“Your sister?”

“Hard to depend on someone when they’re in outer space.”

I stumble a little—it’s hard to walk and float at the same time—and he reaches out to steady me.

“Thanks.”

I lean into Drew, just a little. He smells like tea tree. I take a deep breath and he laughs softly.

“Are you … smelling me?”

I nod. “I love tea tree.”

“Yeah, my ex got me this bougie soap and I’m kind of hooked on it.”

“It’s nice.” I take a deep breath of cold, fresh air. It clears my head more than I want it to.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Drew? Or just an ex with good taste in soap?”

“Nope. Just the ex. Why?”

“You’re cute and nice and have wonderful little pills. What’s not to like?”

“What, indeed?”

“I’m not hitting on you,” I say.

“I know. College boyfriend—got it.”

We pass under an enormous tree that’s beginning to turn, bright red and orange creeping onto the leaves, like spilled paint.

“We don’t get this in Cali,” I say. One of the leaves floats down and Drew reaches out and grabs it, then holds it out to me. Bright red.

“A genuine Boston souvenir,” he says.

I smile, take it. Some things are pretty when they die.

“I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”

“It’s just a leaf,” he says, laughing.

“Don’t be mean to my leaf. She’s beautiful.”

He runs a finger over one of my leaf’s dark veins. “She is.”

We start walking again. “You miss LA?” he asks.

I nod. “I mostly hate it here. No offense.”

“Hey, if I had to leave paradise, I’d be pretty pissed, too.” He frowns a little. “So you’re going back? After graduation?”

“My boyfriend and I … We had this plan. I’m supposed to move in with him. Next summer.”

Drew raises his eyebrows, two dark slashes. Very dramatic, those eyebrows. I like them.

“Supposed to?”

I shrug. “We’ll see.”

It’s all mixed up now. He wasn’t at the clinic, but he was there, almost every second, after the wave. And I miss him. But I also don’t. It’s nice not to have someone look at you with a question in their eyes all the time.

“What about your sister?”

“She’ll be in school. Annapolis. MIT if she has bad luck. Harvard. Whatever.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. We aren’t as close as we used to be. The older we got, the more—she’s like this intergalactic being, you know? And she’s always on my ass. Watching me. I don’t know. I love her. She’s just—if you ever meet her, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And then our parents … It’s all fucked. Just fucked.”

“I bet it’s a lot to process.”