I picked up a handful of pebbles from the bottom step of the veranda and chucked one as far as I could.

I won’t say good-bye, L. I can’t.

She took a pebble from my hand and threw it. Her fingers brushed against mine and I felt the tiny pulse of warmth. I tried to memorize it.

You won’t have a chance to. I’ll be gone, and I won’t even remember I cared about you.

I was stubborn. I couldn’t listen to this. This time, the pebble hit a tree. “Nothing will change the way we feel about each other. That’s the one thing I know for sure.”

“Ethan, I may not even be capable of feeling.”

“I don’t believe that.” I flung the rest of the stones out into the overgrown yard. I don’t know where they landed; they didn’t make a sound. But I stared out that way, as hard as I could, swallowing the lump in my throat.

Lena reached out toward me, then hesitated. She put her hand down without so much as a touch. “Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

That’s when I snapped. “Maybe not, but what if tomorrow is our last day together? And I could be spending it with you, but instead you’re here, moping around like you’re already Claimed.”

She got up. “You don’t understand.” I heard the door slam behind me as she went back into the house, her cellblock, whatever.

I hadn’t had a girlfriend before so I wasn’t prepared to deal with all this—I didn’t even know what to call it. Especially not with a Caster girl. Not having a better idea of what to do, I stood up, gave up, and drove back to school—late, as usual.

Twenty-four hours and counting. A low-pressure system settled over Gatlin. You couldn’t tell if it was going to snow or hail, but the skies didn’t look right. Today anything could happen. I looked out the window during history and saw what looked like some kind of funeral procession, only for a funeral that hadn’t happened yet. It was Macon Ravenwood’s hearse followed by seven black Lincoln town cars. They drove past Jackson High as they made their way through town and out to Ravenwood. Nobody was listening to Mr. Lee drone on about the upcoming Reenactment of the Battle of Honey Hill—not the most well-known of Civil War battles, but it was the one the people of Gatlin County were most proud of.

“In 1864, Sherman ordered Union Major General John Hatch and his troops to cut off the Charleston and Savannah Railroad to keep Confederate soldiers from interferin’ with his ‘March to the Sea.’ But, due to several ‘navigational miscalculations,’ the Union forces were delayed.”

He smiled proudly, writing navigational miscalculations out on the chalkboard. Okay, the Union was stupid. We got it. That was the point of the Battle of Honey Hill, the point of the War Between the States, as it had been taught to all of us, since kindergarten. Neglecting, of course, the fact that the Union had actually won the war. In Gatlin, everyone kind of talked about it like a gentlemanly concession on the part of the more gentlemanly South. The South had taken, historically speaking, the high road, at least according to Mr. Lee.

But today, nobody was looking at the board. Everyone was staring out the windows. The black Lincolns followed the hearse in a convoy down the street, behind the athletic field. Now that Macon had come out, so to speak, he seemed to enjoy making a spectacle of himself. For a guy who only came out at night, he managed to command a lot of attention.

I felt a kick in my shin. Link was hunched over the desk, so Mr. Lee couldn’t see his face. “Dude. Who do you think is in all those cars?”

“Mr. Lincoln, would you like to tell us what happened next? Especially since your father will be commandin’ the Cavalry tomorrow?” Mr. Lee was staring at us with his arms crossed.

Link pretended to cough. Link’s dad, a browbeaten shell of a man, had the honor of commanding the Cavalry in the Reenactment since Big Earl Eaton died last year, which was the only way a reenactor ever advanced in rank. Someone had to die. It would have been a big deal in Savannah Snow’s family. Link, he wasn’t too big on the whole Living History scene.

“Let’s see, Mr. Lee. Wait, I got it. We, uh, won the battle and lost the war, or was it the other way around? ’Cause around here, it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

Mr. Lee ignored Link’s comment. He probably hung the Stars and Bars, the Confederate flag, in front of his house all year round, I mean his doublewide. “Mr. Lincoln, by the time Hatch and the Fed’rals reached Honey Hill, Colonel Colcock—” the class snickered, while Mr. Lee glared. “Yes, that was his real name. The Colonel and his brigade of Confederate soldiers and militia formed an impassable battery a seven guns across the road.” How many times were we going to have to hear about the seven guns? You would have thought it was the miracle of the fish and the loaves.

Link looked back to me, nodding in the direction of Main. “Well?”

“I think it’s Lena’s family. They were supposed to be coming in for her birthday.”

“Yeah. Ridley said somethin’ about that.”

“You guys still hanging out?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“Yeah, man. Can you keep a secret?”

“Haven’t I always?”

Link pulled up the sleeve of his Ramones T-shirt to reveal a tattoo of what looked like an anime version of Ridley, complete with the Catholic schoolgirl mini and knee socks. I was hoping Link’s fascination with Ridley had lost some steam, but deep down I knew the truth. Link would only get over Ridley when she was good and done with him, if she didn’t make him jump headlong off a cliff first. And even then, he might not get over her.