“Did you google them? Ricky, Dabney, Gavin?”

“Gavin OD’d.”

“Nobody knows that. He’d disappeared last October. They just found his body two weeks ago. There wasn’t much left.” He watches as I reach for my phone. “Won’t work out here. It’s a dead spot.”

“Of course it is.”

“Later. Look it up. You’ll see.”

“I’ll be reading later.” I was thinking out loud, but Kincaid looks a question. “A Clockwork Orange. For Hyde’s class.”

“Nice. ‘Duality is the ultimate reality.’”

“What?”

“Anthony Burgess. He said that. Man’s a visionary.” I nod, hoping it doesn’t show that I didn’t recognize the author’s name. Better dig myself a hole and turn some serious pages before Hyde drops the next quiz. “I can take you to the railroad bridge sometime.”

I grab on to that I—not we—and don’t let go. “What’s out there?”

He smiles, slings his hand back to hang the board over his shoulder. “Make a believer out of you.” He ambles down the trail in the direction of town, passing beneath the tree canopy, his coat becoming shadow, his hair birch bark. I don’t move, thinking this is the end, he’ll fade into nonexistence again, but his voice carries: “You coming?”

We don’t walk together, but fall just short of it, Kincaid knowing the way, me moving at my own pace, not sure what this is, us together. Trying to gauge if he’s at all nervous to be alone with me, if he even remembers that I’m here.

As he walks, he slides his hand over tree trunks, touchstones somehow confirming that we’re following his invisible path. We’ve lost the trail, or so it seems. Even when we come out on a footpath, we don’t stay on it, instead crunching off into brush and brambles, my clothes snagging on branches heavy with berries so shiny and red they must be poisonous. A small maple leaf, burnished half-gold, half-green, falls into his hair and snags. I like how it looks, so I leave it.

Skate park.

No Sage or Bree. I watch Kincaid hit the concrete on his board and coast over to run the circuit with the others. Not as big a crowd as last night, but something tells me it’ll grow as darkness falls and parents come home from work, flushing kids out into the neighborhood for breathing room.

I snag an empty bench, pulling out my phone to see if I’ve got bars. Over at the playground, a weird whining sound comes from the play tunnel, where a few stoners block either end, leaning and smoking and giving each other shit.