“Nope.” He took a long drink. “I don’t need to be around all those people pretending to be sad when they don’t actually give a crap.”

Delilah wasn’t surprised. Mateo hadn’t set foot on the Acheron campus since the morning Maria died. He’d spent a week in the hospital, two rooms down from Delilah, and the rest of the school year in a rehab facility. It had taken him months to get his concentration back.

The school let him finish up his course work there after his dad kicked him out for good. Some social worker Dean Cumberland knew had arranged for Mateo to get emancipated from his parents so he could keep his Acheron scholarship and get his diploma. Thanks to the Kingsley Prize, he had a full ride to college, too.

Delilah had woken up in the hospital to find herself officially out of the prize committee’s consideration. But she had more important things to care about. It wasn’t like she needed the money.

And for the first time she could remember, she was more interested in people than in winning.

She’d always been so jealous of Maria. Maria had people in her life who really mattered to her. Lily. Brandon too. When Delilah had seen Maria talking to them, sitting off in a corner somewhere, lost in their own little world, she’d seen happiness on their faces that she’d never felt herself.

Now she had a second chance.

“Don’t you miss it at all?” she asked Mateo. “Acheron? High school?”

Mateo looked at her like she was crazy. “No.”

“Do you still talk to anyone from there?”

“Just Felicia. And Austin, when he comes down.”

That had been another big surprise. Suddenly Austin, the pothead drug dealer, had started hanging around the hospital. Mostly to see Mateo. These days he was working up in northern Virginia, but he’d come down to visit them in Charlottesville a couple of times. He and Mateo were always sneaking off for furtive, whispered conversations.

“So you’re just never going back to Acheron?” she asked.

“Not if I can possibly avoid it.” Mateo took another long drink of water. “You shouldn’t either. It isn’t safe there. Not for us, at least.”

Mateo had talked that way in the hospital last year. Sometimes he’d spend days muttering under his breath, “It was supposed to be me.” Delilah had thought about telling the hospital psychiatrist, but she kept quiet. They were all a little crazier than they used to be.

“I’ve been wondering something,” Delilah said.

Mateo narrowed his eyes. “Yeah?”

“What did you mean when you used to say it was supposed to be you?”

He looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She just waited.

Delilah and Mateo understood each other well. Too well. It was why they weren’t friends anymore.