He leans toward me and rests his helmet on my head. I put my arms around him. He smells like fabric softener and toast and jam. “I’m gonna see you real soon.” But that’s as far as I get before I break. I hold on to him, my eyes blurring. I rub his back, wanting him to make a noise, maybe to say Bao Bao, but he is eerily quiet.

“He’s tired,” my mom says gently, as if reading my mind.

I nod, but I suspect it’s more than that. He knows something’s up. He knows this isn’t a normal day, and I am pretty sure his silent stillness is an indication of his confusion. He can’t possibly imagine the change this day is going to bring to his life, and when I think of what it’s going to feel like when he figures it out, it’s more than I can bear.

I’m glad when I hear the tap of Cammie’s horn outside; it’s too hard to stand here watching the last moments. Wordlessly I hug my parents and, with a last regretful glance at Jonah, I head out.

The day passes with all the speed of a glacier in slow motion. In the late morning, my mother texts: On our way home. Nothing else.

It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what her brevity signifies. What must it have been like for them, saying goodbye to Jonah, however he handled it (was he upset?). What must it have been like for them to get in the car and drive away. To put mile after mile after mile between them and the boy they love so tenderly and fiercely.

Unable to face lunch with my friends and Hunter, whom I haven’t yet told about Jonah and don’t particularly want to right now, and presumably unwelcome in the library, I spend my lunch period in the choir room, plucking out the tune on the piano for a solo piece I’m going to audition for in the new song we’re working on. By the end of the period, I’m starving. An unlikely salvation comes in the form of a delicious slice of Black Forest cake, which Mrs. Padgett brings in from the teachers’ lounge and offers me, saying she already had a piece but Mr. Cohen pushed another one at her as she was leaving.