I study the trash can. “But it could be important. I mean…why else would he keep it? It looks like… I don’t know.” I walk over to the trash can and peer inside, but the photo is lost in a sea of paper. “What if someone was threatening him?”

Kane lets out a snort, as if he doesn’t believe me. Then he realizes I’m serious. “Hail, come on. Do you realize what you’re saying?”

It’s true. Declan was too good for that. “Well, maybe—”

“Hail! Enough. It won’t change that Declan is gone. You can’t dwell on the details. You think rehashing everything about that night will help you? How? What’ll help you is moving on. You shouldn’t have bailed on all your activities this year. You clearly need something else to occupy your mind.”

I stare at him. “All right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

We reach the door to the gymnasium. He puts up a hand as if he’s going to touch my arm, but pulls back and rakes his hair behind his ear. He stoops to look into my eyes. “You going to be okay?”

I force a smile. “Yeah,” I say.

“No freaking out on me now, okay? If you feel bad, text me or something. Okay?”

Text me or something. My hero.

I pull open the door to the gymnasium. It feels as if everyone turns and looks at me. Balls stop bouncing, conversations end, bodies freeze. The only sound is the squeak of my sneakers on the polished floor. Wilbur tells me to sit on the bleachers for the rest of the period and shouts at everyone, “Move it!”

Class resumes, life resumes, everything goes on but Hailey Ward. And when I look back for Kane, he’s already gone.

478 Days Before

When school started up, it meant that dance started up again.

My mom had it in her head that I could be a professional gymnast or dancer. Why else had she brought me to Grace Gymnastics & Dance Center four days a week since the time I was three?

I’d started with gymnastics, but quickly moved to dance when I fell behind my teammates. I didn’t possess Luisa and Nina’s flexibility. My mother would watch me from the observation room, and sometimes she’d look disappointed. Practice makes perfect, she told me time and again. But all of that practice only made it clear that there were some moves I’d never be able to do. Like a split. My legs simply didn’t go that way. Some things were a matter of natural talent.

The further I went with dance, the more inadequate I felt.

“You did just fine,” Luisa said, massaging my shoulder as I slinked toward our cubbies and started to untie my pointe shoes.