She sits back, surprised and pleased, and stares out the window for a while.

“I’m not smart like you are,” she says.

“Well.” I hold up my hands. “Nobody’s smart like I am. Obviously.”

She grins. “Right. You’re MIT material.”

“I’m MIT material,” I agree, and it feels good, that someone else knows.

We go back to listening to our respective music for a while. Sadie’s head bobs. I close my eyes and try to get lost in the Piano Concerto no. 2.

Sadie taps on my arm. I pull out my earbud.

“You were brave, giving the letter to Ashley.” Her black-ringed blue eyes, so close to mine, are earnest, admiring. “That took guts.”

“It took forever before I actually did something about it,” I say.

“True, but you did something.”

True.

“And now Ty can move on,” she says, lowering her voice when she says his name so people don’t hear. “He can be at peace now.”

I don’t know whether or not to believe her. But, for once, I hope she’s right.

“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe now things will start to get back to normal.”

When we get to school, it’s immediately apparent that something’s wrong. It’s too quiet. Students are standing in groups, whispering, the boys with their heads down, the girls looking tearful. Even the teachers are somber as they shuffle toward their classrooms.

Something has happened.

I don’t like the way people are looking at me. There’s a new awareness in their stares, which burns me before they turn away and go back to their hushed conversations. Something has happened that involves me in some way.

My brain goes straight to the letter for Ashley. It must have had something to do with me, and she must be telling people about it.

I knew I should have read the dumb letter. Why didn’t I read the dumb letter?

I spot Damian standing by the door to the counselor’s office. He’s crying. He sees me, and he starts crying harder.

My heart is ice as I approach him.

“Hey,” I rasp nervously. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Patrick Murphy is dead,” he chokes out. “He was a sophomore. He was my friend. He was—”

I know who Patrick Murphy is. One of the three amigos.

“How?” I ask, but part of me already knows the answer.

“He killed himself.” He wipes a fat tear that rolls down his chin and gives me a look that’s pure despair. “At the train yard, about an hour ago.”

My vision goes white. I lean against the wall and wait for the color to return. When it does, I’m so angry my hands are shaking. I know it’s inappropriate and completely selfish, but at that moment, I’m furious at Patrick. Not for doing something so stupid as dying. Not that. But for the way I know my mother’s face is going to look when she hears the news. I’m mad at the way, just five minutes ago, I’d finally felt like I had the ground under my feet for the first time since Ty died.

And now this.

Damian goes back to crying, hard, like he doesn’t care who’s watching, his thin shoulders racked by sobs.

I think, if I put my hand out and touch him on the shoulder, will it make it better or worse for him?

I think, if I put my hand out and touch his shoulder, will I be able to hold it together myself?

I think, no.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. I don’t know if he hears me.

Then I back away.

There are so many people crying. I walk among them like a zombie. I think, I have to keep moving. I have a big German test later. I have to keep my grades up for MIT. I have to pass with flying colors. I have to keep going.

But the ground is flying out from under me.

Something roars in my head. I hate everything, in this moment. I hate the world. I hate life.

Ty.

Now Patrick.

Another boy dead.

21.

SOMEHOW, I’M NOT EVEN SURE EXACTLY HOW, I get through the rest of the day. I ride home. I make my way silently up the driveway and into my house. I take off my shoes and coat and set my backpack by the door. I pad down the hall into Mom’s bedroom, through the room, into her bathroom. I open her bathroom cabinet and take down her bottle of prescription Valium.

If this were Brave New World, I’d take the stupid soma.

I wonder if Mom knows yet. My heart squeezes at the thought. For a minute I’m struck with a childlike desire to have her hold me and stroke my hair and tell me everything will be all right. I’m upset, and I want my mother to comfort me. That’s what mothers do. But with this news about Patrick, I suspect it’s going to be the other way around.

She’s going to need me.

I need to keep it together.

“We must learn to deal with the facts,” I whisper. I look at the single bright pill in my hand for a minute, and then I put it in my mouth and lean over the faucet to swallow it down.

I go to my room and curl up on my bed.

0.

1.

1.

2.

3.

5.

8.

13.

21.

34.

55.

89.

144.

233.

377.

610.

987.

1,597.

2,584.

4,181.

6,765.

10,946.

17,711.

28,657.

46,368.

75,025.

121,393.

196,418.

317,811.

514,229.

832,040.

1,346,269.