“Where is he?” Marwan asked.

“I don’t know,” Eden said. “He’s not answering my texts. What’s your second-period class?”

“Chem lab,” he said.

“Okay, so at, like, ten minutes to nine, go to the third floor bathroom by the lab.”

She checked her phone.

He checked his.

“I’ll tell Eli to do the same. He’s in my first class. He’s probably just late.”

“What if he doesn’t show?” He was still looking at his phone, and it was irritating.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her phone.

Julian had just posted a photo of himself in the music room even though you weren’t supposed to have phones in classrooms.

She put hers in her locker reluctantly, then picked it up and peeked at it one more time, put it on airplane, then put it back down on the tiny white “bearskin phone rug” that her father had given her for Christmas last year. She almost hadn’t brought it to school this year, but that seemed sadder, somehow, than looking at it every day.

She could make up an excuse to just drop by Mr. M’s room? But what if he asked her about the message from yesterday? And what would she even say to Julian?

The second bell rang.

No time.

“Don’t worry, okay?” Marwan said. “We’ll just put it back when he gets here. I’ll do it.”

“But there are probably classes in Mr. McKay’s room all morning,” Eden said. “So it’s not that simple.”

Anjali appeared and grabbed Eden by the arm. “Come on. We’re late.”

Eden shrugged at Marwan and let Anjali pull her along.

Anjali said, “What were you two talking about? I didn’t even know you knew each other.”

“Nothing, really,” Eden said as they arrived at their classroom. “But we do.”

“Nice of you to join us,” Mrs. Whitney said as they slid into the room. She was just closing the door.

“Sorry,” Eden said.

“So sorry,” Anjali said.

Eden took her seat and turned to check the back row for Eli.

He wasn’t there.

Out the windows a train went past painfully slowly—probably track work. A commuter woman in a pink top and black sunglasses seemed to be looking right at Eden, though probably she couldn’t see all the way into the room.

What would Eden—they?—do if Eli didn’t turn up or text?

Go to the principal? And say what?

Go to Eli’s house after school?

She didn’t even know where he lived.

She pictured her phone, alone in her dark locker. She’d check it between first and second periods, even though you weren’t supposed to. In all likelihood, it would light up with apologetic texts of explanation from Eli. Sorry! Overslept! or something dumb.

Another train crawled past in the opposite direction. Looked like the same woman, but no, it couldn’t be.