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  A ginger freshman gives me a look of annoyance, or maybe it’s bewilderment. I’m not sure. He says, “What?”

  “Nothing.” I wave him away. “Sorry. Thinking out loud.”

  Except for me bombing my world history test, none of this day makes any sense. So the big question here is, am I sane? And the obvious answer is that I am. I have evidence. There is a weird crystal in my pocket and there is a broken toilet seat in the bathroom. So, the second big question is, what happened to the bodies? How did someone know they were there? How did they get them out so quickly? And where did they put them? And what is this crystal about? Why is it important? And how did the alien girl know Pierce? Actually, that’s way more than one second big question, but whatever. I have been through a traumatic experience and I’m allowed to have babble thoughts.

  Actually, I have been through three traumatic experiences—bad world history test, alien attack and subsequent death, breaking up with Lyle in a friendship way and possibly a going-out way. Not to mention Seppie leaving town.

  Yeah.

  Today sucks.

  Aliens. I don’t even really understand anything about them other than they make my life much more complicated than it should be. Some are hot. Some appear human. Some don’t. Some want humans to just be gone. Some don’t really care. They aren’t nice and neat and easily categorized. I guess nothing is. I mean, I thought Lyle was nice and neat and easily categorized. He went from best friend to kind of boyfriend to what? What is he now? Nothing?

  My feet stop walking. I’m only by the front office. I haven’t even made it outside yet, which is ridiculous. It shouldn’t take me this long to just get out of the school.

  And suddenly I want nothing more than to do exactly that, to just get out of the school. I want to get out of my life. I want to get out … get away … get anywhere … Anywhere other than here and this and now. Maybe this is how Lyle was feeling. Maybe this is how I made him feel.

  So, I cover my mouth with my hand to give the impression that I really am about to puke. It helps hold the sob inside of me, anyway. I cover my mouth and start to run. Mrs. Sweet peeks out of the front office at me and says, sternly, “Go home, Mana. Go get some rest. Just go home.”

  But what is home?

  A nothing place.

  A house with nobody else.

  I have no home.

  CHAPTER 3

  I have to double back because I realize I’ve forgotten half the stuff I need from my locker. I grab everything pretty quickly and then take a moment to breathe. Leaning against the row of lockers, I resist the urge to take out my phone and text China again. Instead, I pull the crystal out of my pocket. Despite the rumors, there are actually no surveillance cameras in our high school’s hallways, and since everyone else is in class, this seems pretty safe. I don’t think anyone will see me and if they do, I’m more likely to get in trouble for loitering in the halls without a hall pass than for having a medium-size, shiny rock in my hand.

  The rock is warm, I guess from being next to my body. It’s shaped like a prism with a broad base and a pointed end. The flat, dark surfaces don’t really reflect light like a normal prism, but that’s the best way my brain can describe it.

  It vibrates in my hand.

  “Cool,” I say, because I am a master of words. “I wonder what you do exactly.”

  And then it levitates, just lifting a bit up and away. It hovers an inch above my hand and I grab for it. It bobs away.

  “Seriously? You want to play tag?”

  The prism lifts and spins, moving faster and faster in a circle as it hovers right by the sprinkler that’s implanted in the ceiling in case of fire emergencies. I might let out a level-three curse word as I leap up to grab it. It darts away and as I land back on the floor, the prism makes a weird noise, sort of a buzzing. An image releases from it, or maybe projects is a better word? It’s a guy, a big, golden guy, and he’s talking to someone. The picture of him hovers about three feet off the floor. The image is pretty clear. I might let out another swear, level two this time.

  “I think someone’s watching me,” he says. He has an accent that I can’t quite place. His eyes are big and golden like his skin and his hair, but sad. He lifts up a box that has an address on it, tilting it toward me. I step closer, trying to make out the writing. He seems familiar somehow, but there’s no reason why he should. His skin is clear and smooth, and he’s got a pretty prominent brow ridge and a strong jaw. There is a lot of facial symmetry going on here. There’s a beach behind him and some sort of … It’s got to be an alien like Pierce, standing there next to this guy. It looks exactly like Pierce holding a surfboard that has a Nike swish and logo on it, all in black, and then beneath that this amazing psychedelic design. But as exciting as the surfboard is, I’m more intrigued by the golden guy and the sparkling alien next to him. Maybe this crystal thing is some sort of phone line? Or Skype? Or something?

