I don’t, actually. The last place I remember seeing it was at Ms. Silverthorn’s, which I guess I may have to start thinking of as home if the school even allows it. We head back to Faculty Row, but Ernie begs off. He can’t risk yet another unsanctioned off-campus excursion. I tell him to wait at the edge of school grounds while I retrieve it, and he does, looking a little lost. What will school feel like with Chaz suddenly gone?

Trudging up Faculty Row, I picture ASA in my wake. Assuming I disappeared there the moment I arrived here, what did they think happened? And what will they do next? Will they hold the drama club banquet without me? And what about prom and graduation? Did I improve life for Chaz and Ernie but ruin senior year for my friends?

I’m way down this rabbit hole when I hear Ernie’s voice in the distance. I turn to look back just as I process what he’s shouting.

“VAN!”

I see Buckman’s van too late, and somehow, the seconds are not mere seconds but a gooey morass of time in which my mind races, but my body does not. I understand that she will hit me, that it is going to hurt, that I can’t stop it, and, oh my god, I really am going to die before I was ever born.

There’s no stopping it. The blow is so hard, so complete, I don’t even see stars.

Even the Space-Time Continuum

Even the Space-Time Continuum

Ms. Silverthorn is looking down at me with real concern. “I called EMS. You wouldn’t wake up!”

Her hair is sleek, a perfect weave, and her eyes are rimmed in familiar crinkles. My head hurts, but my knees do not, and I get it instantly: it’s the 2020s, for the second time in my life.

I’m just going to sit here and howl for a few minutes. Everyone looks so freaked out, but there’s no chance of me explaining yet. They keep asking what hurts and if I know where I am, which makes me laugh and cry, and seriously I am a mess. The crowd parts to let Cheng in. It is so nice to be held that I can almost forget that my head feels like a hovel after a wrecking ball.

Cheng walks me to the nurse’s office, with one arm around me and the other keeping me steady. It’s sweet and totally overkill. “I’m fine. I am!”

But he doesn’t loosen his grip. (And, really, I don’t want him to.) “Yeah? Let’s ask the nurse. I’m not letting go till then.” The mixture of worry and protectiveness in his voice slays me.