Leo and I became makeshift detectives with no leads and barely anything to investigate, which was where the ‘makeshift’ came from.

I went to his house for the first time towards the end of February. Mom was happy to drive me – she sensed I had fallen out with Olivia and was glad, I think, that I had a friend (besides, of course, the ‘girl who gives you rides’, who she knew nothing about) – even though Leo lived a good half-hour away. Though if she had known what we planned on doing, I don’t think she would have agreed.

An uncharacteristic heatwave had been threatening to thaw the frozen expanse of north-eastern Ohio for a couple of weeks, and now it seemed like it might have actually happened; little splotches of yellow-green poked through the whiteness, and for the first time, I thought about a world without Dad in it that was warm. Spring would have to come eventually.

I convinced Mom to drop me off without coming to the door with me; Leo retrieved me, wearing an Adidas T-shirt under a denim jacket, and escorted me up to his room.

Cole was sprawled across the bed in Leo’s bedroom, rapidly pressing buttons on his Nintendo DS. I had only seen him in pictures, so seeing him here was sort of weird. Even lying down I could tell he was shorter than I’d imagined, and his style was almost the opposite of Leo’s: he wore a plain black T-shirt and skinny jeans. ‘Hey,’ he said, hardly looking up from the screen; not necessarily in a rude way, but in the way you might greet someone you’ve known for a long time.

‘That’s Cole,’ Leo said, booting up his desktop. ‘He’s bi and likes anime and honestly that’s all you need to know about him.’

I smiled and looked at Cole, who didn’t react. ‘I’m sure there are more facets to his personality than that.’

Cole looked up and grinned. ‘Debatable.’

Leo tapped at his keyboard. ‘Fucking anime,’ he mumbled to himself.

Leo’s room looked plucked from a book you’d buy in Urban Outfitters about how having fewer possessions brings us closer to our spiritual selves, or something: white bedsheets and white furniture and white walls which were mostly bare, only home to a framed picture of himself and his brother which hung overtop the headboard. In it, they’re both in nice pressed shirts in some green-looking place.

Leo caught me looking at it and I was intensely embarrassed, but he didn’t seem to mind. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that was the one thing I was allowed to keep up.’

‘What do you mean?’