“You don’t need to.” The anger in my voice makes my words unconvincing, even though I honestly don’t know who I’m upset with anymore.

“Fine, whatever,” Rachel says. “I was just calling—I just wanted to know if you wanted to ride together to Madness tonight.”

“Why?” I say, genuinely confused.

“Because no one else gets it,” she replies fiercely. “Because I don’t want to spend another freaking second listening to Molly Haines sobbing like she knew him. I don’t even want to go tonight, but now that it’s for Matty . . . I just thought if you went . . .”

She trails off, and I’m so surprised I don’t know how to answer.

“Hello?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay what?”

“We can ride together. I don’t really get why, but fine.”

“Fine,” she says. “You can pick me up at nine. I don’t want to be there all night.”

“Wow, really? Thank you so much.”

“And people think I’m the bitch,” she retorts.

Rachel lives in a trailer park out past Derek Dillhorn’s McMansion neighborhood, like the city planners thought it might be a good idea to remind poor people they were poor and rich people they were rich. It’s a complete grab bag as far as upkeep. Rachel’s house is one of the nicest, with a neat yard she’s probably responsible for tending since both her mom and sister work night shifts and sleep mostly during the day.

When we were kids, we loved to have slumber parties over there on nights Janelle, her sister, was in charge because there were no rules. As we got older, though, the invitations to Rachel’s house stopped coming, and it’s been ages since I’ve been here.

She’s waiting out in the yard, another thing she used to do when we came over, to make sure no one knocked or rang the doorbell while Mrs. Hanson was sleeping. Watching her walk up to the Jeep, I feel an ache of regret. Not that I feel bad for her—I don’t—but I remember all the reasons I love her. All the reasons we used to be friends. She may be a bitch, but she’s a genuine bitch with heart. She’s a fighter, keeping everything together for her family, and working hard to graduate, despite the fact that Mrs. Hanson’s been telling her she was pretty enough not to have to since we were ten years old.

“Never thought I’d see an Ivy League girl in my driveway,” Rachel says as she plops into the passenger seat. “So, what made you decide to stick around in the boonies for the rest of summer?”

“Stuff,” I offer.

She runs her hands through her hair. “Sounds important.”

We lapse into silence as I pull out of the neighborhood and turn back toward the school. We’re still ten minutes off when Rachel’s eyes snap to the passenger window. “Pull over,” she says anxiously.

“What—why?”

“That’s it, the memorial!”

“Memorial?” I say, scouring the side of the road up near the next intersection. “For Matt? He’s not dead.”

“Shrine, vigil, whatever you want to call it—just pull over.”

I slow down and rumble to a stop beside the poster stapled to the telephone pole that reads PRAY FOR MATT KINCAID #4. Teddy bears and notes and flowers and jerseys sit in piles around the sign, and Rachel jumps out and runs to them before I’ve turned the car off. I step out and follow to where she’s kneeling in the gravelly shoulder, two fingers pressed to the sign.

“What are we doing here?” I ask softly as I approach.

She opens her eyes and sighs in annoyance. “What does it look like? I’m praying. What, are you too sophisticated to pay your respects?”

“Rachel, can we cut it out with your whole snobby Brown bit?” I say, sitting down beside her. “I’m really not in the mood.”

She glances at me sidelong. “Why did you stay? I mean, was it because of Matt?”

I run my fingernails over the sides of my scalp. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe partly. But mostly, I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing right now. It didn’t feel like a good time to leave.”

She drops onto her butt and pulls her thighs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. “You’re lucky.”

“Why?” I ask, suspicious.

“Because you’re one of those people who’s supposed to be doing something, while the rest of us just do what we do, you know?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t think there are people like that.”

She gives a brittle laugh. “Natalie, you’ve wanted to go to Brown since you were fifteen. That year, all I wanted was for Janelle to invite me to her parties and to go to homecoming with Derek. I thought I was just enjoying my life, you know, while you were trying to get away from yours. But everything I’ve ever wanted was wrapped up in high school, and now it’s like there’s just nothing. Nothing except Matt in a coma, and all my friends going off to UK. And you, getting the hell out of here like you’ve always wanted.”

“It’s not you guys I wanted to get away from,” I say quietly. “You know that, right?”

She gives me a disbelieving look then glances back at the poster. “At least you want something, even if it is just to leave. I have nothing to want, except for everyone to come back. Nothing, forever.”

“What about dance?”

“I never wanted to dance,” she answers. “I wanted to be on the dance team. That’s different.”

“I don’t know if I want to go to Brown.” It comes out like a balloon deflating, but there it is, hanging in the air for the first time ever. “I want to be smart. I want to know the truth, and to matter.

“That’s stupid,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s stupid,” she repeats bluntly. “You won’t matter because you went to Brown. You already matter.”

“Rachel,” I sigh. She doesn’t understand—and how could she?—but she opened up to me, and today, right now, I want to try. “Look. When I was fifteen, I lost someone who was really important to me. She knew me better than anyone, than even my family or Megan or Matt. Like, she totally got me and was more like me than anyone I’ve ever met, and once she was gone, I stopped feeling like I knew who I was, and I especially stopped feeling like I fit in. I went back to feeling like a five-year-old kid who had to prove she was just like everyone else. That’s why I quit dancing—I felt like it was feeding into that feeling, and I wanted to learn how to be myself, unapologetically. And I want to know about my heritage, because I’ve still never really looked. That’s why I chose Brown. Because it’s far away, but not too far away, and they have Native American and Indigenous Studies and dance, and yes, because it’s Ivy League. It’s a little easier to explain wanting the supreme college experience than all the other stuff.”