I take the pass and the antiseptic pad. “Thank you,” I say. “A lot.” And before another tear can leak out, I turn and barrel down the aisle, hoping nobody’s looking at me and my big ol’ neckful of scratches.

Seventeen

“Jeez,” Trey says when he sees me at lunch. “What happened to you? Looks like Sawyer’s got either a well-oiled hinge on that jaw or some retractable incisors.”

I sit down next to Trey as Sawyer finds us and sits across from us.

“Random feline incident,” I say, waving him off. “One of my fans got a little too close.”

Sawyer examines my neck, then glances at Trey. “For the record, I did not do that.” He looks at me. “Does it hurt? Any repercussions?”

“Yes, and no, thankfully. Polselli’s cool. He kept it small. Good thing nobody threw a punch.” I pull the crumpled note out of my pocket and hand it to Sawyer.

Trey swipes it.

“Seriously?” both Sawyer and I exclaim.

Trey stares at us like we’re insane. “Calm down,” he says. “Take a moment.” He slowly hands the paper to Sawyer. “It’s just a lingering adolescent attention-grabbing behavior. We all do it. It’s human nature.”

I start laughing softly, insanely, at the plate of lardfilled fats on the table in front of me.

“Trey,” Sawyer says, and then he grabs my hand and squeezes it so I stop acting crazy.

I look up.

Trey’s eyes narrow slightly. “Yes?”

“We—I need your help.”

Trey bats his eyelashes. “Oh?”

Sawyer flashes a grin despite the intensity of his thoughts. “No, not like that. It’s, uh . . . God, this is going to sound insane, but—”

Trey grows serious again. “Oh, no.” He leans forward. “Did you just say the magic word?”

“He did,” I say.

Sawyer looks over his shoulder, making sure nobody’s paying attention to us, and then he leans in. “Trey, ever since the crash, I—”

“No,” Trey says. “Shit.”

“Ever since the crash, I’ve been having this—”

“No.” Trey sits back. “No, you haven’t. No.”

Sawyer sits back. “Yes.”

Trey shakes his head. “Not funny. It’s not quite April Fools’ Day. Good practice joke, though.” His mouth is strained. I know this look. It’s the I’m pretending I’m not freaked-out right now look. A classic Demarco face.

Sawyer digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and then rests his arms on the table and looks back at Trey. “I wish it was a joke.”

Trey throws a nervous glance my way. I don’t smile. He looks back at Sawyer. “No. You are mistaken. You are not having a vision. It’s just PTSD or something. You’ve been through a lot.”

Sawyer sighs. “Okay. Well. You would know.” He stares at his lunch and shoves a forkful of by-product into his mouth. His eyes get glassy and he won’t look at either of us. He chews a few times and then just stands up and takes his tray to the guys in dishwashing.

“He’s serious?” Trey says.

“Yeah. Thanks for making him feel like crap.”

“Fuck. What did you do to him?”

The guilt pang strikes again. I get up as Sawyer comes back this way. “Yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “Come on. We need to talk to him.”

Trey sighs and gets up. “Okay.” He grabs my tray and his and brings them away while I meet up with Sawyer.

“He knows you’re serious now,” I say.

Sawyer just shakes his head. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“I don’t think we have a choice. Let’s just get it out there to him, see what he says. Please—I think he’ll help us.”

He presses his lips together. “Fine.”

I beckon to Trey.

Trey catches up to us and we leave the cafeteria together. The clock says we’ve got about twelve minutes before the bell rings. We walk down to the trophy hallway where only the memories of students linger—almost nobody hangs out here, they just pass through.

When we reach a quiet corner, Trey stops and faces us. “Okay, explain. How the hell did you start seeing a vision? What is this, some sort of contagion? A virus? What? It’s like a bad B movie.”

“We don’t know. All I know is that I don’t have my vision anymore, but Sawyer has one now.”

“So what is it—a snowplow hitting our restaurant this time?”

I look at Sawyer. “You should explain everything. Including what you said in your note.”

Sawyer begins. And I watch the two guys I love most in the world talk to each other. They are almost exactly the same height, a few inches taller than me. Trey’s eyes are black and his hair is darker than Sawyer’s, almost black, but they both have natural waves. Sawyer tries to fight his hair by keeping it short, while Trey coaxes his longer locks to curl every morning. I almost smile as I watch them. They are both so beautiful.

But the story Sawyer tells is not beautiful. I tune in, watching Trey’s face go from shock to disbelief. “A school shooting,” Trey says. “God, that’s my worst nightmare.” He shivers.

I didn’t know that. “Mine’s a toss-up between burning and being crushed,” I murmur.

“Drowning,” Sawyer adds. “Stampede. Or . . . being shot in the face by a fucking maniac or two.”