Rachel was beautiful. It was as simple as that. Physically she was the complete package. Everyone thought so. At our school, she was “that” girl, but I’ve often found that the “high school hot,” while obviously attractive, can often have looks that are somewhat blank or standard or like some kind of formula—that when you are universally considered hot, that hotness can also be bland.

That wasn’t the case here. Rachel’s beauty was, well, interesting.

I moved toward her hesitantly, half expecting her to shake her head for me to go away again. She smelled great, like honeysuckle and lilacs.

“Hey,” I said, because I’m smooth like that.

“Hey.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Fine.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Your father thought it’d be better if you didn’t know the truth. He didn’t want me to tell you what happened to your mom.”

Rachel tilted her head. “So why did you?”

I hadn’t expected her to ask that. I guess that I expected to get credit for being honest, but her eyes were pinning me down, wanting an answer.

“It was something my uncle said.”

“Your uncle Myron?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“It was about lies. Even when they’re for someone’s good.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t remember his exact words, but he said that it might be a good lie, it might be a bad lie, but either way, the lie would always be in the room with us.”

Rachel nodded. I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know how her father had reacted, but it wasn’t my place to ask. We stood in silence for a few more seconds. I broke it:

“I was surprised to see you here. Did Spoon call you?”

“No,” she said.

“So how did you know to come?”

“This was in my locker.”

Rachel handed me an essay she had written for Mrs. Friedman’s history class. She had gotten an A with a comment in Mrs. Friedman’s script saying, “Great job!” But that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was the image someone had stamped onto the top right-hand corner of the first page.

The Abeona butterfly.

“Did you do this?” she asked.

I sighed. “You know better.”

“So who was it?”

“I don’t know. And yet we all know.”

Rachel shook her head. “You sound like a fortune cookie.” She looked toward Spoon’s door. “So there’s another kid who’s missing.”

“Maybe. What did Spoon tell you before we got here?”

“That Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird and when he was alone in his study, he’d close the door and let the bird fly around.”

I smiled.

“So who’s missing?”

“A guy Ema met online. His name is Jared Lowell.”

I filled her in on what I knew. When I finished, I said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”