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First published in paperback in Great Britain 2015

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

First published in the USA in 2015 by Simon Pulse,

an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2015

ISBN 978 1 4052 7157 8

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1493 8

www.egmont.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

I’d forgotten what it was like to be that alone.

For the ten days of winter break, I drove. I made my way past the crumbling houses in my neighborhood, the mansions a few miles away, out toward the hills and then back again through stretches of cold, flat land. Up and down the Schuylkill River and up and down the Delaware, I cranked the radio and sang loud. I needed to hear a live human voice, and I was my own best hope.

But now break is over. I’m walking up toward school from the far lot, and I’m happy because I’m here, because it’s done. I know you’re supposed to like vacation, but it was lonely, that’s the thing, like I was floating off into space, tethered to nothing.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out, a text from Ryan who I haven’t seen yet because he only got home last night: by the way got something in vermont I want to give you. Then a second later another one: not herpes.

I write back: good because it would be really awkward if we got each other the same present.

I click send with one frozen finger. Warm puffs of air escape through my smile.

I walk into homeroom, and Krista looks up like she’s been waiting for me.

“Oh my God, June,” she says. Her eyes are half open, and she’s wearing a pair of red plastic glasses instead of her usual contacts. “Is it possible, medically, that I’m still hungover from Tuesday? That was two entire days ago!” She takes her big orange purse off the chair next to her so I can sit.

“Given everything, yeah, that seems likely,” I say. She grins as though I mean this as a compliment.

The only thing I did over break, other than drive, was go to a party at Krista’s boyfriend’s house, which is a little weird since we’re not close friends or anything. But we talk in homeroom sometimes, and neither of us has a lot of other options is I guess the truth of it. When I got the text about her boyfriend’s party, I’d been alone for so many days that I just said yes.

Her boyfriend, Rader, lives thirty-five minutes away, right at the edge of Philly, in a run-down apartment that he shares with friends. He’s older, and his friends are too, some of them in their twenties. The party was mostly guys and the air was hazy with a few kinds of smoke. When I walked in, Krista was already trashed and going upstairs to Rader’s bedroom. I felt all these guys turn and give me the up-down. And I suddenly understood why I’d been invited – not for her, but for them. I spent the whole night leaning against the wall not really talking to anyone, watching the party like a movie.

“Rader asked me to get your number for Buzzy,” she says. She rubs her eyes.

I have no idea who Buzzy is. Maybe he’s the tall guy who kept coming out of the bathroom sniffling and wiping his nose, or the guy with A S S S tattooed on his knuckles, or the one in the velvet shirt who kept asking if I wanted to touch it (I didn’t) and who tried to put a shot of tequila in the fish tank (I stopped him).

“I have a boyfriend,” I say.

“Wait, you do? Who?”

“Ryan Fiske.”

Krista raises her eyebrows like maybe I’m joking.

“Seriously,” I say.

She tips her head. “No shit.”

I shrug. I’m not surprised that she’s surprised. We’ve been a couple for over a year, but mostly no one knows about us. I guess we don’t exactly seem like people who would be together.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be dating someone so . . . normal.” Krista means this as an insult, to him.

“Well, you don’t know him,” I say. But the truth is, he is normal. And it is comforting, somehow.

Ryan is one of those people who slides effortlessly into whatever social group he wants without even thinking about it. He is comfortable everywhere, and tall and handsome in the sort of way where even if he isn’t your type, you can probably appreciate the bones in his face and the fact that they’re all exactly where they’re supposed to be to make a face pleasing.

He’s a little bit of everything, I guess is what it is. And I’m not sure what I am. I don’t think most people give me much thought at all, which is fine by me.

“I hope he’s at least secretly into something freaky,” Krista says. And then she winks and lets out a pained little moan. “My eyes are not ready for winking yet.”