  I can’t help stepping forward again, like getting closer is going to let me understand what I’m seeing a little bit better or something.

  “Who are you?” I whisper. “Is that Pierce? Pierce?”

  He jerks. “Did you hear that? Hey, Fey? Did you hear someone say something?”

  Fey?

  Is Pierce’s name Fey? Or is this not Pierce at all? Isn’t Fae her species? Someone makes a noise out of sight. And then there’s another strange buzzing noise and the image disappears, replaced by the back of a head. It’s another man. His hair is dark and short. He looks like he’s in some sort of medical examining room. There is an empty hospital bed, but there are restraints at the sides and on the bottom of it, metal restraints that instantly scream out, Sinister! There’s an IV and a medical monitor, but the walls look too barren to be even a hospital room. It’s creepy.

  “Hello?” I call out. Shudders move through my body and I instantly regret saying anything.

  “You have it! Who are you?” He starts to turn, and just then the school bell rings. Doors slam open. This time I am 100 percent positive I level-four swear as I leap up and snatch the crystal out of the air. The image evaporates and I can’t tell if the man ever turned to face me. I smash it back into my pocket and land right in front of a freshman. The image has vanished, but the freshman stares at me, open-mouthed.

  “What the heck?” He manages to get this out but then his voice fails him. His lips move but no words come out.

  “Were you on the ceiling?” the kid behind him asks.

  “Seriously?” I say. “You guys are silly. I was just doing a front tuck. No cheer practice today. Have to keep up my mad skills.”

  Mad skills? I am such a mad dork, honestly.…

  “Nice compliment, though. Much appreciated!” I fake punch the first kid in the arm. He sort of staggers backward because my punch turned out to pack way more power than either of us expected.

  And then out of nowhere comes Principal Sweet’s voice. “Ms. Trent! Did you just assault that boy?”

  The freshman gives me horrified eyes. I give them right back to him. The guy behind him says, “No! She was stumbling for balance.”

  “She was trying to not fall over,” first boy says, having found his voice just in time to lie to the principal.

  I now love these random freshmen.

  Principal Sweet clears her throat. “Ms. Trent. If you are so sick that you are losing your balance and vomiting in the restroom then I suggest you go home right this instant before you spread whatever contagion is inside of you to the rest of the student population. Do you understand me?”

  “Of course,” I say, suddenly even more cool with leaving. I want to tell Seppie about the crystal, about what just happened, even though I’m not supposed to tell anyone. I already told Lyle stuff. “Maybe September can drive me home? I’m not sure I’m well enough to drive myself.”

  Mrs. Sweet arches an eyebrow. She brushes some invisible lint off the lapel of her blazer.

  “September has already left for her special camp.” She clear
s her throat. “I’m surprised she didn’t say goodbye.”

  My heart clenches.

  “She did,” I lie. “I just—I forgot. Sickness must have gone to my brain.”

  Mrs. Sweet pulls out her cell phone and starts texting, completely oblivious to my worries.

  I was sure Seppie said she was leaving in a couple days or maybe tomorrow, but definitely not today, and I was sure she’d say a true goodbye, a goodbye that promised texting exchanges and Skype calls every other day and trading GIFs about cheering and … and … hugs. How could she just leave without doing any of that?

  As I walk out of the school and down the hall, everything seems wrong and all my excitement over the crystal and possible Pierce sighting fades. Why would Seppie not tell me the whole truth about leaving? Why would Lyle suddenly be such a dork?

