“Katie,” Mum said. “Do you have any idea where Rob is? This is Mrs. King on the phone. She says Robert didn’t come home last night.”

Mum’s face was brittle as she waited for my answer. But for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out something normal to say. Finally I yanked my jaw open and managed to squeak, “Rob?”

Mum nodded impatiently.

I cleared my throat, said, “Beats me,” and managed what I hoped was a normal shrug.

My mum told Rob’s mum that I was sorry but I had no idea where Robert might be. Then she wished Mrs. King luck tracking him down. I could tell Mum was trying to sound reassuring and calm. She said she was sure he’d turn up. Then she said something about teenage boys being naturally vexing, and laughed, ha-ha, as if Rob’s disappearance was a childish prank. But her face was not amused. She asked Mrs. King to keep us posted. Then she hung up.

Mum flashed me a quick look, then clicked back to her dog client and apologized for the wait.

While she went on discussing carpet stains, I felt myself go cold. I suddenly knew Rob was DEAD. I could feel it down deep in my frozen bones, the same way I’d known that my dad was dead. The feeling was identical.

Suddenly Mum was off the phone and rushing over to grab my shoulders. “Why do you look like that?” she practically yelled, pushing her face right up to mine. “Tell me!”

Her eyes got wider, her voice higher. “KATIE, WHAT IS IT?” She rubbed my icy hands so hard it hurt and said, “BREATHE!”

Wasn’t I breathing? I tried to inhale. Then I used every drop of air in my lungs to push out the words: “Rob’s dead.”

“Oh God! Oh God!” Mum wailed in a voice I remembered well. Then she was shaking me and asking question after question, fast, like arrows. “How do you know? Are you sure? What happened? Katherine, answer me! Oh God!”

The next thing I knew, the whole apartment was full of tears.

Jake

Any remaining grains of self-respect I may have had yesterday dissolved while I slept, and I woke up hating myself in the morning.

Not that self-loathing was entirely unfamiliar to me.

Countless mornings had begun with a similar sinking sensation: the recognition of myself in the flesh as compared to the person I am in my dreams. But today my gut sank even lower, knowing that my life as an invisible nerd was over—and my life as the kid most actively despised by the entire student body had begun.