“Really?” She opened her backpack, rummaging through to find something. “How’s he doing?”

“He was already in trouble, I think.”

“Not surprising.” She put her drink down. “God, I feel so rotten all of a sudden. Like just bad.”

“Sick?”

“Kind of.” She pulled out a bottle of Advil, popped the top, and took two. “It’s probably just my well-documented aversion to school.”

“Probably.” I watched her as she leaned back against the brick wall, closing her eyes. In the sun her hair was a deep red, almost unreal, with brighter streaks running through it.

“But anyway,” I said, “it was so weird. He just sat right next to me, just like that, and started talking my ear off. Like he knew me.”

“He does know you.”

“Yeah, but only from that one day of the funeral. Before then we’d never even been introduced.”

“So? This is a small town, Halley. Everyone knows everyone.”

“It was just weird,” I said again, replaying it in my head, from the poking on my shoulder to him saying my name as he walked away, grinning. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” she said slowly, reaching behind her head to pull her hair up in a ponytail, “maybe he likes you.”

“Oh, stop it.” My face started burning again.

“You never know. You shouldn’t always assume it’s so impossible.”

The bell rang and I finished off my Coke, tossing it in the recycling bin beside me. “On to third period.”

“Ugh. Oceanography.” She put on her backpack. “What about you?”

“I have—” I started, but someone tapped my shoulder, then was gone as I turned around, the classic fake-out. I turned back to Scarlett and saw Macon over her shoulder, on his way to the gym.

“Come on,” he yelled across the now-empty courtyard to me. “Don’t want to be late for P.E.”

“—P.E.,” I finished sheepishly, feeling the burn of a new blush on my face. “I better go.”

Scarlett just looked at me, shaking her head, like she already knew something I didn’t. “Watch out,” she said quietly, pulling her backpack over her shoulders.

“For what?” I said.

“You know,” she said, and her face was so sad, watching me. Then she shook her head, smiling, and started to walk away. “Just be careful. Of P.E. and all that.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering if she had visions of me being nailed by errant Wiffle balls or blinded by flying badminton birdies, or if it was only just Macon, and everything he reminded her of, that made her so sad. “I will,” I said.

She waved and walked off, up the hill to the Sciences building, and I turned and went the other way, pushing open the gym doors to that smell of mildew and Ben-Gay and sweaty mats, where Macon Faulkner was waiting for me.

P.E. became the most important fifty minutes of my life. Regardless of illness, national disaster, or even death, I would have shown up for third period, in my white socks and blue shorts, ready at the bell. Macon missed occasionally, and those days I was miserable, swatting around my volleyball halfheartedly and watching the clock. But the days he was there, P.E. was the best thing I had going.

Of course I acted like I hated it completely, because it was worse than being a Band geek to actually like P.E. But I was the only one in the girls’ locker room who didn’t complain loudly as we dressed out at 10:30 A.M. for another day of volleyball basics. All I had to do was walk out of the dressing room, nonchalant, acting like I was still half-asleep and too out of it to notice Macon, who was usually over by the water fountain in nonregulation tennis shoes and no socks (for which he got a minus-five each day of class). I’d sit a few feet over from him, wave, and pretend I wasn’t expecting him to slide the few feet across the floor to sit beside me, which he always did. Always. Usually those few minutes before Coach Van Leek got organized with his clipboard were the best part of my day, every day. With a few variations, they went something like this:

Macon: What’s up?

Me: I’m so beat.

Macon: Yeah, I was out late last night.

Me: (like I was ever allowed out past eight on school nights)

Me, too. I see you’re not wearing socks today, again.

Macon: I just forget.

Me: You’re gonna fail P.E., you know.

Macon: Not if you buy me some socks.

Me: (laughing sarcastically) Yeah, right.

Macon: Okay. Then it’s on your head.

Me: Shut up.

Macon: You ready for volleyball?

Me: (like I’m so tough) Of course. I’m going to beat your

butt.

Macon: (laughing) Okay. Sure. We’ll see.

Me: Okay. We’ll see.

I lived for this.

Macon was not in school to Get an Education or Prepare for College. It was just a necessary evil, tempered by junk food and perpetual tardies. Half the time he showed up looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, and he was forever getting yelled at by Coach for sneaking food into P.E.: Cokes slipped in his backpack, Atomic Fireballs and Twinkles stuffed in his pockets. He was the master of the forged excuse.

“Faulkner,” Coach would bark when Macon showed up, ten minutes late, with no socks and half a Zinger sticking out of his mouth, “you’d best have a note.”

“Right here,” Macon would say cheerfully, drawing one out of his pocket. We’d all watch attentively as Coach scrutinized it. Macon never looked worried. He failed all of P.E.’s notoriously easy quizzes, but he could copy any signature perfectly on the first try. It was a gift.