“I can’t believe he was dead that whole time. Rotting out there.” Bree’s expression is cool, no change. “Everybody kept saying it was the Mumbler, cleaning house. I figured the cops would drag him out of a meth bust down in Portland or something. Remember how he had his stomach pumped twice freshman year because they caught him popping pills?”

From the corner of my eye, I see green, blue, white, and yellow, cruising downhill: the hoodies. Green Hood is doing some white-boy rapping, the latest song you can’t get away from, freestyling here and there, stupid stuff to make his crew laugh. He drags his heels, doing a slow drive-by past the enclosure, pointing to each girl, including Hazel, and a few of the boys, “What up, bitch—bitch—bitch—bitch—”

Bree’s sneaker meets his back wheel, hard. He swivels, almost spills. Planting his feet, he whips around to face us, just in time to see me laugh. Loud.

Bree stares back at him, her mouth a hard line that doesn’t quite qualify as a smile. “Aidan.” His name is a quiet, condescending dare, all of us waiting to see what he’ll do. “Be good. Or I’ll drive a stick so far in your spokes you’ll never get it out.”

Everybody’s seeing this, even middle schoolers. Eager eyes, laughter barely held behind bitten lips. Green Hood’s sophomore status, manhood, everything’s on the line. He’ll retaliate, has to, but instead, some intense, Jupiter-like gravity drags him back into the saddle. One final, inadequate, “Bitch,” and then he pedals off, low over the handlebars, his boys following at a distance, like maybe if they hang back, nobody will think they’re together.

Cloudburst of giggles and whispers. Sage watches the hoodies go. “Damn. He’s not going to do wheelies outside your house anymore.”

“I’ll live.” Bree looks at me, shrugs. “Aidan knows Sage goes out with Trace.”

“And he knows Trace will stomp his ass if he messes with us.” Sage finishes her breakfast, brushes off her mittens as the bus turns into the drive. “So. Think he killed himself? Gavin?”

Bree watches as the doors accordion open, the driver a stolid, humped shape swathed in a PDHS purple sateen baseball jacket. “I think he was killing himself for a long time.”

I have the closest thing to an in-school Kincaid sighting yet. I’m using the old bathroom in the math-science wing, a place that feels left over from some 1950s incarnation of PDHS: metal trough sink with rust stains; a long mirror flecked with corrosion. I study my reflection as I wash my hands; after days of rinse-and-repeat shampooing, my hair looks less Christmas Barf and more My Little Pony. In a month, I may reach Cotton Candy in a Drainage Ditch.