I stand on the stage watching everything move around me, but totally disconnected from it all. Nothing seems real. Rose-Brady gives her speech first, and then Anne. I don’t hear a word. People in the front row start to cry. On either side of me, I hear sniffles. I clench my hands into fists by my sides.

I’m so wound-up that I jump when a hand touches my shoulder. Rose-Brady stands in front of me.

“It’s your turn, May,” she whispers. She squeezes my shoulder. “I know this is hard.”

I press my lips together and nod.

I clutch my notebook to my chest as I walk up to the microphone, my heart beating a wild rhythm into my ears. Under it, the rest of the world is muted. I set the notebook down on the stand in front of me and open it. From stage right, Rose-Brady gives me a thumbs-up. I almost start to laugh.

My notebook is full of black ink and bullshit. I don’t need to read what I’m about to say, and I’m definitely not going to read the words written in here—all the fucking platitudes everyone wants to hear. I know what I’m going to say; I’ve recited the words so many times in my head that I’ve started dreaming them.

I clear my throat and it echoes through the crowded auditorium. I squint into the bright lights and see Zach sitting a bunch of rows back, flanked by Chim and Luce. What the fuck? They’re all whispering furiously to each other. If I had to guess, I’d bet they’re talking about me.

I force them out of my mind. I take a deep breath and begin.

“Hi, everyone. My name is May. May McGintee. My brother, Jordan, died. He was my twin. You probably knew him as that genius kid. The one who took the PSAT and got a perfect score as a seventh grader. But he was more than that. He loved so many things—all kinds of music, indie bookstores, hanging with his friends—but playing the guitar was his passion. He loved it. He would practice for hours, with his friends from the jazz band, with me”—my voice breaks—“and even alone in his room. His guitar was part of him. It was more who he was than anything else at all.” I swallow hard. My fingers shake, and I grip the sides of the stand tight, trying to calm the fuck down. That first part is exactly like the speech I showed Rose-Brady.

I take a deep breath and push forward into the stuff that matters. The stuff that isn’t in that dumb notebook.