She nods, unable to hide her relief. “Well.”

“We were just leaving,” Sawyer says. He looks at Ben and the other guy, who now rests his hand on Ben’s shoulder, and I wonder if he’s Ben’s boyfriend.

“I’d like to thank your son,” Ben says. “He saved my life. He . . .” Ben stops talking.

“Now’s not a good time,” my mom says. “Tomorrow, when Antonio isn’t here. That would be better.”

Ben nods. “I’ll come by. Thank you.”

My mother smiles grimly. “I’m glad you’re all okay.”

Sawyer and the others file out of the waiting room and go down the hallway to the elevator. I look at my mother, waiting for her to yell at me some more.

And all she says is “Your father told me you know about his affair.”

It takes me a second to change gears. “Yeah,” I say. “I do. I told him that.”

Her face is pained. “Do the others know? Trey and Rowan?”

“No.”

She looks away. And then she says, “Do you know where in New York Rowan is?” Her voice is broken and weak for the first time, and I realize she’s trying to hide her tears from me. “That’s all she’ll tell me.”

“Yes. She’s safe, Mom.”

She puts her hand to her eyes like a shield, a brim for the tears, and she breaks down, unable to hold in her sobs. And I stand there, scared, in shock, watching her cry for the first time, and I don’t know what to do because we’re not exactly a hugging family, and I don’t think she probably wants me to. So I watch her, dumb, cold, as she sobs into her hand. And I hate that. I hate myself for not hugging her. I hate that the Demarcos can yell like crazy but that’s the only emotion in our tiny repertoire of feelings that we’re allowed to express.

Mom drives, and we ride in silence once Dad gets the clue that I’m not speaking to him no matter what he says to bait me. When we get home, I go straight to my room, the only Demarco kid left, and I have no phone. No way of talking to Trey or Rowan without my dad eavesdropping. No way of calling Sawyer without Dad checking the numbers, because he’s so controlling and paranoid. So all I can do is lie on my bed in the dark, alone, and stare at the flashing light that pulses on my wall, thinking about the horrible event that happened today, and wondering why I’m so fucking cold inside.

Thirty-Eight

In the morning I grab my savings money, leave a note for my parents telling them I’ll be with Trey all day at the hospital, and head down the stairs. The sky is still cloudy, but it’s not raining. I debate taking the delivery car, but that’ll just piss my parents off more, so I’ll take the bus. I descend the steps and go outside.

“Hey,” says a voice. I whirl around, and there’s Sawyer standing next to the back door. “You scared me,” I say. “Guess I’m a little gun-shy.”

He cringes. “Too soon.”

I nod. I don’t know what my problem is—I feel like I just finished playing a video game or something, like everything that happened yesterday wasn’t real. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

We walk to his car and get in. “Are your visions gone?” “Completely. It’s insane.”

I laugh, and he frowns again. “It’s not funny.” “I know.” On the seat is the newspaper, and on the

front page is a picture that looks familiar. I pick it up and open the fold, and stare at the students in the quad outside the door to Goodspeed Hall. In the foreground paramedics are loading somebody into an ambulance, and students’ faces are in agony. And then I read about it. The whole story, plus some quotes from witnesses. “Two students—I don’t know their names—they, like, tackled the shooters and screamed for us all to run . . . and we did. We left them there and we just ran.”

I read that there were two other injured students who managed to make it out and down the elevator, and they directed the police to the right place. And I read about a guy who said, “some girl ran by me and shoved a note in my hand that said call 911, so I did. I didn’t know her. I’d never seen her before.”

I look up and realize we’re still sitting in the parking lot, and I can’t read any more because tears are streaming down my face. And I look at Sawyer and he’s crying too, and he reaches over to me and he holds me and we cry together for a very long time. And it’s real now. Suddenly it’s really freaking crazy real. That happened. And we were sitting right in the middle of it. And Trey could have died.

“You’re sure you’re not seeing any more visions?” I ask after I’ve wiped my eyes and we’re on the road, heading for the hospital.

“I’m sure. It’s gone.” “Thank God. It’s really over.” But the relief I want to feel isn’t coming.

He glances at me. “How did you decide to come back?”

I’m not sure what he’s asking at first, but then I realize what he means. “The girl with the gun—she got off the bus I was going to get on, so I followed her. When did you figure it out?”

“I ran into Ben in the quad as he was changing the location. He recognized me from the day before and asked where I lived. I told him I was still in high school and checking out the campus for the weekend, thinking about going there for college. I told him I thought what he was doing was cool. He latched onto that and sort of dragged me with him, but then I realized we were headed for a music classroom. That’s when everything came together. I tried calling you but you didn’t pick up. . . . I figured you were on the bus asleep or something.” He glances over his shoulder as we merge. “I’m sorry about your phone. I never thought about you having it long enough to run out of minutes. I guess I figured your parents would get you a new phone when you started doing deliveries again.”