“He left a long time ago, before they moved to Pender. Kincaid said something like his mom doesn’t want him talking to his dad, something like that? Anyway. I guess Kincaid finally got sick of her shit after she started ragging on him about coming home smelling like weed, something stupid like that, and told her off. She kicked his ass to the curb, changed the locks.”

I think of the Sweet Ms. Savage story Kincaid made up the night we blitzed Perfect, how he wove bits of his own truth into it—the ventriloquist dummy son, the mom gone sour. I push my hair back, giving a sharp laugh. “Well, I get why he hardly goes to school anymore. And the whole not-having-a-phone thing makes a lot more sense.”

“Look. Kincaid wants to do his thing, and his mom doesn’t like that. They’ll figure it out.”

“It’s getting below freezing at night now,” I say. Trace feels the burned spot on the tip of his tongue. “Do you know that when he’s not crashing on your couch, he sleeps out there in those creepy woods? He made a shelter.”

“Clarabelle . . .” Trace exhales. “He doesn’t want people getting all up in his shit. Okay? That’s why he didn’t tell you in the first place.” He steps down onto the flat bottom. “Trust me on this. He doesn’t want you to fix it for him.”

Kincaid never turns up at the park. I go home alone in the late afternoon, defeated, missing him, without a clue how to help, knowing I have to, even if that’s “getting in his shit.”

When I come through the door, Dad says hey from over by the counter, coating chicken in bread crumbs. I go to the fridge for something to drink, looking back when he says, “You get takeout yesterday?” Jerks his head toward the table. “Found that in the car.”

It’s a fortune cookie. Kincaid left me his again. I break into it immediately, hoping for any nugget of wisdom.

For good health, eat more Chinese food.

Twenty-Two

WE THOUGHT THE war was over.

As I walk to my first class, a kid opens his locker and is lost in an avalanche of orange and black Ping-Pong balls. They bounce and skitter across the hallway, ricocheting off people’s legs and feet, rolling into open classroom doors. One girl steps on them, goes crashing down onto her armload of books.

Spille’s room reeks of liquor. Like, worse than usual. Everyone’s whispering about it as he harrumphs, gaze glued to his desk as he tries to find his place in Friday’s stream of thoughts about the Civil War. One smart-ass asks to open a window, gets barked at.