A second later the announcements begin. “Good morning, North Orchard students and faculty. Can I please have everyone’s attention?” It’s Vice Principal Graham. There’s something strange in his tone. I sit up and listen. “It is with deep sorrow and a heavy heart that I must deliver some very sad news. A member of the North Orchard High community passed away over break.” He pauses to clear his throat. And in that moment, I stop breathing. I think everyone does. In that moment it could be any of us. “Junior Delia Cole passed away yesterday. Ms. Dearborn and Mr. Finley and the rest of the counseling staff will be available for anyone who needs to talk, and my door is always open as well. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ms. Cole’s friends and family during this difficult time.”

The loudspeaker clicks off. And then there is silence, and the ding of the bell. The school day has officially begun.

My head detaches from my body. It rises right up into the air and floats toward the door, and so I follow it.

“He didn’t say how,” someone whispers. “What could have happened?” They sound confused, as though her death was so unlikely.

But I can so easily imagine a million ways Delia might have died. Maybe she climbed up onto the old closed-off bridge that stretches over the reservoir and went out onto the rotted part beyond the DO NOT PASS sign. Or she was up on someone’s roof looking up at a big bright moon and teetered onto the delicate edge, even as they begged her not to. Maybe she walked across the road with her eyes closed, playing a game of chicken like she used to, her final moment the howl of a horn, a rush of adrenaline, and sudden blinding light.

Ryan is waiting for me outside homeroom. We lock eyes and he stands there staring, frozen, like he isn’t really sure what to do with his face. And I’m not sure what to do with mine, either, because it doesn’t even feel like my face anymore. I start walking toward him and he pulls me against him into a hug. His arms are strong and warm like always, but right now I can barely feel them.

I say, “This is . . .” And I stop because my brain has run out of words, and there’s nothing in my head but air.

“. . . completely nuts,” he says. He is shaking his head. And it occurs to me that this is the first time either of us has mentioned Delia, referred to her at all even, in over a year. I thought we would at some point – that it would be so strange when we finally did.

We make our way across campus, and he drops me off at the door of the English building, where my next class is. He leans in and hugs me again. The nylon of his jacket is smooth and cold against my cheek.

When he lets go, he looks down at the ground. “I can’t believe this happened.”

But the thing is, now that it has, it seems like it was always going to. Like somehow all along, Delia was far ahead of us, dead, and we are only just now catching up.

“I don’t know if it’s weird to say this now,” he says, “but I really missed you.”

And I know in a different version of the world than the one we are in, this would send a jolt of pleasure up my spine. So I say, “Me too,” but being apart from him and winter break and everything that happened before this moment seems very far away. I can’t really remember what missing feels like, or any other feelings either.

CHAPTER 2

I went to classes. My brain registered nothing. It mattered even less than it normally did.

It’s right after lunch now. I’m in the bathroom standing at the sink. There are two girls three sinks away, juniors like me. I don’t know them well, but I know their names: Nicole and Laya. Nicole always wears big silver hoop earrings and Laya always wears a ponytail so tight it looks like her face might split. They are passing a stick of eyeliner back and forth.

I’m not really paying attention to them, to anything, until there’s a buzzing sound – Laya’s phone receiving a text. And then a half second later there’s Laya’s highpitched voice shrieking, “No fuh-reaking way.”

I look up. Nicole is lining her bottom lid, pulling at her face so you can see the pink around her eye. “What?”

Even though I don’t know what Laya is going to say, my heart is psychic and decides to start pounding.

“So you heard how Hanna’s older brother is training to be a police officer, right?”

Nicole nods, her head bouncing like it’s too heavy for her neck to hold up.

“And you know how they didn’t say how she died, right? Well, she said he said that’s because” – Laya pauses, getting ready to say something juicy – “it was suicide.”

Through the fog of feeling nothingness, my stomach drops, my heart stops beating. I lean forward, like I’ve been punched.

Nicole turns to Laya. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. On New Year’s Day.”

“Oh my God, that is so sad!” Nicole sounds excited. “How?”