  The thing is that you have best friends and you expect them to be there for you just like you want to be there for them. You don’t expect them to be normal people and wig out on you when things get weird. You expect them to be honest. But expectations aren’t reality, are they? I mean, that’s why there are all those EXPECTATION VS. REALITY memes and a whole series about it on College Humor’s website. Mom even quoted Shakespeare about expectations. I think it was from his play All’s Well That Ends Well:

  Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

  Where most it promises; and oft it hits

  Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

  Which sort of means that expectations suck and when you expect a lot from people and they fail you, it hurts more than if you had no expectations at all.

  I get that. I really do. And so I give up on expecting things from people or trusting them and head out the door of the school, crystal in pocket, ready to … ready to … I have no idea.

  CHAPTER 4

  Once I get out of the school and into the Subaru, I text Seppie. It is a long, pleading text that I type out in the front seat of the car and it ends with a question: SEPPIE, ARE YOU ALREADY GONE?

  OF COURSE NOT, she types back. WHAT THE HELL?

  What the hell is right. Mrs. Sweet wouldn’t be wrong about that, would she?

  MRS. SWEET SAID YOU WERE.

  She writes, I AM SITTING RIGHT HERE IN LATIN CLASS. WHAT A WEIRDO.

  ME?

  YES. YOU. LOL. NO, I MEANT MRS. SWEET.

  This is all so weird, but I have more important things to deal with.

  I THINK LYLE HATES ME.

  HE DOES NOT HATE YOU.

  HE DOES. I text-explain everything that happened, leaving out the crystal. She just texts back that the alien thing is crazy and she’s sorry she wasn’t there to help and that boys are weird and there is probably another reason. If we had cheering today I would be able to talk to her in person about it and we could both sort of judge Lyle’s interactions, but our coach said she has some sort of doctor’s appointment about her quote-unquote lady parts, which was way TMI.

  I am actually sort of stunned that Seppie is even texting during class. Something inside of me twists a little as I head down the access road away from the school. What if she isn’t in class? What if Mrs. Sweet was right? What if Seppie is lying? I circle back to the school parking lot to see, feeling guilty even as I drive back into the lot. Friends aren’t supposed to think their friends are lying. It goes against the friendship code.

  The sky seems to heave above me, cloudy, watching. My head feels like it’s stuck in a headlock, leaving my brain broken and helpless. This makes no sense. Nothing makes sense. The car’s heater brings stale, warm air, but I don’t want it. I want the reality of the heavy sky, the cold. I want to know what’s real.

  The school parking lot is mostly full, with only a few trucks and cars missing for those who have early dismissal. I was always jealous of the early dismissal kids, but Seppie and Lyle and I almost always carpooled anyway and they are way too college-tracked to ever get early dismissal status, which is basically for the kids who have to work part-time already to survive financially. They get out early so that they can start their shifts at McDonald’s or Taco Bell. There is something inherently classist about all of this.

  I cruise through the parking lot. I do not see Seppie’s truck. I do spot Grayson Staggs, Lyle’s best male friend. He’s shortish and strongly made, wearing these beige Carhartt pants and hopping toward his diesel truck, which now runs on vegetable oil. He converted the engine himself and everything. I roll down my window even though it’s cold out and yell his name. He trots right over. I love that about Grayson. He’s smart but not judging. It’s like he knows everything that is wrong with your insides and still loves you anyway.

  “Hey, Grayson,” I say.

  “Hey, man.”

  Grayson calls people man no matter what gender they are. It’s just stoner speak. He’s not actually a stoner, though. He just talks that way. He watches stoner movies the way Lyle watches science fiction and it’s just sort of seeped into his speech patterns, I guess.

  “You see Seppie?” I ask.

  “Naw, man. She took off before Latin. Said she had some special camp to go to or something.”

  My breath hitches in my chest. Again. I swear, my heart is not going to make it through this day. Seppie lied. Seppie blatantly lied to me. Did she honestly think I wouldn’t know? Why would she do that?

  I stare up at Grayson’s earnest face, his wide-set eyes. He doesn’t know anything about the alien stuff, doesn’t know the real reason Lyle’s parents are gone, or why Lyle and I are sleeping at Lyle’s house half the time and mine the other. He doesn’t know that the world is not as simple as we make it out to be. We’ve been lying to him, too.

