But why did it seem, in my muddled mind filled with future and past and everything in between, like we were? It was as if every day without her was killing every happy vision of the future I’d ever had, over and over again, slicing through them until only shredded, faded remains.

I woke up late. Actually, I hadn’t slept much, but I couldn’t manage to get myself out of bed. I didn’t want to think of facing the day. Of facing school.

I threw on the first T-shirt I could find, my favorite blue one with the words DON’T BOTHER ME on the front. Totally appropriate. Then I trudged down the stairs, where Nan had put my backpack and lunch. She was so prepared; even with the broken arm, she’d managed to go through the normal routine. Nan always made a big fuss over the first day of school, so I slipped out the door before she could ask me if I wanted breakfast.

I felt bad as soon as I left. I saw the smiley face in ketchup on my eggs, which she’d been doing since I was four to psych me up for “big days” like the first day of school. I hated school completely. The academic part was downright painful, since I could barely concentrate on anything with the script in my head. And as bad as that was, it was no match for my social life, or lack thereof. I pretty much kept to myself. I was the one who sat in the back of the classroom, alone. People didn’t mess with Crazy Cross.

When the bus dropped me off and I walked toward the front doors, thinking of too much perfume, Bill Runyon’s Land Rover, silver butterfly, I saw the piece-of-crap vehicle I had so many memories of dying in parked in the first spot in the nearest lot, taunting me. She’d peeled all the bumper stickers off; all that was left was their white, flaking remains. I wasn’t really surprised to see Taryn’s Jeep. Of course, without me to interfere, her life was going fine. She’d performed the Touch, and now all was right with the world.

I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. What she did was her own business. It had nothing to do with me.

The problem was, I couldn’t not think of her. I had nothing else that was interesting enough to fill the void.

When you get to the twelfth grade, the first day of school is numbing. You don’t even get that nervous feeling in your stomach; you just have that sense of exhaustion that overpowers you when you’ve run most of a ten-mile race and know the finish line is coming but can’t see it anywhere. I got my schedule and locker combination and made it to homeroom, where I was told I needed to see the guidance counselor, Mrs. Gross, which was a misleading name because she was really pretty. The only thing was that she tried too hard to look young and like “one of us.” She was wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt, and had pulled one knee up to her chin as she studied some papers on her desk. I didn’t buy it. I knew that somewhere in her closet were pearl earrings or a sweater set or mom jeans or whatever it was that old people wore.

“Oh, Nick!” she said, coming around to give me a hug. She was totally touchy-feely, too, and even more so with me, probably because she thought I was one of the mental ones who needed her. “It is so good to see you. Have a nice summer?”

I thought about Emma. “Wonderful,” I muttered as she embraced me. She smelled like stale coffee and too much perfume.

It was weird to be summoned here on the first day of school. I’d spoken to Mrs. Gross a handful of times during my high school career, and mostly she asked me questions about where I wanted to be and what I saw myself doing in ten years. Hilarious. Sometimes I could tell her exactly where I’d be in ten years, but it always depended on the day. She was wary of me because once, on a particularly bad day, I made a really stupid slip in my foul mood and told her I saw myself dead. It was the truth; that was when I ended up in Vegas, married to a stripper and dealing drugs to make ends meet. But the obvious inference was that I was contemplating suicide. Mrs. Gross called in Nan and set up an appointment with a psychiatrist for me and I had to spend the next three months trying to convince them that no, whoops, I misspoke, I’m actually just fine. So for the past couple of times I’d told her I wanted to be a dentist. It’s something I have no interest in doing, but it keeps her from calling the men with strait-jackets.

Anyway, even though it was weird to be summoned, I knew why she did it. She wanted to ask me why I hadn’t used the “wealth of helpful free services” the school provided to put together my college applications. Truth was, applying to college was the furthest thing from my mind. But I guess an aspiring dentist like myself should have been knee-deep in applications by now. I just smiled when she said, “I’d be happy to look over your application materials.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Her face turned troubled and by then the You Wills had traveled far enough into the future to allow me to see it. And then I suddenly realized something.

I was a sucker.

She hadn’t called me in here at all to talk college.

She wanted to … oh, hell.

“No. I’m fine,” I said quickly, then cleared my throat when I realized she hadn’t asked the question yet. “I mean, I have to go to class.”

“I found out that you tried out for cross-country,” she said brightly. “That’s so wonderful. You have no idea how happy that made me, to see you finally trying to participate. I know I’ve told you time and time again how important extracurriculars are for a well-rounded college app. It upset me to find out that you didn’t make the team, though. As you can imagine.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay. I don’t want to—”

“No, it’s not. You’re a good runner. And so I spoke to Coach Garner about having you try out again.”

I stared at her, feeling the horror slowly cracking through the mask of indifference on my face.

She gave me a look that reeked of sympathy. “Nick, we heard about what happened before tryouts. That unfortunate incident. Of course that would affect your performance.”

I wanted to clap my hands over my ears. I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my face. “It didn’t affect me. I was fine. And I lost, fair and square.”

She shook her head as if to say, “Silly you.” As if I should jump at the chance to receive her charity.

“Look, I am not trying out again,” I said, wooden.

She smiled at me. “Now, Nick—”

“No, listen,” I seethed.

I hadn’t meant it to come out as a seethe, but I guess it did because I saw little droplets of spit shooting out of my mouth. She leaned back in her chair, surprised and probably a little grossed out. Guess kids didn’t cut her off very often, because her eyes narrowed.

“I mean, thank you,” I managed, backpedaling. “But no thank you. I mean it.”

She just stared at me for what felt like a year.

“Am I done here?” I asked, motioning toward the door. As if I couldn’t wait to be in physics. She waved me on and I escaped into the hallway, closing the door with such force that the frosted glass panel clattered in its frame.

Gritting my teeth, I stalked down the hallway, completely oblivious to everything else going on around me. Not even seven in the morning, and I was already in a crappy mood. I was sure physics, my worst subject, wasn’t going to help anything. I checked my schedule. Room 231.

I wish I had kept my head down as I found my way to the math wing. I wish I had been so well versed in the layout of the school that I didn’t have to look up to see the room numbers. As it was, though, I’d never been to Room 231, and it was in the middle of a very busy section of the building, where two hallways intersected. If I had kept my head down, I wouldn’t have seen Taryn walking down the other hallway, right toward me, holding hands with a guy wearing a black leather jacket, gloves, and a nose ring.

She looked up at him and gave him a smile, while I stared, too dumbstruck to look away. Not three days ago, that guy could have been me. And wasn’t she supposed to be concerned about dying? She’d really been devoting her time to finding someone to Touch, but in a totally different way than I had thought. All this time, I’d been worrying about her, and she … she didn’t give a crap about me.