Laya shrugs. “Hanna’s brother didn’t tell her.”

“I read a thing once that women, girls, whatever, are more likely to use pills, but I don’t know, I could sort of see her, like . . .” Nicole puts her two fingers together and sticks them in her mouth. Then she jerks her head to the side and lets her tongue hang out.

The water is pounding down into the sink and splashing onto my shirt. Maybe I am going to throw up.

“She always seemed sort of off the rails . . .” Laya says.

“Totally. Like one of those famous people who do insane things, except not actually famous.”

“Yeah, like, famous only in her own head, though.”

My sink has filled up. Water drizzles out onto the floor.

I face them now, something inside me sparks and catches fire. “Stop talking about her like that,” I say. I try to keep my voice from shaking. They turn toward me, like they’re only now noticing that I’m here at all. “Just fucking stop it.”

“Um, hi?” Nicole says. “Private conversation. Besides, were you even friends?”

She looks at me, lips pursed slightly.

“Yes, we were,” I say.

“Oh,” says Laya. “Sorry.” And for a moment she almost kind of sounds it. Laya and Nicole exchange a quick look and then head toward the door without another word. They are best friends, which means they don’t always need to speak to understand each other. I watch them go. There’s a squeezing in my chest, and my eyes tighten. The tears are starting to come, but I grit my teeth and I blink them back.

The thing is, when I said Delia and I were friends, that wasn’t really true.

If we were still friends, then when I saw Delia’s name flashing on my phone two days ago for the first time in over a year, instead of clicking ignore and not even listening to the message, I would have picked up. I would have picked up and heard Delia’s voice, and would have known something was wrong. And then, no matter what Delia said, no matter what Delia was planning, I would have stopped her.

CHAPTER 3

1 YEAR, 6 MONTHS, 4 DAYS EARLIER

It was a relief to know she didn’t have to explain. Not about the ache in her chest, the pit in her stomach, where it was coming from, and how much she didn’t want to talk about it – Delia would just get it. She always did.

June imagined what Delia was about to say, maybe something along the lines of, “Parents. Fuck ’em,” or “Only boring people have perfect lives.” Delia could make you feel like the things you didn’t have were things you didn’t want anyway. She changed the whole world like that.

So that’s what June was expecting, standing out there in the summer sun, waiting for Delia to fix this.

Delia tipped her head to the side as if she was considering something. She raked her curls behind her ear, hiked up her low-slung cutoff shorts, then reached out and took June’s hand. She squeezed it tight, but still she didn’t say anything at all. She just grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

Then she started to run.

And because she was holding June’s hand so tightly, and June’s hand was attached to June’s arm, which was attached to June’s body, June had no choice but to run with her. She stumbled at first, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she plunged toward the ground, then righted herself. Delia was ahead of her, arm stretched back, racing across the empty field, legs pumping, pulling June right along.

“Wait!” June begged. “Please!” June was in flip-flops. They were flapping against the grass until she accidentally ran right out of one of them. “I lost my shoe!”

But Delia didn’t wait or stop.

“Fuck your shoe!” Delia called out.

So what could she do? June kicked off the other one and pumped her legs. When was the last time she ran as fast as she could?

“But where are we GOING?” June shouted.

“WE’RE JUST RUNNING,” Delia shouted. Trees zipping by them, they were flying through the air.

The pit in June’s stomach dissolved, sweat broke out along her back, her lungs were bursting. But still they ran, giddy and breathless, the pieces of June’s life dropping away bit by bit until she was nothing but legs in motion, arms, a heart, a hand, held. A body, stumbling, tripping, almost falling. Except she wouldn’t fall, that’s the thing. Delia wouldn’t let her.

CHAPTER 4

After school I meet Ryan out front and follow him to his house like it’s any other day. That’s where we always go, even though no one is ever home at my house after school and someone is almost always home at his, and we’re supposed to want to be alone.

