His eyes go wide as we both hear the distinct sound of another crack.

I expect the glass to break beneath him, but it doesn’t. It actually seems to be holding his weight. He blows out his cheeks with relief.

‘Told you,’ he says, taking another step forward just as the whole thing shatters.

‘Kellen!’ I yelp, rushing forward to try to grab him.

‘Zach!’ he calls as his hand slips through my fingers.

I hear the deathly screeching of students below as glass rains around them. The sound of a table breaking. Looking through the broken skylight, I see the yearbook on the floor. Kellen lies beside it.

‘Kellen!’ I scream down at his motionless body.

It’s OK. He can’t die. He said so … He’s fine, he has to be.

And that’s when I see a Sycamore banner go up in flames. One of the candelabras has been knocked over as people run in all directions.

Flames begin to engulf the room, chaos ensues and –

‘Zach?’ Kellen says, shaking me awake. ‘Are you having a nightmare?’

‘Huh?’ I say, disorientated. We’re still on the rooftop. ‘What happened?’

‘You fell asleep.’ He chuckles. ‘You were out for, like, an hour and a half.’

‘I was?’ I say, rubbing my eyes. ‘But that all felt so real.’

‘What did?’ he says, tilting his head, intrigued.

I look across at the skylight. ‘You weren’t planning on standing on that, were you?’

‘On the glass?’ he says. ‘Zach, that’s like a twenty-metre drop – do you think I’m insane?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Good, I mean … I’m just glad you’re OK.’

He smiles. ‘You missed the crowning ceremony. Tiffany and Ethan again.’

‘No surprises there,’ I say. ‘So nothing’s gone awry? The pig’s blood?’

‘It’s still hanging,’ he replies, searching it out. ‘So far so good.’

But then he looks down at his phone again, as if expecting something. He’s been doing this all day. There’s something he’s not telling me. I decide to face it head-on.

‘What’s up? You seem kinda distracted.’

‘Huh?’ He looks back up from his phone. ‘Distracted how?’

‘You keep checking that like you’re expecting something.’

‘Oh,’ he says, clicking his phone to lock it. ‘It’s nothing. I guess it’s just this whole situation. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind if we were stuck here forever.’

That takes me aback. ‘Why would you say that? What could possibly make you want to stay here? We should already be graduates!’

He pauses for a moment. ‘You know how people say love is unconditional?’

‘Yeah?’ I have no idea where he’s going with this.

‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s really true.’ He leans back on his hands and stares up at the sky. ‘Because life is full of conditions, isn’t it? And when those conditions aren’t met? People leave, people walk out, people change their mind.’

‘Is that something that happened to you?’ I ask as delicately as I can.

‘Nobody walked out on me,’ he says. ‘But Dad’s no longer with us.’