse and meter confines me, and my free-verse poems turn into stories and just keep going and going. Ron says to accept who my identity as a writer and move on. Ron—he lets us call him “Ron” when we meet in the club—says prose writers make more money than poets anyway. He always laughs to let us know he isn’t really serious. He encourages his students to write what we want.

  “Let’s face it,” he said once, “the world is full of rules and expectations. Just let your imaginations run wild wherever you can.”

  The office is mostly empty. Mr. Feltz and Mrs. Paine are there, each with their heads bent over their computers, tapping away. Feltz has been at Garrett Morgan for over forty years. He has a thick gray mustache and a bulging stomach. He looks up and leans back in his chair, which creaks beneath his weight.

  “Looking for Hartman?” he asks.

  I took Feltz’s class, Reading American Authors, last year. He was good, but a little scattered. He spent too much time talking about his stint in Vietnam. His war stories were fascinating, but a lot of students fell asleep. He knows my role in Ex Libris—I’m the president this year—so I’m always coming by to talk to Ron. Sometimes Chloe comes with me, although lately she’s been busy with her college applications, and I’ve been coming alone.

  “Is he around?” I ask.

  “He’s out today,” Feltz says, brushing crumbs off his shirt. His gut makes a shelf where they land.

  “Sick?” I ask.

  “Likely,” Mrs. Paine says without looking up. “Or he ran off to join the circus.”

  Feltz chuckles. Mrs. Paine teaches drama, and her hair is the color of a fire engine and flows down her shoulders like a flaming waterfall. Chloe says it’s a wig.

  “Nothing serious?” I ask.

  Feltz shakes his head, tapping a red pen against his thigh. His fingernails are thick and yellowed, and his hands look like they could crush rock. An image of a younger, thinner version of him slinking through a Vietnamese jungle, M16 in hand, pops into my head. He must look at all of us kids with our medications and our anxieties and viral videos and worry for the future.

  “You’ve been in the news a lot,” he says. “And you’re a video star. I guess one advantage of Hartman being a Luddite is he won’t see you shared it on the Ex Libris channel.”

  I remember my manners, the ones Mom taught me. And given his military experience…

  “Yes, sir. I was just trying to do something to help…”

  “Chloe took my class sophomore year,” he says, still tapping the pen. “A bright girl. Very promising. I hope they solve the case soon. And with a positive result.”

  “Me too.” I feel like I’m disturbing them…

  But Feltz keeps talking, like the pen is a metronome keeping the beat for his words.

  “You know, Ron is incredibly distraught over her disappearance and the accusations coming your way. We were talking about it on Friday, and he wishes he could do more to help. We all do, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know what anybody can do,” I say.

  “I learned at a very young age there are some things well beyond our control. We have to learn to accept them and make the best of things. It’s like when I was—”

  “Don’t scare the boy with the ’Nam stuff, Henry,” Mrs. Paine says, still not looking up. “He has enough on his plate.”

  Feltz smiles beneath the big mustache. He stops tapping. “I guess you’re right. Ron will be back, Mr. Gifford, don’t worry. He’s rather resilient, our Ronald.”

  Thirteen

  The house is quiet. And, thankfully, nothing appears vandalized or out of place. The odor of burnt oatmeal lingers like a fog.

  Olivia is in detention. Dad is still at work. It’s times like these I miss Mom the most. After school, she’d always be here, working on a freelance project or baking. She’d stop and talk to me about my day, and do the same thing with Olivia, and sometimes Mom would push aside her graphic design work and the three of us would watch a TV show together or play a board game before we had to start our homework. An hour or so would disappear faster than I could imagine.

  The memories make the house feel emptier. If only…

  Before I left school, Hector and Cameron had tracked me down and invited me to hang out for the hour before they had practice. We often went to get something to eat or to Cameron’s house and played Xbox. But today I’m tired, and my eyes feel heavier by the moment.

  The doctors told me the concussion would make me sleepy, and they encouraged me to take naps if necessary. Is there any better prescription for a high school student than naps? I collapse onto my bed, sleep deeply for ninety minutes before my eyes pop open. It’s the first time since the accident I didn’t dream about Chloe. She’s been so alive in my dreams, it feels like someone punched a hole in my heart when I realize her face wasn’t there.

  The silence remains. Dad still isn’t home. No surprise. He likes to stay on campus late, attending meetings and getting ready for class. And if Olivia was home, she’d be playing music loud, dancing in her room like a tornado. She likely went off with Gabriela somewhere. Gabriela’s mom likes to feed Olivia, and Olivia likes to eat. She gets tired of our steady diet of spaghetti, sandwiches, and delivery pizza.

  I check my phone.

  A few of my friends have texted asking if I’m still going to the vigil.

  I don’t write back right away. I wait.

  And think.

  Maybe it’s wrong to go. What do I hope to accomplish there? More gawking? More comments? Wouldn’t it be better to stay at home and fly under the radar?

  But what about the video making me look guilty? Won’t staying away make me look more guilty?

  What’s right?

  I text back: Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. I’m not sure.

  Cameron responds first: Text me or Hector when you get there.

  Then five minutes later,

  Chad writes: Cool. See you there.

  So then—I guess I’m going.

  I pick up a book, one of Mom’s favorites. It’s a story collection by Ted Chiang that I started before the dance, before the accident, and I haven’t tried to read any of it since. I was in the middle of a story called “Division by Zero,” but I don’t remember the characters or the setting, so I flip back, trying to find something familiar, going almost to the beginning until things start to make sense, which only reminds me of the blind spots about the accident and the dance.

  The back of my neck prickles with cold. The book shakes in my hand.

  The doctors promised things would come back, but how do they know? And that scares the shit out of me. Big-time. It makes my insides turn to Jell-O and shake. It’s like a horror movie where the main character’s own brain turns against him and he can’t stop it. I spiral, wondering if all my other memories will start to disappear. Not just things relating to the night of the accident but everything else—Chloe, Mom, my friends, my childhood…

  Is that why Chloe was missing from my dreams today?

  What if the time comes when I can’t remember her at all?

  My eyes squint shut as I conjure that day at the lake just to prove I can do it, just to make sure she remains three-dimensional in my mind. Chloe’s hair blows around her shoulders, and a spray of freckles dots her nose. Her eyes are blue but flecked with little spots of gold when the sun hits them. The water was freezing, but she waded in, turning over her shoulder and looking back at me, waving her hand, wanting me to join her.

  “Are you a chicken?” she asked. “Are you afraid of a little cold?”

  I wasn’t afraid. I watched her because she looked so amazing, her arms and legs muscular, her skin flawless.

  She bent down, cupped some water in her hands, and threw it my way.

  “Come on,” she said. “I need you to keep me warm.”

  And that was when I jumped up off the towel and followed her, splashing my way into the water and taking her in my arms…

  But seeing her again is like ripping open a scab and making it bleed. The sweetest most twisted pain imaginable. And yet, as difficult as it may be, I’ll take that pain forever if that’s all there is.

  “Just come back,” I say to no one. “Just come back, Chloe.”

  At that second, my phone chimes.

  Ron is right about social media—as he is about everything. Everyone would be better off without it. I’d deactivate my accounts, but what if Chloe tries to reach me? What if someone sends me a tip or a piece of information that tells me where she is?

  My phone chimes again.

  Olivia, probably texting from Gabriela’s house.

  So you saw it?

  What are you talking about?

  Olivia tends to do that. She starts speaking or texting as though we’re in the middle of a conversation. This time her mind is moving faster than her hands.