Ryan puts his arm around me as we walk inside into the enormous open foyer. Ryan’s family is rich. For some reason I didn’t even understand that when I first started coming over. I knew that his house was nicer than mine, that it felt much better to be in here in this big beautiful space than it ever did to be at home, but that wasn’t saying much. Delia was the one who explained it to me the one time she ever came here. Ryan was out of earshot and she’d leaned over the edge of their giant leather sofa and stared at me in this really intense sort of googly-eyed way that she only did when she was already drunk. “Shit, J,” she said. She was holding one of their very soft throws, stroking it like a bunny. “Why didn’t you tell me that your love-ah was loa-ded ?” But things were already kind of weird between us at that point, so I didn’t say, “Wait, he is ?” which is what I was thinking in my head. Instead I shrugged like it was nothing.

Now I’m on the sofa and Ryan has gone into the kitchen area. I can still see him from where I sit.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” He opens the freezer. “You might feel a little better if you eat something.”

I shake my head. I’m underwater.

While Ryan puts things in the microwave, I look down at the phone in my lap, at the tiny icon on the screen – the message from Delia, which I still haven’t listened to. Which I can’t even bring myself to mention.

The microwave dings and Ryan takes out his plate, carries it to the couch, and sits down beside me. He pulls his laptop onto his lap and opens up the Kaninhus website, which is Swedish for “bunny house.” Basically there’s a guy in Sweden who has these two rabbits who live in a penned-in area in his backyard, and the guy keeps a webcam on them all day long. Ryan showed me the site when we first started seeing each other. “I really, I mean, I really, really like these bunnies,” he said, almost like he was embarrassed about it, which was what made it so charming. He told me his friends would think it was super weird if they knew. (His friends have an extraordinarily low bar for what weird is.) The bunnies mostly sniff around and wiggle their noses and eat stuff. We talk about them a lot, as though they are real and have hopes and dreams and complicated interior lives.

“Hi, Adi. Hi, Alva,” he says to the rabbits on the screen. He is using a terrible fake Swedish accent, which is another one of our couple things. “How are you today, bunnies?” One of the bunnies is eating from a little dish. The other is asleep.

I guess he’s trying to distract me, to keep my mind off things, as though somehow that’s possible. Or maybe it’s that he doesn’t know how to talk to me about her, to have this conversation at all. I sure as hell don’t either.

But I’m thinking how it feels wrong to be sitting here staring at these rabbits while Delia is dead.

And I’m thinking how Delia would say, I’m dead, what the fuck do I care? Watch the fucking bunnies if you want to. And then she’d curl up the corner of her mouth the way she did when she knew she was being sassy.

“How’s your screenplay going, Adi?” Ryan says.

Normally I’d join in, ask Alva about her slam poetry or something (because we pretend they’re both frustrated writers on a writing retreat in Sweden). Instead, I’m bursting with everything that I’m not saying about Delia.

I can’t hold it in anymore. My mouth opens up and the words tumble out. “I heard it wasn’t an accident.”

Ryan turns slowly, the smile gone from his face. “Wait, like, are you saying she . . .?”

I nod. “Did it herself.”

“Jesus. How?”

I don’t know. “But . . . there’s something else.” My heart is racing. I need to get this out. “She called me two days ago.” I hate hearing myself say this. I hate so much that it’s true. “But I just let it ring. She left me a voicemail. I didn’t listen to it at the time because I . . .” I stop. I didn’t because I couldn’t. Because I had worked so hard to try and put her out of my mind.

“What did she say?” he asks.

“I still haven’t played it yet.”

Ryan exhales slowly. “Maybe you don’t need to. Maybe it will only make things worse.”

“But how can things be worse than they already are?”

He just shakes his head, looks down, then leans back and holds out his arms in this way that I love, when I’m capable of feeling anything. Which right now I’m not.

I lean against him anyway, and he squeezes me tight. We stay that way, until the front door opens a few minutes later and Ryan’s mother and sister Marissa come in. We spring apart. I stand up.

