He blanches, and for a brief moment I think he might be sick. Then he touches the spot on his cheek where there’s an ugly bruise on the photo, the busted lip. The resemblance is there, certainly. But side by side, it’s clear the dead boy and the living one are not identical. They’re close enough that if you were friends with one and passed the other on the street, you might do a double take, maybe even raise your hand in greeting, but if he turned, you would realize your mistake. The boy we’re looking at, the living one, is Colin.

He shakes his head but says nothing.

I pull out the picture on the beach—the happy son and parents.

He holds his breath, looking between Jay’s photo and the family. Something flickers across his brow. Does he realize how good he had it? Everything he gave up?

I make a show of comparing the two photos, holding each on either side of his cheeks.

“I don’t know.” I turn to Oliver. “It would suck to be this guy.” I shake the photo of Jay. “But then again, I wouldn’t be caught dead dressed in all matching clothes with my parents, so…”

An angry flush creeps up his neck.

“Too soon?” I say.

Oliver checks his watch. I glance at the small video camera in the corner, calculating how long we have before Truman hears my message and is barreling down the hallway.

“No comment?” I arch an eyebrow. “All right then, let’s start at the beginning.” I smile at him. “How about the day you were accepted to UGA?”

A flicker of something on his face.

“How did you feel?”

He winds the string from his sweater around his finger.

“Come on,” I say. “This is an easy one. They’re only going to get harder.”

He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “Excited, I guess.” He stares at the table. Maybe he sees his hands shaking as he opened the envelope, himself reading the fateful sentence, maybe even his feet leaving the floor as he gave a tiny leap of joy.

“What about your parents?”

He shrugs.

“Were they excited?” I make my voice cheerier than I feel. “I bet they were so proud. Your dad—”

A sputtered, coughing noise. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “he was thrilled.”

“Because he went to UGA.” I lean forward. This is something I can relate to. “And wanted you to follow in his footsteps.”

He blinks, and I realize I’ve tapped into something that runs deeper than Jay.

In all the various molds and models he’s cast himself into over the years—teachers, coaches, fraternity brothers—his father’s the first. The one underneath it all. The person he’s striving to be, trying to impress. For Colin, the beginning isn’t Jay. The beginning is his father.