“So, Lane,” I said, “how come you’re not sitting in the Bible Belt anymore?”

He made a face.

“I was sort of dying over there.”

“Well, now you can be sort of dying over here,” Charlie said dryly.

Lane laughed, and then looked embarrassed about it.

Charlie went back to writing again, and Marina tried to read it over his shoulder, being super obvious.

“Stop,” Charlie muttered, edging his notebook away.

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” Marina pouted for a moment, and then her face lit up. “Lane, you knew Sadie from before, right?”

“A little,” he allowed.

I tried to shoot Marina telepathic signals to shut up, but it didn’t work, probably because I don’t have superpowers.

“So, what’s the story with you two?” she asked. “Sadie won’t tell us anything.”

If I could have kicked her under the table, I would have.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Lane said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “We were thirteen and went to the same summer camp. I pretty much thought girls had cooties back then.”

“I do have cooties,” I said, and Marina almost choked on her juice.

“Can we please call it that from now on?” asked Nick.

“Sure,” I said. “I can just picture the final Facebook statuses. ‘She fought a heroic but ultimately unsuccessful battle against a grave case of cooties.’”

“Our little angel has gone on to a better place, a place free from cooties?” Nick suggested.

“Oh my God, stop.” I was cracking up. We all were. But it wasn’t funny. Not really. Being at Latham had warped our sense of humor, until there we were, calmly eating our burgers while composing fictitious final Facebook statuses for hypothetically deceased teens.

“That’s why I deleted my Facebook,” Charlie said. “Preemptive strike.”

None of us knew what to do with that. Charlie was the sickest of anyone in our group, and he was both the most and the least sensitive about discussing the future, and the possibility of not having one.

“I’m surprised Latham doesn’t block the site,” Lane said, and we all stared at him in horror. “My high school blocked almost everything good on their computers.”

“Shhh, don’t let them hear you!” said Nick. “Here, toss some salt over your shoulder.”

Nick held out the saltshaker, and Lane took it, playing along.

“There,” he said, throwing a pinch over his shoulder. “Happy?”

“The internet gods require more sacrifice,” said Nick. “Quick, hop on one leg and touch your nose.”

“The internet gods require a sobriety test?” Lane asked, and everyone laughed.

It was interesting the way he changed the dynamic of the table. How much louder our laughter sounded, and how the five of us seemed to fill the space more. Watching him and Nick was fascinating. There was something that clicked about the two of them, like they’d been friends forever. Watching them goof around made all the ways that Nick annoyed me somehow seem entertaining. But Lane added another element I hadn’t expected. Suddenly, our group felt disastrously coed.

When I went to bus my tray, Lane followed me.

“Can you try not to kill me this time?” I teased.

“Even if it gives you an awesome final Facebook status?”

I laughed.

“I deleted mine, too,” I admitted.

It had been too depressing, getting all those messages from classmates who had always ignored me, and it had been even more depressing a month later, when they’d forgotten me again.

“You’re all crazy,” he said. “I’m keeping mine for bragging rights. And for torturing ex-girlfriends.”

“So how’s that going?” I asked, finding a slot for my tray.

“It’s weird,” he said, pausing to gather his thoughts. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her for a month, so it feels like I’m brooding over something that happened forever ago.”

“The Latham Time Warp,” I said. “Sometimes a day lasts an hour, and sometimes it lasts a year.”

“That must be it. We’ve fallen through a hole in the space-time continuum.”

And then Genevieve sashayed over to the tray return with this sweet yet evil smile on her face.

“Lane,” she whined. “Where were you?”

“Oh,” Lane said sheepishly. “Um. I sat with Nick.”

I tried not to be disappointed that he hadn’t said he’d sat with me.

“Angela and Leigh were so worried that something had happened when you didn’t sit at our table.” She said it so dramatically that I snorted, and she shot me a glare.

She had to have noticed Lane sitting at our table, didn’t she? I wished she’d leave the whole thing alone, since it was clear Lane couldn’t wait to get away from them.

“Nothing happened,” Lane said, shrugging. “I just decided to change it up.”

There was this awkward silence where I swear Genevieve was waiting for him to apologize and promise he’d sit at her table for dinner, but he didn’t.

“Well, our Bible study is always open,” she finally said.

“Oh my God, you do know he’s Jewish, right?” I interrupted.

Genevieve glared at me, and I shrugged.

“Jesus welcomes everyone to his table,” she snapped, abandoning her tray on the condiment counter and flouncing away.

Lane picked up Genevieve’s tray and added it to the return.

“Do you know who else welcomes everyone to their table?” I asked. “Anyone desperate for friends.”

He snorted.

“Who are you calling desperate?” Nick interrupted, coming over with his tray.

“Anyone who would date you.” I smiled sweetly.

“Whatever, I’m awesome.” Nick bused his tray. “We have any plans this afternoon?”

I shook my head.

“Great,” he said. “Lane, how are you at first-person shooters?”

“Worse than I’d like.”

Nick grinned. “We can fix that.”

And then Charlie came over to drop off his tray, and the boys left for the dorms together.

It was rest period, which most of the time I was fine skipping, but that afternoon, I could feel myself starting to drag. Stupid Natalie Zhang and her loud, horrible sobbing. Everyone knew you were supposed to muffle it with your pillow if you didn’t want the whole world to hear.

As Marina and I walked back to the cottages, I could see Lane, Charlie, and Nick already scanning into their dorm. Nick was flailing excitedly about something, and they were all laughing.

“The look on your face,” Marina said.

“That’s just my face. It expresses a range of unprompted emotions.”

“Whatever. You’re jealous that Nick stole your friend.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, because it was. They could go play video games if they wanted.

“Seems pretty on point to me,” Marina said, grinning. “Unless, of course, he isn’t your friend.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What else would he be?”

“Who cares, he’s adorable.”

“You think so?” I asked, a little warily. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I liked Lane. A lot. And if Marina liked him, too, I didn’t know what would happen.

“Just because I’ve sworn off Latham boys doesn’t mean that I can’t spot a cute one when he’s literally sitting next to me.” Marina rolled her eyes. “Besides, I saw the way you were staring at each other during lunch. You two are so completely Pride and Prejudice.”

“You mean he’ll scorn me for my family while convincing my sister’s soul mate that he doesn’t really love her?” I asked hopefully.

“Exactly.” Marina laughed. “But you forgot about the dirigibles. And the talking wombats.”

Marina trailed off, and I could tell that she was scripting out the story in her head, one with flying machines and snarky animals and a happily ever after, where no one died, or got too sick to be a perfect love interest.

But we were all too sick to be anyone’s perfect love interest here. And it didn’t matter how healthy anyone seemed. Any of us could wake up the next morning with blood splattered across the pillow and a hole in our lungs so painful that having a broken heart on top of it would have been unbearable.