“Junie, sweetheart!” Ryan’s mother. “We missed you over Christmas.” She puts her keys and her fancy purse down on the counter.

His sister waves to me as she walks up the stairs.

“Marissa told me what happened at your school today,” Ryan’s mom says. She frowns. “Such a terrible shame, a tragic waste. Did either of you know the girl?”

I don’t want Ryan’s mother to make a fuss, the way I know she will if she finds out the full truth. “I kinda used to, a while ago,” I say. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, honey, that’s still awful. I’m so sorry.”

She reaches over and gives me a hug. I know if she holds on too long, I will break apart entirely, because all of a sudden it turns out I am just barely holding myself together. I have to get out of here.

I pull away awkwardly. “I need to use the bathroom.” I feel Ryan watching me go.

Once I’m safely inside, I turn on the faucet and slide down to the floor, my back against the door.

I cannot wait any longer. I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial voicemail. I hold my breath.

First the automated recording. “Message received Tuesday, December thirty-first, three fifty-nine p.m.” And then Delia. “Hey, J, it’s me, your old pal.” Her voice sounds at once completely familiar and like I’ve never heard it before in my life. “Give me a call, okay?” She pauses. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

That’s it. That’s all there is.

Suddenly, I feel the edge of the door pressing into my back. Someone is trying to come in.

“One second,” I call out. My voice cracks.

I slip my phone back into my pocket, pull myself shakily to my feet. I splash water on my face and pat it dry with one of their soft towels.

I’d assumed there would be something in her voice to make this all make sense, but all that’s here is Delia sounding exactly the way she always did. She doesn’t sound like a girl who is getting ready to die.

Except . . . she was. It was the day before; she must have known. Did she call to tell me? Did she call so I could stop her?

I open the door. Marissa is standing there in the hallway, smiling at her phone. “Sorry,” she says without looking up. “I thought you were with Ry. He’s in his room.”

I walk down to the end of the hallway. He’s waiting for me on his bed, his blue plaid comforter bunched up behind him.

“Did you listen?” he asks.

I nod. “She said there was something she needed to tell me. But that was it. She always did like to keep people in suspense. Guess I will be forever now.” I try to choke out a laugh. Delia would have liked that joke. But the laugh gets mangled on its way out and comes out like a cough and a sob. I won’t let the tears come. I can’t.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

Ryan shakes his head, he clenches his jaw. “It’s beyond understanding.” And he looks like he is going to cry too.

“Junie?” Ryan’s voice jolts me out of my trance. It’s later. We haven’t been sleeping, just lying in bed, holding on to each other. The sun has gone down and the room is dark.

Now he holds something out in front of him. “Your present.”

It’s a tiny snow globe, a perfect winter ski scene behind glass. When I look closer, I realize the person on the slope is a rabbit.

“It’s Alva,” he says. “Or Adi.” He smiles. “When they went on vacation.”

I try to smile back, but my mouth won’t work right. “Thank you,” I say. “It’s perfect.” And I think about the rabbit wallet I have for him back home, how I ordered it custom from an Etsy shop and was so excited when it came. How I spent a long time wondering whether buying him a present referring to our private joke was somehow too much, too serious. And I thought for a long time about whether to get one rabbit or two.

I remember the girl who only had that to worry about. It all seems like a million years ago now.

We make our way back downstairs. The kitchen is warm and bright and smells like sweet cooking onions. There’s music coming out of the sleek speaker on the counter behind the sink – happy instrumental stuff with lots of percussion. Marissa sits at the kitchen table with her laptop open. Ryan and Marissa’s older brother, Mac, is there now too, standing at the kitchen island. There’s a tangle of peppers and onions sizzling in front of him in a pan.