  Him and me. The clueless ones. And neither of us really knowing that we’ve been clueless.

  “How about Lyle?” I ask. “He still here?”

  “He bailed, too. You guys okay? You seem weird.”

  “Lyle is acting weird,” I admit.

  “It’s a lot, you know, his mom getting arrested. His dad taking off. Your mom in the hospital. College next year. It’s enough to screw up anyone’s head, but you hold tight, man, wait it out. He’s totally into you.”

  “You think so?” I stare up at his face like he’s some Magic 8-Ball that’s going to predict my future, give me all the right answers.

  “I know so, man. I know so. Dude’s just got a lot on his plate right now.”

  If Grayson only knew how much was on Lyle’s plate, I think his head would explode.

  “I keep trying to get him to take a gap year, hike the AT with me, you know? Boy is on the fast track to a life of white-collar boredom.” Grayson shudders just thinking about it. His eyes light up. “You should hike the AT with me, man. Graduate early and take off.”

  “It sounds tempting,” I admit. “But I can’t imagine graduating a year early.”

  Plus, my mom is in the hospital. I can’t just abandon her.

  “Drop out. Get your GED. I know you don’t think you’re super-stellar in the grades, but life’s bigger than that, you know?”

  He is so right. “I know.”

  “Think about it, man.” He fist-bumps me. I fist-bump him back. He’s got all sorts of little scars along the ridges of his thick knuckles. For a second, I wish he knew about everything—about the aliens, about me, about the threat—but I don’t want to take away his happy innocence. “And don’t worry about Lyle. He’s still into you. Guys are weird. Take it from me, man. I’m a guy. I should know. Totally weird.” He smiles all hearty and ho-ho and I can imagine him seventy years old and dressed up as Santa, having the best time with it. He leans in my window. “It’ll be cool when he gets back.”

  I put my foot on the brake.

  “Gets back?”

  “Yeah, man. From running camp.”

  “Lyle’s going to running camp?” I ask. I narrow my eyes. This does not make sense. “There are no running camps in December.”

  “Yeah. Like two weeks or something. Shit. Did he not tell you? No wonder he’s ac
ting so flake. Sorry, man. He probably … Yeah … wow…”

  We say goodbye and I’m not sure what to think. Both Lyle and Seppie left early. Seppie lied in her text exchange to me, which is not something she would normally do.

  Rolling up my window, I drive out of the parking lot and try not to freak out, but the truth is this has not been the greatest of days.

  “What do I do now?” I ask the car.

  The car does not answer, which is one normal thing, I guess. I keep moving forward. It’s the only thing I can think to do even if I don’t know where exactly moving forward is bringing me. It’s something.

  * * *

  I decide that I deserve some quiet, alone time even though I’m an extrovert. I just want a tiny bit of peace, so I head to a place I loved when I was little.

  I don’t go to the forest much anymore, only about once every other week. It isn’t just that it’s so cold out now. It’s more that I don’t feel 100 percent safe anywhere and the little piece of forest at the edge of our subdivision has memories, dark memories, of when the Wendigo tried to kill Lyle and me in my house, that night when it all started. It makes me remember darkness and fear.

  But since it is still daylight, thanks to my early school release, I drive there before I head to the hospital. After I park and lock the car, I step into the trees. The sky is not the tornado darkness of my dreams, but the overcast gray of an oncoming snowstorm. The leaves will be covered soon. The snow will cover them, hide them beneath its whiteness. The world is full of secrets. Only the sky lets you know what’s about to happen, warns you that it’s about to storm.

  The trees stand like tall stakes for giant vampires. My feet crunch on the half-covered leaves and pine needles. Snow flurries have skimmed their surface and the cold has hardened them. In the distance, I think I spot a shadow of a dog, or a raccoon. I wave hi. It feels good here, normal. My breath comes out in little puffs, the heat of it turning to vapor in the cold air. I am not a big fan of the cold, but right now it feels so real, so bitter that I kind of welcome it. It’s like it’s reminding me that I’m alive.