He stopped talking except in the barest possible terms: please pass the salt, I’m going out, etc. . . . He stayed in his room, mostly, and played his music too loud, the bass throbbing up through my bedroom floor.

Happy was over.

This kind of behavior went on until December 10th, when a huge snowstorm passed through town. It dumped three feet of snow in a matter of hours, and the district called off school. Ty and I spent an afternoon watching TV in the den. He was sullen. He’d hardly strung 3 words together at breakfast, he’d rolled his eyes when Mom suggested that it was his turn to do the dishes, and, by the smell of it, he hadn’t showered in a couple of days.

Something needed to be done.

I decided to see if I could make it better.

“So,” I said as he flipped through channels. “What happened with that Ashley girl?”

I never was much for subtlety.

He made his face into a mask of careful indifference, but there were a few seconds there, before he composed himself, when pure pain flashed in his eyes.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“Weren’t you going out or something?”

He looked at the television, considering what to tell me. “We went out for a while. But not anymore. It’s fine.”

It was not fine. Clearly.

“Uh-oh, am I going to have to beat her up?” I asked. “Because I will, you know.”

He smiled faintly. “No.”

“Who is this chick, anyway? Ashley who? What’s her last name? Because I am totally going to kick her butt,” I said, and the word butt came out so sharp and unnatural that Ty gave this tiny laugh, but he kept saying no, he wasn’t going to tell me her last name, it wasn’t necessary for me to beat her up, he could handle himself, thanks.

I had no real intention of confronting Ashley. I was just trying to cheer Ty up with the ridiculous notion that I, with my glasses and my twig-skinny arms, was capable of beating anyone up. So I kept going on about it, kept asking, and he kept telling me everything was fine. Then I dragged him out into the backyard to build a snowman effigy of Ashley and pelt it with snowballs, which he did reluctantly but then shifted to chucking snowballs at me, which evolved into an outright war. Then, when we were both snow-plastered and worn out, I suggested that we go in and do the girly thing and eat a whole lot of chocolate.

Operation Cheer Up Ty worked. Ty smiled. For the rest of the day he seemed lighter. He even cracked a joke at dinner.

He was going to snap out of it, I thought. He was going to get over this Ashley girl. He was going to be okay.

11.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE HIGH SCHOOL gymnasium—maybe the odors of adolescent sweat and disinfectant and rubber, the way the grunts and the shouts bounce off the walls, every noise amplified, sneakers squeaking on the floor, the perpetual chilliness of the air—that sets me instantly on edge. I associate this place with physical punishment, PE and running the mile and the amount of pull-ups I’ve inevitably failed to do to meet high school fitness standards. I hunch uncomfortably on a metal bench in the back corner of the empty bleachers and gaze down at the shiny-floored basketball court. I don’t belong here. My world has always been the classroom, with its smell of chalk or whiteboard, or the library, the safety of books and facts and soft lighting, not the bright fluorescent wash of the gym.

And yet, here I am. It’s eighth period. I’m skipping my last class of the day so that I can sit in the cold gym and watch the cheerleaders practice.

I take out my five-subject notebook.

New subject: Ashley Davenport.

She’s easy to spot in the group of girls in maroon uniforms on the far side of the gym. Her red hair against all the blonds. She’s tall, too. Not towering, but taller than most of the other girls. Slender. Her voice, when she’s shouting out the cheers, is clear and bright.

Let’s G! Let’s G!

Let’s O! Let’s O!

Let’s go, mighty Gators!

Let’s go!

I watch her for a while, take some notes, and in the next forty-five minutes of observing her, here’s what I learn:

Ashley Davenport can kick really high.

She can also do the splits. And three back handsprings in a row.

She’s strong. She makes it look effortless when she stands with another girl balancing on her shoulders.

That’s about all I’ve got.

I shouldn’t have sluffed eighth period.

I try to remember Ashley from other times I must have seen her at my brother’s basketball games. But back then she was just another cheerleader, another set of waving pom-poms in a pack of too-short polyester skirts. I didn’t have any reason to pick her out from the rest.

There’s a sudden click, the noise of a camera going off, and I suddenly understand the phrase jumping out of your skin with much more clarity. I turn, ready to see the principal or campus security here to bust me for truancy.

I have a good excuse. Just as soon as I come up with one. Also: Can it be truancy if I didn’t leave school property?

But it’s Damian. He’s sitting on a bleacher two rows above mine, wearing his usual gray hoodie and baggy jeans, holding a camera with a big lens and focusing on the cheerleaders.

“Oh, hi, Damian,” I say reflexively. I’m not even that surprised to see him, once my heart rate goes back to normal. “What are you doing?”

“I take pictures for the yearbook,” he explains as the camera clicks again. He lowers it and turns to look at me. “What are you doing, Lex?”