Mateo still couldn’t believe they hadn’t canceled it. When he first heard it had been rescheduled he’d vowed he wasn’t going to show up, but the assistant dean had stopped him in the hall and told him they were going to have a moment of silence at the dance, for Brandon. Mateo didn’t have a choice anymore. If he skipped it he’d look like he didn’t care at all.

And he cared. He cared more than he’d ever thought he could.

Mateo got out of bed, shivering in the ice-cold air-conditioning. He wanted to tell whoever was on the other side of the door to leave him the hell alone, but it was probably Felicia. She’d been stopping by a couple of times a day.

Mateo could never bring himself to say anything harsh to her. Not after . . .

He pulled a pair of cargo shorts on over his boxers, grabbed a fresh T-shirt, and swung open the door.

It wasn’t Felicia. It was Ross.

Mateo dropped his eyes and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He knew, rationally, there was nothing Ross or anyone could’ve done, but regardless, Mateo couldn’t stand to look at him now. It was hard to stay rational sometimes.

“Hey, man,” Ross said. Lately he’d been saying “man” and “bro” to Mateo a lot. It was awkward. “How you holding up?”

Mateo shrugged.

“Can I come in?” Ross said. “I was hoping we could talk.”

Mateo stepped to one side. Ross came in slowly, as if he was afraid Mateo would snap if he moved too fast. Like Mateo was a wild animal. No sudden movements or we might provoke the beast.

Ross sat down gingerly in Mateo’s desk chair. Mateo sat on the trunk opposite him and picked up his phone so he’d have something to look at that wasn’t Ross’s face.

The Acheron staff had mostly been avoiding Mateo since Brandon died. When they talked to him, they said vague stuff like How you holding up? No one ever actually said Sorry about your boyfriend dying. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference if they had, but their vagueness still grated at him.

Oh, well. Maybe they were doing him a favor. He wasn’t even out to his family yet, and the idea of that changing someday scared him more than La Llorona ever could.

It wasn’t just that Mateo’s dad had burned the family’s Ricky Martin CDs after Ricky came out, though if he didn’t think about it too hard, that story was kind of funny.

No. What scared him was what had happened to his cousin Janisa.