At least, it helps until it doesn’t. By the end of the week, she’s feeling torn up around the edges. Like she drank a football helmet full of black coffee, and now she’s coming down but isn’t quite at the bottom yet. Not tired, but not awake, either; floating in that uncomfortable space between.

Friday is when it goes sour.

Things were good. Suddenly, they’re not.

It’s like those two lines in the Housman poem:

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Mitchell Erickson finds her as she comes out of the cafeteria.

“Do we know each other?” he says, face feigning obliviousness. Perfect teeth. Not a hair out of place. He’s like a teenage Ken doll, which makes her think, Does he have balls down there, or is he just smooth plastic? But even thinking about that sort of thing has her feeling vertigo again, and she smells gunpowder and . . .

She shakes it off.

“I don’t think we do,” she says, and she starts walking away. But he steps in her path.

It occurs to her: You’ve got nothing, you know that? Nothing with which to protect your fool ass. Did you ever order more bear mace? Did you bring that baton? Can’t carry a shotgun into school. You were so goofed up on Adderall you didn’t think about that, did you?

Mitchell gets close. She tries to pull away, but he grabs her backpack straps—not violently, but with a grim authority that leaves her scared and angry at the same time—and holds her still.

“I do know you,” he says, smiling, but his voice is soft and cold. “Took a little while for your message to get to me, but it found its way, like a lost puppy looking for home.”

“That’s a sweet story,” she says, straining to sound badass, trying superhard not to let her voice go all shaky. “Does it end with the puppy biting off your face?”

“Nah. It ends with the puppy taking a big shit on the carpet when he wasn’t supposed to. Sad how they had to put that puppy down. Hit him over the head with a shovel. Buried him in the backyard.”

“I suspect we’re not talking about puppies. I’m taking this English class about poetry, and we’re learning all about metaphors. This is one of them, isn’t it? A metaphor? You’re like a poet.”

“Shut the fuck up and listen.” Smile still in place, but now he’s speaking through those smiling white Chiclet teeth of his. “You kicked over a hornet’s nest.”

“Like that girl from that book.”

“I said shut up. I don’t care who you are. Or what you did. I just want you to know I got your message and give you a message of my own.”

“White Power?” she asks, sticking out her chin. “Hail Hitler?”