The crystalline form of solid water is less dense than the liquid. That’s why ice floats. But it’s only slightly less dense. That’s why we say things like “the tip of the iceberg,” because they float low, and from above appear much smaller than they actually are.

Our altered school mascot was just the tip of today’s iceberg, and when it came to density, I was feeling far denser than anything in the universe at the moment.

I stared at the sleek, shiny black BMW, and kept hitting the lock button, watching the car flash and beep, flash and beep, still thinking there must be some mistake. Leo took the keys from me. Gave me a twisty grin and hit the unlock button. The locks thunked up.

“Duh,” he said in a voice that was slightly off-key.

“Right,” I said. “I don’t know where my head was at.” Which was true. Leo looked at me for just a moment longer, and let it go.

Now that I saw it—now that I knew the car was mine, the memory of it broke the surface. I remembered being inside it. I remembered driving it. And the memory of the near accident from last week? Now I remembered it in this car. My old Dodge was still there in my mind, too, but it had been shuffled lower in the deck.

Now I was feeling a rolling in my stomach. I thought I might be sick. Stupid, right? If this was an ’80s movie, I’m sure I’d be happy as a clam, and race around town with Marty McFly riding shotgun, and Ferris Bueller reclining in the back, breaking the fourth wall. But when weird crap happens in the real world, it’s not popcorn-friendly. It’s pretty damn terrifying.

“Hey, listen, I’m kind of zonked,” I told my friends. “I think maybe I’m coming down with something. I’m just gonna go home.”

I said my goodbyes and left in a car that could do zero to sixty in 3.1 seconds.

The stop sign at the first corner was blue. That hadn’t changed. Oddly, that was comforting. Still, my hands were shaking and my stomach still seizing, so I put on some music. My playlists were all the same as they had been, but now they sounded much better on the car’s high-quality sound system. I came to a full stop at the next stop sign, closed my eyes, and took a moment to balance myself atop the iceberg.