The houses along the street are all seven shades of derelict. Brittle grass that has never seen a mower. Plastic toy trucks and doll heads scatter like dead leaves. But still, every single one is decorated for the holidays. String lights, wreaths, a blow-up snowman. Decaying pumpkins from Halloween. But the front stoop and windows of Colin’s house are empty. Nothing hangs from the door or blinks on display in the yard. Soulless, I think. It’s a house without a soul.

But there were books.

I swallow a sharp intake of breath, and Ben takes his eyes off the road a second to look at me. His expression falters, and I assume he’s forgotten for a moment about my scars.

“So what do you think?” he asks as we turn back onto MLK.

I exhale the breath I forgot I was holding. I think of Colin’s smile in the photograph on the beach. The way Florence clutched his shirt. The proud lines of his father’s shoulders. Parents who would do anything for their son. Parents who built a safe nest in the suburbs, charted a map for his life—the right college, fraternity, job—and then ran behind him with outstretched arms to protect him from falling, from failing. But when it was time for him to fly away, his wings were clipped and stunted from never having to test them. I think of Cicero: “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” Colin left his books, does that mean he left his soul behind? I drum my fingers on the windowsill. I think: But it’s not just that. It’s the books themselves. They feel familiar in a way that they shouldn’t: Plato’s Republic and Trial and Death of Socrates, Aristotle’s Politics, Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, Machiavelli’s Prince, Ethics in Practice, Criminal Law, and Universe: Stars and Galaxies. I think of parties, lake houses, and girls. I think of Katie Coleman, Jay’s sudden good grades, and Michael and Jay’s last fishing trip when Jay was supposedly writing a stellar philosophy essay. I think of students signing false names on attendance sheets. And I think of the second phone. The other number. The one Jay called so many times in the hours before he died. I think of the lies Colin told his father, stories of life at Kap-O, parties, girls, and the lake. The lake where Jay spent his last weekend with Michael. The one place we haven’t looked.

I think, If I’m right, I can’t tell Ben. Not yet.

I say: “I don’t know.”

The fraternity’s broad brick face lurks at the edge of my vision, shimmers black and red, mirror images reflected on a body of water.

I don’t look at him when I ask: “Do you have Colin’s cell phone number?”

Seventeen

Sunday, December 8, noon