But today I look. Closely. Is Madeline walking among them? Could her hair be another color now? Could she have changed her mind and decided to resurface on campus, blowing everything in my life sky-high?

Given the details she put in the book, could she have committed a murder? Or does she know the murderer?

What else is she capable of, then?

And what does she have in mind for me if she knows I stole her book?

“Connor.”

I freeze among the streaming lines of students. They ripple around me like I’m a boulder in a river. Bulked in their winter coats, phones to their ears or in front of their faces. I look behind me in the direction I heard my name called.

It’s Lance coming toward me. He’s almost sixty and has been teaching creative writing at Commonwealth for nearly thirty years. When he was young, he published a number of poems, some even in prestigious journals around the country. But the well apparently ran dry a while ago. I’m not even sure he writes anymore. Lance’s moods fluctuate like spring weather, and I never know which version of him I’ll encounter. He may speak about something that occurred in his classroom in a self-aggrandizing way, or he may bemoan his own laziness and lack of focus. Every once in a while when I pass him in the hallway, he ignores me for no apparent reason. So I always approach him cautiously and follow the cues.

“You look a little ragged,” he says when he reaches me, shaking my hand. We start walking side by side. Lance is shorter than I am by an inch or two, and he’s grown a little bulkier through the middle with each passing year. He’s never been married, never had a steady partner as far as I know, and even though they’re good friends, Preston has told me he thinks Lance sits at home and drinks too much. On more than one occasion, I’ve smelled liquor on his breath early in the morning. At least once a year, he misses a few days due to the “flu” or a “nasty cold” that won’t let him get out of bed, which I’ve grown to suspect is code for him being on a bender, a debilitating combination of alcohol and depression.

We’ve socialized more in the five years since Emily and Jake died. Two single men passing the time by going to a sports bar, eating wings, and watching basketball. I never wanted my life to go that way, but those are the cards that were slapped down on the table in front of me.

“Champagne,” I say. “Gets me every time.”

“I hear you. I’ve been trying to cut back on drinking. That’s my New Year’s resolution. One of them.”