One afternoon after we’d looked at everything we could think of online, and said what there was to say about the march to the White House, my animation, which thank goodness was more or less finished, Jack’s classes, and the kids we both knew, he sat very still in the chair, his hands on his knees. “Maddy . . .” he began. “Dearest.”

“Yes, Jack? Beloved.” After our visit to the lake, we’d taken to calling each other things like that. “What’s on your so-called mind?”

It burst out of him. “Junior year is horrible!”

“SATs?” I said.

“I can’t wait for high school to be over.”

“You’ve got college to look forward to . . .”

I watched his eyes fill with tears. “I’m going to hate it, you know.”

Sometimes when Jack was with me he looked normal, and sometimes like he’d been hit in the head and was just coming to, but he never cried.

“I know. I know you are.” I put on a voice like a mother patting a little kid. I pulled one of his hands close and studied the smooth tanned skin of his knuckles and pressed the pad of each finger. His hands were small for a person of his height, but they were hefty next to mine. Every shadow and crease of his skin looked supersharp in what seemed to be not really daylight, but not any other kind of light either. “Wouldn’t it have been great?” I said, fitting his palm to the side of my face and keeping it there. Never let him go.

Jack reclaimed his hand and stood up. He unlaced his running shoes and came over and stretched his long body beside me on the bed, making murmuring noises. The vibration of his voice box tickled my neck, so I laughed and he laughed, and we lay like that for a long time, until his hands started moving over me, sleepily, in the old way. I closed my eyes and took what strength I could from the pressure of Jack’s hands and the smell of his T-shirt and his voice. As if all we had to do was get through this and everything would be fine. As if he were still mine.

“My mother’s in the house,” I whispered.

She appeared in the archway of the kitchen, summoned by my thoughts, and retreated just as abruptly. I pulled away and told Jack my stomach hurt. He scrambled to his feet and stood by the bed, looking lost. My stomach was hurting for real now. That awful punched ache of fear. Ever since we met, I’d done what I could to make myself totally special to Jack. First, best, only. I caught his hand and swung it and kissed it. What good was that for either of us now?