‘Hey, did you see Bea today?’ she asked at lunch over the low chatter, peaks of laughter, and clattering of plastic trays. Miles seemed to be struggling to peel open his container of yogurt. ‘She was being so weird today in chem. She’s in my lab, and I was like, hey, Bea, can you grab me a flask? And, you know, she did, but she wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Like I was freaking Medusa or something. And, you know, it’s not like she’d ever been all that nice to me anyway, but it’s always been more indifference than active avoidance, you know?’

‘Yeah. She looked – I don’t know. Worried about something, almost.’

‘Have you even talked to her since – you know?’

I shook my head, picked at the crusts of my peanut-butter sandwich, and rolled the scraps between my fingers.

‘Livvycanyouopenmyyogurt?’ Miles said quietly, as if I wouldn’t hear, as if this yogurt lid was a tangible barrier between his internal self and the expression of his masculinity.

Olivia nodded, then continued her diatribe. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what: if she’s just feeling guilty all of a sudden, or whatever, she’s about three years too late.’ Olivia waited until the last word to rip off the yogurt lid for emphasis. It wasn’t particularly effective. ‘Yeesh. Imagine being her. I don’t know how someone can live like that, you know, be able to go to sleep at night, knowing you haven’t even apologized.’

‘Who are we talking about?’ Miles offered. It was perhaps the first time he’d willingly involved himself in one of our conversations instead of just sitting there, ripening.

‘Bea Fuller?’ Olivia said. Miles still looked bewildered, so she elaborated in a shout dressed up to look like a whisper: ‘The girl who outed Sydney.’

That’s what Olivia liked to say, because it made me look better, but it wasn’t entirely true.

It was the summer before freshman year, and Dad had convinced me to try out for the soccer team. Practice was held in this enormous field, surrounded on all sides by thick woods. Bea and I liked to stay after practice sometimes to hunt for interesting-looking leaves, do handstands, climb trees.