“Yeah. He just—it’s like he became this different person in the space of a few hours. He was clean. I know he was. I mean, he’d been drinking that night, but you know. Nothing serious. And then he runs off, and we find him at a freaking meth house? It’s like he went crazy. But I never thought—I never even considered that he’d—” His gaze traveled up the wall of the school, to the place the Mazikin had jumped. “Fuuuuck,” he said, his voice shaking.

At the edge of the memorial was a picture of Aden on the pitching mound. He looked like a teenage god—strong and flawless, one of the luckiest, the angel-kissed—destined for a perfect life. I hoped he was living that perfect life in the Countryside now, free of pain and worry and missing all that he’d had to leave behind.

“I don’t think he was in his right mind,” I said quietly. “I don’t think he chose it.”

“What are you talking about?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t know, really.” Though I did. And I wished I could explain because Ian was blinking tears away again. It didn’t fit. He was one of the angel-kissed, too, lucky in so many ways he didn’t even recognize. Rich. Loved. Good grades. Ace batting average. Pretty girlfriends. Nice car. But the look in his eyes was that of a confused and hurt little boy. “I just meant that your best friend, that Aden, didn’t make the choice to kill himself. He wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. This isn’t the same thing that happened to Nadia.”

“You think so?”

I nodded.

“If that meth house hadn’t already burned to the ground, I’d do it myself,” he said. “I want to find the freaks who gave him whatever ruined him, and I want to kill them with my bare hands.” A tear slipped from his cheek and landed on the sleeve of his shirt, and he swiped the backs of his hands across his face and turned his back to me. His shoulders started to shake.

Crap. Was it what I’d said? Hesitantly, ready for him to shrug me off, I reached out. My hand hovered close to his back, not knowing if it should land or circle a few times. Then he gulped in a deep breath, and my palm collided with his body. He relaxed, the knotted muscles of his back going loose under my touch.

“Thanks, Lela,” he whispered.

I left my hand there, scared to keep touching him, scared to pull away, until the bell rang and yanked us back into the churning routine of our day.