Mac is nineteen and is different than the rest of his family. They all fit so easily into this world of happy family dinners, easy smiles. Even Ryan does, though on some level I think he probably wishes he didn’t. It’s a really good world to visit, but I’ve always only felt like a visitor. Sometimes it seems like maybe Mac kinda feels that way too. He graduated high school last year, and then went to Europe with his band. He came back a couple months ago and is starting a company with his friends, something to do with technology and filmmaking that’s supposed to be a secret. He lives in an apartment in downtown Philly with a few other guys, but he comes here sometimes for dinners and things. I always get the sense that he has some kind of secret life, maybe part of the world I used to belong to before I met Ryan. When my whole life was wrapped up with Delia.

“Mom’s at some exercise thing and Dad’s working late,” Mac says. “Here’s food if you guys want it.” He hands us each a plate piled with grilled shrimp and peppers and onions. He puts a platter of tortillas in the center of the coffee table and surrounds them with sour cream and homemade guacamole. Mac is a good cook, but the idea of eating seems absurd to me.

But not as absurd as the idea that Delia could be dead, which makes no sense at all.

I sit with my plate in my lap, barely moving.

Delia devoured life in greedy, gulping bites. She never had it easy – there was hard stuff with her family, and hard stuff maybe wired into her brain. But no matter how bad things got, she would never have chosen to leave the world when there was still the chance that things could change, and things could always change. There’s always hope. And the Delia I knew knew that.

So what the hell happened?

No one talks much at dinner. Ryan takes the onions off my plate and gives me the guacamole off his. I eat one bite. When the three of them are done eating, Ryan takes our dishes to the kitchen to load the dishwasher, and Marissa goes upstairs to her room. Then it’s just me and Mac. He comes over to the couch where I sit and leans in, voice low. “They’re having something for her tonight,” he says. “Her friends from Bryson, I mean.”

I stare at Mac. I wonder if he is purposely not saying this in front of Ryan. I wonder, maybe, if somehow Ryan told him what happened all that time ago.

“Where?” I ask.

Mac shakes his head. “Sorry, I wish I could tell you. I only heard that they were meeting at her favorite place. And I don’t know what that is.”

But I just nod and almost smile, because the thing is, I do.

CHAPTER 5

2 YEARS, 5 MONTHS, 24 DAYS EARLIER

By the time Delia and June got to the reservoir, the boys were already there.

Delia linked her arm through June’s. “Don’t be nervous,” she whispered. “It’s not too late to change your mind.” She was using this gentle, sweet tone she only ever used with June and her cat.

But June shook her head. “I want to get this over with.” It was the summer after eighth grade, and June had decided it was time.

Delia snorted a laugh. “Well, that’s one way to think about it.”

They kept walking down toward the water, and June could hear the others now – laughter, the clink of bottles, and music coming out of someone’s phone. According to Delia, they were out there almost every night during the summer. They all went to Bryson, which was the school Delia would have gone to if she hadn’t convinced her mother to tell the school district that they still lived in their old house even after they’d moved in with Delia’s stepfather.

“Guys at Bryson are generally hotter,” Delia had told her once. “More skateboardery than soccer player, which is why it’s better not to go to school with them. Then you don’t have to see them in the morning and look at the oozy zits they popped when they got out of the shower, or smell their coffee farts, and have no choice but to find them disgusting forever.”

And so when June mentioned not wanting to start high school still not having kissed anyone, Delia made a joke about kissing her, then laughed and said, “Well, you’ll just make out with one of the Bryson boys, then.” Like it was no big deal and already settled. Delia, of course, had kissed lots of people. Eleven, according to her list.

They made their way toward the tiny flickering campfire and stopped. Delia reached over one of the guys’ shoulders and snatched the bottle of beer from his hand. Then she backed up and sat on a rock. Delia stayed far from the fire. She always did. Fire was the only thing on earth she was scared of.

“Hey, D,” the guy said without turning. He had longish floppy hair and a black-and-white striped T-shirt.

