We all nod. I sneak a glance at Mia, who is very happy to be sitting with the eighth graders. She’s paging through the new practice questions.

Coach Pearlman gives us each a high five on our way out the door. Mia, Owen, and I cluster back together once we’re in the hallway. Owen and Mia go back to arguing about buzzer strategy as we head toward our lockers. It’s only when they stop talking all of a sudden that I realize something is going on.

That’s when I see Quinn McCauley standing right in front of my locker.

Mia looks at me. We’ve never talked about what went wrong with Quinn and me. There wasn’t much to say. It was an equation where x was really, really obvious.

“We’ll see you tomorrow?” Mia asks.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I just need to get my math textbook, and then I’ll walk outside with you guys.”

I don’t look at Quinn when I say this, but I step closer to my locker, hoping she’ll move out of the way. When I glance up, she’s still standing there. She’s wearing a navy-blue hoodie and jeans, and her long red hair is partially obscuring her face. When we were younger, Grams used to constantly tell her to push back her hair or she was going to get sties in her eyes. Quinn and I would laugh whenever Grams said that because of the rhyme. “Sties in your eyes,” we’d sing together as we walked into kindergarten. We were probably really annoying, but it was hilarious when we were five.

My throat is dry when I open my mouth to speak. “Could you please move?”

Quinn’s eyes meet mine. I flinch and break eye contact, but I hear her sneakers squeaking against the floor.

“Cora,” she says. “Did you get . . . ?” She trails off.

When she was younger, Quinn was in speech therapy. She would stutter and she wasn’t always able to fully complete sentences. It mostly went away as she got older, but it still happens sometimes. We developed a code where I would blink at her to see if her brain was doing what she called a “freeze-up.”

Without thinking, I turn and blink at her.

She blinks back. Twice. That means Yes, but I’m okay.

I push past her, and she steps out of the way to let me in. I fiddle with my locker, my hands shaking. I mess up the combination once but get it right on the second try. I grab my math book and place it in my backpack. I open my planner and do a quick check that I don’t need anything else.

When I shut my locker, Quinn says, “Cora, did you open the box? Did you see? I’ve found a way to fix things.”

I turn around to face her. Blood rushes to my face. The whole hallway tilts on its axis. I feel like I’m upside down. “Fix?” I say. “How dare you even say that? There’s absolutely nothing that could fix what your brother did. I’m sorry, Quinn, but I can’t talk to you. Not now. Not ever.”