I know Chaz is a little scared of me (I can be a lot, so I get it), which means I shouldn’t dive in right away. Small talk is in order.

“What’s IA?” I ask to fill the silence as we follow the lawn leading downhill from the shop building.

“Industrial arts.” He doesn’t sound too annoyed that I’m there. “That’s where they hold what any other school would call shop classes, but since we already have shop, it’s less confusing this way.”

“Um, since the shop building is all the industries, wouldn’t it make more sense to call that industrial arts and the other place shop?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Tell me you think wrapping utensils is an art, and I’ll tell you I have a girlfriend in Connecticut.”

Whoa. He didn’t. So much for my discretion.

“Has everybody heard?”

“No way. But Ma Elena told Leeza what she said to Gordo and—”

“Got it. Leeza’s your bestie.”

I’m suddenly grateful that cell phones don’t exist because “Girlfriend in Connecticut” would be a meme by now, and everyone in school would already be doing parodies. It’s a slim comfort that not everyone has to know all my business at once.

We are crossing the ball field, now empty of students, and shadowed in the gloaming. Chaz makes a surprising confession. “The IA building isn’t this way.”

“So … where are we going?”

My god, that came out flirty so fast, you’d think I’d met him on an app. But he misses the intonation. “The IA building …” he laughs. “We’re just taking the scenic route. This is my favorite spot on campus.”

“The ball field?” I didn’t picture Chaz as Sporty Spice, if you know what I mean, and I don’t bother hiding it.

“Hey now, I played Little League!” He’s not really defensive, just teasing. “I mean, I was terrible at things like catching a ball or throwing it, but I was fast—if a pitcher ever walked me, I could run like a rabbit from base to base if my teammates got actual hits.”

“Trust me. I’m not throwing stones … or balls. I mean, please.” He just laughs as he climbs the bleachers, waves me up.

Far away, the lake is gleaming silver, just lighter than the dark fields around it. “That,” he said, “is why I come this way. Most of the time, all you can see is the campus itself—it’s everything, but up here, there’s more. It’s a reminder the world beyond this school is so much bigger and more beautiful than the world inside it. And in a month, that world is mine.”

He sounds so hopeful, it hardly jibes with the suicide story. But what do I know? How can I tell what might change this in the next few days? And what to say?