“Hello, boys,” Delia said. “This is June.” She turned to June and handed her the beer. “June, I can’t remember any of their names. It doesn’t really matter, though.” Delia grinned at June. She was doing her Delia Thing, which guys always seemed to love. June held the beer tightly to keep her hands from shaking. She pretended to take a sip and looked at them more closely.

There were four: one shirtless with wiry muscles, two in black T-shirts who looked tough and cool, and the one whose beer she had. She watched as he raked his hair away from his face. He had a tattoo on the back of his wrist where a watch would be, a figure eight maybe, but she couldn’t say for sure. He caught her staring at him, and by the light of the fire she thought she could see the tiniest hint of a smile.

“Tell us honestly, June,” Shirtless said. “Is Delia paying you to hang out with her?”

“No,” June said. “I’m her imaginary friend.”

June hadn’t known what she was going to say until the words popped right out. When she was around Delia, she was a better, more clever version of herself. Like she really was someone Delia had made up.

All the boys laughed. And for a second June felt bad; maybe it wasn’t nice of her to join in with the boys’ teasing. But Delia laughed too, and slung her arm over June’s shoulder, proud.

“Then how come we can see you?” said Shirtless.

“She must have a very powerful imagination,” Striped Shirt said. “A dirty one.” He was staring directly at June then. She felt herself blush, and she was glad it was dark. She liked the way his voice sounded, sexy but playful, like he was saying that but also making a joke about someone who would say that, all at the same time.

June glanced at Delia, who was looking back and forth between them. Delia gave June a tiny nod. Him. A minute later when the boys asked them to sit down, Delia arranged it so that June and Striped Shirt were sitting next to each other. And then a minute after that Delia walked toward the water. “Hey,” she shouted. “Come with me if you’re not a pussy.” They all watched as she stripped down to her bra and underwear, climbed up to the top of the tall rocks, and threw herself off into the reservoir.

“We better go down there and see if she died,” Shirtless said. Even though they could already hear her splashing and whooping below. Shirtless and the two in black stood up.

“Next time you take a drink from your sink,” Shirtless said, “remember: My balls have been in your water.” He leaped off the edge, and the others followed.

And then it was June and Striped Shirt all alone, just the way Delia had planned it. He leaned over, put his elbows on his knees. She could see the tattoo on his wrist again. It was covered in plastic wrap. He reached out to rub it, like he wanted her to notice.

“I only got it a few days ago,” he said. “So it itches.”

“Does it mean something?”

“Yes,” he said. And she couldn’t tell if she was supposed to ask more questions or not. So she picked up a skinny stick and poked the end of it into the flame.

She wished very much that Delia were still there next to her instead of far away in the water. June’s heart was pounding. She felt small and scared. She closed her eyes, pictured Delia nodding. Him.

June took a deep breath, then turned toward Striped Shirt. In one swift motion she grabbed the neck of his shirt and pulled him in toward her until their lips were touching.

For one horrifying second he just sat there, lips slack. His mouth was cold and tasted like beer, and she thought about the fish at the bottom of the reservoir that sometimes nibbled at their toes when they went swimming, and how this was what kissing one of them might feel like. But a half second later he started kissing her back, and a second after that he pushed his tongue against her lips. She opened her mouth and let it in.

This is my first kiss, she thought. I am having my very first kiss now.

But it didn’t feel sophisticated or cool or even good. It was odd and a little gross, really. And suddenly, June was struck with something: For the rest of her life, no matter how many kisses she had, no matter who those kisses were with or what they meant, this was the one that came before all of them, out in the dark with a guy whose name she didn’t even know. He would always be her first.

Striped Shirt reached up and put his hand on her boob. His hand felt small, in a creepy way, kind of like a child’s. She thought maybe she wanted him to stop, wanted to undo this. But she wasn’t sure how.

A moment later Delia and the boys were back, climbing up the rocks, dripping and shivering. June and Striped Shirt pulled apart.

Shirtless said, “Whoa, hey now,” and started backing away when he saw them.

