“What do we need to do now?” she asked. My Ruby, always ready, the girl who could pick up a movie halfway and stick with it through the credits.

“Understand,” I told her.

“Hmm.” She looked at me and then the sky, trying to see what it was that I saw.

“Aidy thinks Marley knew the gun was loaded.”

“How could Aidy know that? She wasn’t there,” Ruby said, running a hand along the side of my face to wipe off my tears.

“I know.” I leaned my head onto her shoulder.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her letter, her eyes searching for mine in the dark like fingers hoping to link into a promise. “You know what? I know it says eyes on your own paper, but what the hell, Marley’s dead and we’re all screwed because of it.” She turned on her phone’s flashlight. We sat up and huddled close, letting the light show us her letter.

RUBY MARQUEZ

Welcome to the Adventure. Eyes on your own paper, please.

When was the last time you thought of that day you and Ollie were sucking on the Gatorade bottles and you did it for too long? You had that red mustache on your upper lip that turned into a bruise. It didn’t fade for a week and a half.

The whole time it was there, you’d catch sight of yourself in a mirror or something and you’d laugh. If that were me, I swear I would have had to move to a different country. Or buy that concealer that’s made to cover up tattoos. I love that you didn’t seem to care. I’m sorry that mean kid at the park made fun of you for it.

Really proves that our Cadence is not the same Cadence everyone else has, I guess. It’s so weird to think that. All of these other people our age, one or two streets over, getting a whole different life. That could’ve been any of us. We could be strangers. Or enemies. All because we lived in a different house. Or a different body. This place feels like it’s ours, but it belongs to a lot of other people too. And they don’t treat it the same way we do.