Her message appeared: I didn’t. It says it has to change hands at a maximum of every fourteen hours so Eli has it now because we couldn’t exactly hand it off at 5 am or whatever. I’m taking it back this morning then we’ll figure out what to do.

Ugh. Why were they playing along with this thing? It was just a little … computer? And the whole thing surely a game.

We should put it back where we found it. Don’t you think?

We?

He deserved that. But it was a dumb thing to even be involved with.

You? he wrote.

I guess. Not sure. Eli won’t want to. Seems into it. But it’s weirding me out.

So they were pals now, she and Eli? Had Eli gone to her house?

For a second Marwan wished he’d engaged because it would have meant more access to Eden. He had always regretted not saying anything to her after the accident. But now wasn’t the time.

Gotta go, she wrote.

Wait!

What?

He hated that this thing was freaking her out when she already had enough to deal with.

I can take a turn, he wrote. Only fair. I’ll find you at your locker. Just tell me where it is.

He added his phone number then pocketed his phone and got on his bike and rode off down the sidewalk without sitting. He was maybe a little pleased with himself. After all, he needed to take it if he was going to be the one to get rid of it.

Eden

EDEN

There was no sign of Eli by her locker.

Marwan was nearby talking to some of his friends, occasionally making urgent eye contact with her. She’d never noticed how intense his eyes were before, like they somehow allowed you to see further into him than most people’s eyes did. A deep end where others were shallow.

They were a nice-enough-seeming bunch of guys he was with—she’d always liked Kartik—and she wasn’t sure why she didn’t know any of them that well after so many years of being in the same neighborhood and school except that she didn’t know any guys especially well. They made her nervous. The one exception was Mark, an old family friend. And maybe now Marwan?

She checked her phone, decided to follow Marwan on Instagram.

But there was still no sign of Eli, and if they didn’t do the handoff now, it would complicate things. At nine—the fourteen-hour mark—they were all in different classes.

Where are you? she texted Eli. Running out of time.

The warning bell for first period rang, and the hallways started to empty; locks clicked shut, conversations wound down or got paused or drifted away.

Marwan broke away from his friends and walked toward her.

She checked her phone.

He checked his. Did something.

She checked hers; he’d followed her back.