It doesn’t matter if people really believe or not—it’s an affirmation of superstitious dread that does nothing to improve the gloom of Spille’s bourbon-clouded lecture, or distract from the misery-guts drama queens rushing out of classrooms to Guidance, where they can gasp about how much they miss Ivy already and how it really makes you think—at least until they’ve killed most of the school day and get to go home. In my last school, two seniors died in a car accident; these same people were there, behaving the same way. Different faces, different names, same opportunistic bullshit.

Not like Landon, who’s broken. Her absence isn’t mentioned. Who knows when she’ll be back?

And everybody’s seen the pics, courtesy of some Raging Elk whose ass must be suspension-bound for uploading them to his social media and tagging half the school before telling his coach what he found on yesterday’s practice run.

Crackenback’s tan 1971 VW Beetle, parked blocking the cross-country trail, bookended between two trees so tightly that the front bumper cut a visible gash into the bark.

Then, the money shot: the driver’s-side door hanging open for a close-up of the stick shift, sheathed in a giant orange condom with a perky black tip.

Seventh-period assembly. Wish I could close myself up in my locker, in the peaceful dark, and wait it out.

The bus stop was worse than awkward this morning. Whatever anger Bree felt yesterday seems to have cooled into a barren, icy wasteland between us, with her barely acknowledging my presence, and me too emotionally sapped to argue my case, if I even wanted to. Sage, stuck in the middle, eventually gave up on conversation and looked at her phone instead. I don’t want it to be like this, and I have no idea how to make it better. Hazel knows something’s happened, and spent her time studying me, like the answer might be obvious on my face, some freakish overnight transformation into her sister’s worst enemy.

Now, as I reach the gym, I don’t look for anyone to sit with, just troop up the bleachers, watching for Kincaid, trying not to compare myself to my memory of Landon up here, toe tracing the air as she waited for the girl she might never see alive again. Wonder if this is my future here. Life without friends, because I botched it. And a boyfriend who may or may not exist.