“It’s not fair for you to just leave me like this, you know,” I whisper to the empty chair that used to be hers. “Right when I need you the most. You shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have died.”

I stare at the chair for a long time, silent tears rolling down my face, a ball of anger hardening in my stomach.

When I go back up, I hear something coming from Mom and Dad’s room. Mom should be over the moon. She’s just gotten the biggest account of her career.

But through the crack under the door, I can hear her crying, too.

31

When I go back to school on Monday, something has changed.

People aren’t whispering about me anymore. They aren’t staring.

Instead, they look right past me in the hall. Like I’m invisible.

And somehow, this almost feels worse than the staring and the whispering. Because at least then I felt like I existed.

I tell myself I should be relieved. It’s better this way, right? Better to be invisible than to be a freak. Even Edie just stares forward in English class, pretending like I’m not sitting right beside her. Which is probably not that hard, because I don’t raise my hand or say anything all class. All day, actually.

Fina stays by my side as much as she can, like a bodyguard. At first, she still tries to pretend like everything is normal. She smiles and laughs and talks.

But everything is not normal, and when I don’t smile or laugh or talk back, she stops trying to make conversation. Her smile dims. We walk silently through the halls together.

At lunch, Fina makes another attempt. “See that girl?” she asks, taking out her sandwich and nodding to a tall girl across the room. “She’s in my social studies class. She’s really funny, actually. Maybe we could invite her to sit with us sometime.”

“Or you could just sit with her at lunch from now on if you wanted,” I say.

I don’t say it to be mean. I really, really don’t. I was just thinking that it would be good if Fina had some other friends. Friends who will laugh at her jokes and make her laugh, too. It’s bad enough that I heard Mom crying again last night. I don’t want to be responsible for making Fina sad, too. I don’t want her to be stuck on the dark side of the wall just because I am.

But when Fina looks at me, there are tears welling in her eyes. She picks up her tray, throws her trash away, and walks out of the cafeteria without a backward glance.

And as she disappears, I can’t help thinking that I might have just lost my only friend. The only person at school who actually still sees me.