“You’re going to love this.” He sounds as enthusiastic as the twelve-year-old I used to know. Totally geeked out over whatever he has to show me. “Seriously. You will. You’ll trip.”

“You keep saying I’ll love it, but I don’t even know what it is.”

“Okay.” He finishes tapping and turns to face me. The harsh glow of the light shows scraggly whiskers above his lip. His eyes glisten with the kind of joy normally reserved for Christmas morning. “You know I want to be a filmmaker. What am I saying? Of course you know. You’ve known that since we were five. Well, anyway, I’ve been working on a project the last week or so, and it’s really pretty amazing.”

“The last week…”

“Yeah. Think about it, Hunter.” He speaks with his arms spread wide, like a politician asking for my vote. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me. I mean I watch these movies, these documentaries that are streaming, and I think—wait, I better stop. I better say something else.”

“Say what?”

“I should say I’m sorry about Chloe. About what happened to her. You know she and I took trig together last year. We didn’t talk to each other for, I don’t know, like the first two months of the year. Then one day Mr. Klems came in, and he was wearing two different shoes. One was black and one was brown. Same style of shoe but different colors. We started laughing together, but no one else noticed. And then we just starting talking a lot before class. She just…well, not everyone in school is nice. You know, just decent. And Chloe always was. She treated everyone well. She must have told you we had class together.”

“I don’t think she did,” I say. “She knew you and I were friends.”

“Hmm. How does your head feel?” He studies me. “You’ve got a nasty bump there.”

“It’s better.” I reach up and gently touch it. The bandage is gone. “Still hurts. My neck and shoulders hurt some, too. But I’m just glad I’m not nauseated anymore.”

“That’s the worst.”

“Yeah. My memories haven’t come back.”

“That’s freaky. To have all those blanks.”

“Yeah, it is. I don’t know what I did that night.”

“Well, I just want to say I’m sorry. And it’s shitty the way some people are treating you. Tonight, at the vigil, what her mom said was totally out of line. I mean total bullshit. And people throwing stuff. It’s not right.”

“Thanks. Did the police talk to you? They’re pretty much talking to anybody who remotely knew Chloe.”

“They talked to me at school. I think they just went through the rosters and pulled every kid out who was in a class with her.”

“What did you tell them?”