She directs me to a house, and I pull up in front of the gate, lowering my window to punch in the code she recites with clear boredom. The black iron gates slide open, and I creep up the driveway that’s illuminated by lights and lined by large trees. The drive circles around a landscaped patch of greenery, so I steer around it and stop in front of her front door.

Her house is average size for the neighborhood, which is at least five times the size of mine. The outside lights are on but the inside looks still and quiet, not a single light on. I wonder how many rooms there are, how big Kaitlyn’s room is, how many people live here, how alone she feels in the grandness of the house.

She’s about to open her door but then pauses, her hand resting delicately on the handle. “We’ll fine-tune our plan tomorrow after school. Right now I just want a bath and bed.”

The silence of the car and darkness of the night suddenly feels heavy with all the words left unsaid, with this newfound, fragile truce we hold between us. “Are you sure you don’t want to get yourself checked?” I eye her injuries.

“I’m fine.” She pulls the handle and even though she must be sore, gets out of the car more gracefully than even I can sometimes manage.

She pauses before closing the door, ducking down to peer at me, but doesn’t quite look at me. “Um . . .” Her jaw works for a moment as she thinks through whatever’s on her mind. She meets my eyes, and whatever softness was on her face has disappeared. “Don’t drive to school tomorrow. And for God’s sake, don’t get dirty tomorrow or you’re not sitting in my car.”

Without so much as a good-bye, she closes my door with something slightly gentler than a slam, and marches up her front steps, opens the huge front door, and disappears into the house without a backward glance.

I sit there staring after her for only a few beats before I shake off whatever misplaced shock I’m feeling and drive away. I might have been delusional in thinking that she was going to thank me. That’s not the kind of relationship we have, and I can’t expect it to change over the span of a car ride. But even so, I can’t stop the tug of a smirk at my lips, or the bubbling excitement in my chest.

24

Aiden and I haven’t been at school since the video of his father trying to kill him went viral, so we had no idea how the students were going to react when we stepped into school Monday morning.

A lot of kids are scared of Aiden, but he’s friends with a lot of people, so he gets stopped almost every couple of seconds by people coming up to ask him about what happened. He barely deigns to give more than a few words answer before extracting himself from the conversation and doing his regular, brooding routine, with his hand wrapped securely around mine.