But Delia just stood there, wringing out her hair. June felt like she might cry.

“Come over here, D,” is what one of the guys said. “I think our boy and your imaginary friend could use some privacy.”

“How was the water?” June asked. She tried to make her question sound casual, but what she was hoping beyond anything was that Delia would somehow figure out all that June wasn’t saying. And fix it.

Delia raised her pinky up to her mouth and ran it back and forth across her bottom lip. She was staring straight at June.

June scratched her ear. Their code.

A second later Delia glanced down at her phone, then said loudly in a voice only June would know was fake, “Oh shit. We have to go home now. Sorry Junester, my mom just realized we’re not at home. She’s totally going to kill me.”

June scrambled to her feet.

“That sucks,” said Shirtless.

“Parents, man,” said one of the others.

“So I’ll see you back here sometime?” Striped Shirt asked June. And June nodded, not meaning it, not even looking at him.

Silently they walked away. Delia held June’s hand the whole way home. She never brought it up again.

CHAPTER 6

When I get home, the apartment is dark, but I can hear the TV blaring through my mother’s bedroom door. It’s after nine and she’s not at work tonight, which means she’s drunk, and what is there really to say about that. I’ve long since gotten used to things being the way they are; in general I just try not to think about it. But as I climb up the narrow stairs, for one weak second I let myself imagine what it would be like if I could knock on her door and tell her what happened. I imagine her wrapping me up like Ryan’s mom did. I imagine her telling me everything is going to be okay. I feel a wave of something then, longing, maybe. I shake it away. My mother wouldn’t do it. And even if she did, I wouldn’t believe her.

I go into my room, kneel down, and start pulling things from my drawers. In this moment I am calm again, a strange, faraway kind of calm, like I’m not really here at all.

Ryan tried to convince me to stay the night. “My parents won’t mind,” he said. “Considering everything . . .” His voice was soft and sweet, and even though I could hardly feel anything, I knew that if all of this hadn’t happened, it would have made me happy that he wanted me to. And a part of me wished so much that I could say yes, that I could curl up on his family’s couch where everything is safe and warm and good. When his dad got home he’d make bad puns and turn on the news. He’d kiss Ryan’s mother on the lips and Ryan would jokingly roll his eyes. Then Marissa would make popcorn with tons of this butter spray she loves, and we’d all sit together. I’d let their normalness swirl around me and envelop me. And I’d pretend like none of this had happened.

“I should go home,” I told Ryan, “to be alone for a while, I think.” And he seemed to understand, or at least he thought he did. He walked me out to my car and stood there watching as I drove away. Alone. I felt bad for lying to him. But what choice did I have?

Now, here in my room, I get undressed. I pull out a pair of thick black wool tights. I put the tights on and my jeans back over them. I slip on my dark gray leather boots and lace them up. I am trying so hard not to think about anything, not to think about where I am going and why.

I rifle through my drawers until I find what I’m looking for. The sweater – so soft, dark green with delicate gold threads. This was Delia’s. I haven’t worn it in a very long time. She gave it to me back when things were still good with us. “It makes me look diseased,” Delia had said, throwing it at me. “Please save me.” Delia was always so generous and acted like it was nothing. Acted like you were doing her a favor accepting whatever she gave you.

It is the nicest sweater I own, by far. I put it on, my jacket over it, and a black scarf as big as a blanket, because it’s January and I know it will be cold down by the water.

I park in the little alcove at the side of the road and get out. It’s been years since I’ve been here, but I know the route by heart. There’s a car right in front of the hole in the fence around the reservoir, and I shake my head. You’re supposed to park far away. This is trespassing. No one is supposed to know that anyone is out here.

I squeeze through the hole and walk down the narrow dirt path. My stomach turns over and over. I hear quiet murmurs, and as I get closer the murmurs turn to words.

“You can’t start a fire, man. It’s too cold.”

“Fuck off. I was a Boy Scout. I have skills.”