Olivia stiffened. ‘Are they?’ She caught the gaze of a group of sophomores two tables away from us. They turned away so quickly they probably got whiplash. ‘Oh, wow. Yeah. They’re not even trying to hide that at all.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re looking at someone behind you.’ I turned – there was a wall. Olivia shrugged again.

‘They’re saying my name.’

‘Maybe they’re saying chimney. Or kidney. Kidney vinegar. Ew. Gross.’ Olivia spoke with the last bite of muffin still in her mouth, her words thick and gummy on the way out, and rolled the wrapper into a ball. ‘They’re just surprised. I think people assumed you were never coming back.’ She tossed the wrapper to the trashcan next to us, but it hit the rim before falling to the floor. ‘Drat.’

I glanced around the commons as Olivia went to pick up her failed shot. The place had never inspired particularly warm or fuzzy feelings, but there was something almost sinister about it now, though nothing physical had changed. There were still the unsightly strips of warehouse light, yellow tinted, turning all the students into a horde of jaundiced zombies; the purple-and-gold pennant on the far wall, proclaiming us the Pleasant Hills Panthers; a couple of browning pot plants peppering the speckled vinyl floor. All the same in shape, but now, someone or something was turning the saturation down a tick every time I blinked. Everything seemed inexplicably different, but really, I was the only thing that had changed.

I took inventory. Back, against chair. Feet, on floor. Head, somewhere else, desperately trying to reattach itself to body. For a split second, I could have sworn I was watching myself in the third person, like a movie, hovering, separate. And God, I didn’t look good.

Olivia’s chair legs screeched against the floor, and I was sucked back in. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think they’re being, like, malicious, or anything. I think they feel bad and want to help but they just aren’t sure how, you know?’

‘I guess,’ I said, even though I doubted their intentions were more benevolent than they were selfish.

Miles joined us at the table. He was Olivia’s most recent boyfriend, a guy who looked like he had too much outside and not enough inside, a PANTHERS WRESTLING shirt stretched across his wide chest, with sleeves that looked like they might have been cutting off the circulation to his biceps. I didn’t know much about him, but from what I knew about studious, sports-averse Olivia, they seemed a bizarre pairing.

When his eye caught mine, Miles stuck his lips out in a way that I would have considered extremely patronizing coming from anyone else, but since it was Miles, I think he was just trying to make sure he was expressing emotion properly. ‘Hi, Sydney,’ he said, running a hand over his crew cut. ‘Sorry.’