For my twelfth birthday, Mom came home from Brazil and threw me a party. Gaby, Rebecca, Tristan. Emma, Charlotte. Cristina was there. Tristan’s dad came, and he and Mom weren’t fighting for once. A couple of Mom’s friends, Gloria and Anna, who have known me since I was born, came, too. Anyway, there were all these people around the big table in the formal dining room overlooking the ocean. Mom and Gloria were laughing at something Tristan said, and Rebecca and Emily were having a thumb war, and Cristina was showing me how to make my glass sing by running my finger around the edge. Mom let us use her set of fancy crystal goblets, one of the only things she has left from her parents, who both died before I was born.

What I remember most from that night isn’t the presents or the world’s greatest chocolate cake. What I remember is the sound. Voices talking and laughing, the ringing of the glasses, especially once everyone started making their goblets sing. This, I remember thinking, is the sound of happiness. Of family.

What I hear now is neither of those things. All I hear is the slapping of my sneakers on the sidewalk and the pounding of my heart. Fog is coming in from the ocean in big creeping clouds, and the temperature is dropping. As I get closer to the science building, the only other person I see is a student hurrying toward a dorm beyond the parking lot. It’s Friday evening and the campus is emptying out. I’m alone.

Alone except for Mattie. I glance over my shoulder and see that she’s running after me. I make a quick right and head toward the student union.

“Wait!” Her voice is ragged.

I shouldn’t have turned around again. Because when I do, I see her face. And even though she said mean things to me, I don’t want her to be this scared. I slow down. I can hear the sound of that birthday dinner, the sound of family like an echo in my ears. Matilde Gómez is, right now, the closest thing to family I have here in the mountains. We need to stick together. We need a plan.

“We need a plan,” Mattie shouts.

I turn around. And go splat on the sidewalk. Sprawling like a baby bird just learning how to fly. One knee and the opposite hand land with a crack.

She rushes forward and helps me up. “You’re bleeding.” My palm is scraped and dotted with tiny bits of gravel. A splotch of blood drips down my wrist. I pull up the leg of my jeans. More blood on my knee. She digs in her backpack. “Here.” She takes a wad of Band-Aids. “D.A.D. supplies come in handy again.”