She glances over her shoulder. Catches me staring. The receiver feels wrong in my hands all of a sudden. I fumble it down to the cradle. It’s been a minute since I finished the last call. My fingers work to make up time. Dialing the next call. Over and over until I reach the bottom of the sheet.

Then she’s there. Right in front of the desk. “Oh, hey, Kimberly.” My voice sounds like shredded wheat. She thinks I’m an idiot.

“Zeke, I was wondering—” She pauses. “Is this an okay time to ask a question?”

She’s so thoughtful. She pays attention to everything going on around the room, and what everybody needs.

“Sure, of course.” When I turn my face up to her, to show I’m listening, she smiles. Wow, that smile. A shower of feelings crashes over me.

“Do you maybe need a new notepad?” She has a fresh yellow legal pad in her hand, like the one I’m already using. Which, I now notice, is full. I’ve covered all the pages, and my notes from the last call are scrawled straight on the cardboard backing.

I laugh out loud. “Uh, yeah. Looks like I do.”

Kimberly laughs along with me. Those sparkling eyes.

I’d better be careful. I can’t go falling for anyone right now. This movement is bigger than me. I feel the call with it. Can’t walk away. Don’t have time to get dizzy.

ROBB

DeVante comes to my room. “I got your text about the vigil,” he says. “I’m going down to the Black House now. You wanna come?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I glance at my phone. It’s six-thirty already. The vigil starts at seven.

I tug a few scraggy strips from the spiral rings of my notebook. They crumple easily into a tiny paper nugget. I toss it across at Tyrell. It lands in the gutter of his math textbook. He looks up and pops out an earbud. Just the one. Always.

“Yo, T, you coming to the vigil?”

“Tyrell,” Tyrell says. “No, I have too much work.” He sticks the earbud back in.

I expected as much. I turn to DeVante. “Let’s bounce.”

A large group of students gathers at the fountain. We’re early. We get near the front. This is where most of the campus demonstrations take place, on the cobblestone plaza surrounding this fountain.

Behind me, the crowd is growing and growing. The glow of the candles starts at the front, one flame passed from wick to wick. It spreads back and back. It looks like Christmas Eve. At the far edges, the people who don’t have candles switch on their phone lights and hold them to the night sky. We are surrounded by bluish-white light, like an aura.