“Make sure your seat belt is fastened,” my mom said to me without looking back, both her hands still on the wheel.

“You’re doing fine, honey,” Dad said to her. His hand was on her shoulder. They were so together at that moment, and I remember realizing then how much they loved each other. And then the tree came through the windshield.

There were, I know, lots of rumors about me at school. Rumors about why I have this one dead hand. (Nerve damage from getting my hand crushed in the wreck. The doctors say it might heal itself or never get any better.) Rumors that my whole body is covered with terrible scars. (It isn’t.) Rumors about my being an orphan because of some kind of tragedy. (You know about that.)

Sometimes people even ask me. Like that reporter who wrote the story about an Indian girl, one of the last descendants of Canonchet, winning the interstate cross-country meet. But I never answered questions about the rumors. I just changed the subject or didn’t say anything.

I was afraid that was what Roger was going to do that day on the track. Ask me about my hand or my scars or my mom and dad.

“Hey,” he said, looking over at me as he stretched his quads.

I braced myself, waiting for the question. But he didn’t ask it.

“I was watching you run yesterday. Want to run with me?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said.

By the end of that week, I’d discovered that talking with Roger was as easy as running with him.

When I found out he was as nutty about horror stuff as I was, that his mom even taught Gothic fiction, I felt like jumping in the air to give anyone close enough to me a high five. Sweet. Best of all, Roger didn’t mind listening to me; in fact, he even seemed to like to hear me talk. And he didn’t make things all boy-girl complicated like a lot of other guys would. Even though I’m self-conscious about the fact that my left hand is like a carved piece of wood, Aunt Lyssa says that is not the first thing people notice about me. What they see, she says, are my eyes and the shape of my face. My mom looked a lot like I do, but the blend of Dad’s Indian blood with her Sicilian fire (as Aunt Lyssa puts it) makes me look like an exotic model. That gives some guys the wrong idea until I set them straight. But not Roger. He’s always seen me as a regular person, and that’s why I can see him as a friend, my very best friend.