The setup in Andrew’s old classroom hadn’t changed; there were still those three long tables pushed together to create a bracket, the teacher at the front of the room in its clutches. But sleek metal tables and stools had replaced the old linoleum tables and the janky, mismatched chairs. It was very Restoration Hardware, a set that wouldn’t look entirely out of my place in my own apartment, the style I’ve curated something Mrs. Harrison describes as “eclectic.” I hovered above the table and examined my distorted image: the long pointy chin, one eye here and one eye there. Whenever I had a pimple in high school, I would assess its severity in anything remotely reflective—the glare in the classroom window, the glass panel between me and the deli meats in the cafeteria. I would never have been able to concentrate in class with so much opportunity before me.

Andrew wandered over to his old desk and examined a few of his successor’s knickknacks.

“You know Mr. Friedman still works here,” Andrew said.

“Really?” I remembered the day he hauled Arthur out of the classroom, Mrs. Hurst trying to pretend like she wasn’t as frightened as she should have been. “He was always kind of dopey.”

“Actually”—Andrew turned and leaned against the desk, folding one ankle over the other exactly like he used to do when he taught class—“Bob is very smart. Too smart to be a teacher. It’s why he doesn’t connect with the students.” Andrew touched his hand to his forehead. “On another level than the rest of us.”

I nodded. It was more dark than dusk outside now, but the English and Language wing faced a main street, ablaze with streetlights and the Bryn Mawr College art building.

“That’s why everyone loved your class so much,” I said. “You were on our level. More like a peer.”

Andrew laughed. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”

I laughed too. “No, it is.” I glanced down at my fun house reflection again. “It was good to have someone so young. Only a few years removed from it all.”

“I don’t know how much help I was,” Andrew said. “I’d never seen this kind of viciousness before. I don’t know, maybe it did happen when I was in high school and I just wasn’t paying attention.” He thought for a moment. “But I think I would have noticed. There was something very cutthroat about Bradley that I picked up on right away. And you”—he gestured at me—“you never even had a chance.”

I didn’t like that. You always have a chance. I just screwed mine up. “I wasn’t very sharp when I was here,” I said. “But if I have to find a positive in it, it’s that I learned how to fend for myself.” I brushed my knuckles over the table’s metal scales. “Arthur taught me a lot, believe it or not.”

“There are better ways to learn,” Andrew said.

I smiled sadly. “I would have welcomed them. I did the best with what I got.”

Andrew tucked his chin into his neck, like he was gathering his thoughts to make an important connection between the Museum of Natural History and Holden Caulfield’s fear of change. “You’ve been honest with me, so”—he cleared his throat—“I want to be honest with you.”

There was a perfect plot of light illuminating the space behind him. It was so bright that he appeared to be nothing but a figure, faceless, expressionless. My heart boomed in my chest, sure he was about to admit something of importance. Our connection, our exquisite chemical reaction—it wasn’t just in my head. “About what?”

“That dinner. It wasn’t just a matter of us living in a small world.” He took a noisy breath through his nostrils. “I knew Luke was your fiancé. I pushed for him to set up dinner so I could see you.”

Hope rose in me like a temperature. “How did you know that?”

“I can’t even remember who told me, one of my co-workers who knew I’d taught here, though. Told me that Luke was engaged to a Bradley girl. Luke had mentioned your name to me before—Ani—but I couldn’t remember any Anis from Bradley. I did the Facebook thing.” Andrew mimed typing, then covered his face with his hands, a sweetly girlish gesture, and laughed. “God, that’s embarrassing, but I looked Luke up on Facebook. Saw you in his pictures. I couldn’t believe that was you.”

The sky was done changing and the room went still, complete with the shadows it had collected for the night. But now something cut the street light, and, for a second, without that blinding blast of yellow behind him, I saw Andrew’s face entirely. He looked terrified.

We watched out the window as a little silver bullet of a car parked in front of the old mansion’s entrance. The word “Security” broke in half when the driver opened his door and stepped out, walking with an official stride toward the school.

My heart seemed to drop down and back, the thing it always does right before I start to spin and spin. I refuse to call it a panic attack. Panic attacks are for nervous fliers, hipster neurotics. Their demons, whatever they are, can’t even compare to the terror of knowing it’s about to happen, the something bad I’ve been waiting for ever since I got out of the cafeteria. My turn. “Is he here for us?”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What is he doing here?”

Again, Andrew said, “I don’t know.”

The security guard disappeared into the building, and in the distance we heard a door bang shut and a shout’s echo. “Hello?” Andrew put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to come close to him. He was pushing the chair away from the desk, and then, I couldn’t believe it, we were climbing underneath the desk together, Andrew bending and arranging his enormous limbs to make room for me.

When we were knee to knee Andrew pulled the chair in behind us, really squishing us in, and then he grinned at me.

I couldn’t feel my heart beating anymore, another characteristic that separates the spin from a panic attack—no brave palpitations, only a sad white flag—and in a few minutes I felt the sureness of a presence in the room. Had that really been the car of a security guard we’d seen? The Women’s Magazine had run a slew of articles over the years warning women about predators who dressed up as police officers, plumbers, even deliverymen in order to gain access to your car, your house, you. Always you they wanted, to rape, to torture, to kill. My vision seemed to narrow to a pinprick, like when you turn off an old TV, that one dot that lingers until the screen goes totally blank. I wasn’t breathing, I was sure of it. My heart had stopped, and these were just the last few moments of consciousness, the neurons in the brain still burning embers, before I dipped off into the dark.

A light swept over the front of the room, and someone cleared his throat. “Anyone in here?”

He sounded low and uniform, the way Ben had. “Boo.” So flat, it could have been any word. “Hi.” “No.” “Sure.” Mr. Larson covered his mouth, I could tell by the extra crow’s-feet gathering around his eyes that he was trying not to laugh, and a tremble began in my hips—why my hips? Maybe because I wasn’t standing; it would have been in my legs, but my hips were supporting me now.

The light disappeared, and we even heard footsteps retreat, but I knew he was still there, I could feel him. He had exaggerated his exit, then crept back, waiting for us to crawl out, two dumb idiots thinking they were safe. A copycat. Bradley had tried to pretend like we didn’t need to worry about that. But we would. We always would. Mr. Larson whispered, “I think he’s gone,” and I shook my head, widening my eyes at him desperately.

“What?” Mr. Larson whispered again, and he pushed the chair back.

I seized his thick wrist and shook my head at him, begging him not to go.

“TifAni.” Mr. Larson looked down at my hand, and I saw the horror on his face, knew we were done for. “You’re like ice.”