The fact that Mrs. Anderson was late just added to my increasing unease. My friend Chelsea was convinced the teacher lived at JFK because she was always somewhere in the building with coffee and a sprinkled doughnut and attended every school function and football game. So where was she? It wasn’t like Mrs. Anderson to be tardy.

More than five minutes passed before the door swung open and Mrs. Anderson came walking in. There was a coffee stain on the front of her sweater, and her glasses were slightly askew as she dumped a stack of folders on her desk, saying, “Sorry I’m late, class, sorry, there was a bit of a . . .” Her voice trailed off as she bit her lip, scrubbing at the stain on her sweater with a napkin. “Something rather . . . unfortunate happened.”

In the seconds between her words, my heart picked up pace and beat an unsteady rhythm against my chest. I had no way of knowing what “unfortunate” thing happened, but a gut-wrenching feeling told me that whatever it was, it was bad.

Mrs. Anderson sighed as she tossed the napkin into the trash and leaned against her desk, crossing her arms over her chest. “Last night, one of our students here at JFK Prep committed suicide.”

I sat back in my seat, feeling deflated as I let out a sharp gasp.

What?

I’d known the moment I stepped off the bus not twenty minutes ago that something was wrong. But this? I wanted to ask who had so abruptly ended their life, but I found that I couldn’t force myself to speak. My mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara Desert, and my tongue felt like sandpaper.

“Who was it?” a kid sitting a few rows behind me asked after the first few moments of tense silence.

Mrs. Anderson fiddled with the edge of her sweater. “Archer Morales.”

That name was . . . very familiar. I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t put a face to a name.

Wait a minute, a small voice in my mind reminded me. Freshman English.

That’s right. Freshman English with Mrs. Casey. Archer Morales was the boy I’d sat next to first semester. I didn’t make the instant connection when Mrs. Anderson had said his name because Archer had only spoken about three words the entire year.

Mrs. Anderson’s voice faded into the background as she mentioned that school counselors would be available for the rest of the week at any time to talk about what happened. Soon, I couldn’t hear her at all, too preoccupied with trying to remember anything I could about Archer Morales.