Dawn breaks unwelcome and hazy against the bay windows of the living room. I groan and pull the quilt over my head, but not before I see the stoic face of the grandfather clock in the corner. I picked the living room to sleep in because it’s the only room in the house with just one clock. All night I allowed myself to admire the driftwood clock, so long as I didn’t look at the face. The last time I failed was two a.m. Now it is six a.m. Which means, for the first time since Chloe died, I have slept for four consecutive hours.

It also means the first day of my senior year will be starting in two. I am not ready for this.

I throw off the covers and sit up. The bay window shows me that it is not light, not dark, but gray outside. It looks cold, but I know it isn’t. The wind whispers through the dune grass just off our back porch, making it look like a gathering of hula dancers. I wonder what the sea looks like this morning. For the first time since Chloe died, I decide to check.

I open the sliding glass door to a warm August breeze. A quick jump off the last step of the back porch and my bare feet sink in the cool sand. The beach is private, and I wrap my arms around myself, taking the path between the two huge dunes in front of our house. Past them is a miniature hill just big enough to block my view of the ocean from the living room. Had I slept in my room last night, I could already be soaking in the sunrise from my third-floor balcony.

But my room is full of all things Chloe. There is nothing on my shelves, on my desk, or in my closet that doesn’t have something to do with her. Awards, pictures, makeup, clothes, shoes, stuffed animals. Even my bedding—a quilted collage of pictures from our childhood we made together for a school project. If I took everything out of my room connected to Chloe, my room would be pretty empty.

The same as I feel inside.

I stop a few feet from the wet sand and plop down, drawing my knees to my chest. Morning tide makes a great companion when you don’t want to be around people. It soothes and comforts and doesn’t ask for anything. But the sun does. The higher it gets, the more I am reminded that nothing stops time. There is no escaping it. It slips by no matter if you’re looking at a driftwood grandfather clock or the sun.

My first day of school without Chloe has arrived.

I wipe the tears from my eyes and stand. I scrunch my toes in the sand with each step back to the house. Mom waits for me on the back-porch steps, smoothing out her robe with one hand and holding a travel mug of coffee in the other. Set against the gray-shingle beach house, she looks like an apparition in her white robe—except apparitions don’t have long ebony hair, shockingly blue eyes, or drink espresso. She smiles the way a mother should smile at a daughter who is overwhelmed by loss. And it makes my tears spill bigger and faster.

“Morning,” she says, patting the wood next to her.

I sit and lean into her, let her wrap her arms around me. “Morning,” I rasp.

She hands me the mug and I sip. “Make you breakfast?” she squeezes my shoulder.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“You need some energy for your first day of school. I could make pancakes. French toast. I’ve got the stuff to make some good garbage eggs.”

I smile. Garbage eggs are my favorite. She hunts down whatever she can fi nd and puts it in my eggs—onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, hash browns, tomatoes, and what ever else might or might not have a place in an omelet. “Sure,” I say, standing.

---

I smell the concoction from the bathroom and try to guess what’s in it as I step out of the shower. Smells a lot like jalapeños, which brightens my mood a little. I fling my towel on the bed and pull a shirt off a hanger in the closet. I didn’t feel like shopping for new school clothes, so my classmates will have to accept my old standby—T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops. That’s what everyone will be wearing in two weeks anyway, when the new wears off their carefully planned outfits. I twist my hair into a sloppy bun atop my head and secure it with a pencil. I reach for my makeup bag and stop. Mascara is not a good idea today. Maybe some foundation would be okay. I pick up the bottle—the shade is “porcelain.” I slam it on my dresser in disgust. It’s like putting Wite-Out on a blank sheet of paper—pointless. Besides, I can be porcelain all by myself. I’m practically made of porcelain these days.

Trudging down the stairs, a spicy aroma stings my nose. The garbage eggs are beautiful. They are piled high, steaming, and full of stuff. It is a shame that I mostly just push them around my plate. The glass of milk next to it sits untouched, unneeded.

I glance at my dad’s old place setting at the head of the table. It’s been two years since the cancer took him, but I can still remember the way he folded his newspaper beside his plate. The way he and Chloe fought over the sports page. The way the town’s only funeral home smelled the same at his service as it did for hers.

I wonder how many empty place settings a person can look at before they begin to crack.

Across the table, Mom slides a key toward my plate, hiding her expression behind her coff ee cup. “Feeling up to driving today?”

I’m surprised she doesn’t wrap it up with “hint, hint.” Or maybe a banner that reads, YOU NEED TO START DOING NORMAL THINGS, LIKE DRIVING YOURSELF AROUND.

I nod. Chew. Stare at the key. Chew some more. Grab the key, shove it in my pocket. Take another bite. My mouth should be on fire, but I taste nothing. The milk should be cold, but it’s like tap water. The only thing that burns is the key in my pocket, daring me to touch it. I set the dishes in the sink, grab my backpack, and head for the garage. Alone.

---

As long as no one hugs me, I will be fi ne. I walk down a hall of Middle Point High School, nodding at the kids I’ve known since elementary school. Most of them have enough sense to just throw a sympathetic glance in my direction. Some talk to me anyway, but nothing too dangerous, just neutral things like “Good morning” and “I think we have third period together.” Even Mark Baker, Middle Point’s quarterback-slash-deity, gives me a supportive smile through the school-colored war paint smeared on his face. Any other day, I’d be texting Chloe to inform her that the Mark Baker acknowledged my existence. But the whole reason I don’t is the same reason he acknowledged me in the first place: Chloe is dead.

They all lost their track star. Their bragging rights. In a few weeks, they won’t even realize something’s missing. They’ll just move on. Forget about Chloe.

I shake my head but know it’s true. A few years ago, a freshman riding on the back of her older brother’s motorcycle died when he ran a stop sign and careened into a car. Flowers and cards were taped to her locker, the student body held a candlelit vigil in the football stadium, and the class president spoke at a special memorial the school arranged for her. Today, I can’t for the life of me remember her name. She was in a few of the same clubs as me, some classes, too. I can see her face clearly. But I can’t remember her name.

I test the combo to my new locker. It opens, third try. I stare into it, feeling as hollow as it looks. The hall takes awhile to clear out, but I wait until it does. When it is quiet, when the classroom doors ease closed, when the hall stops smelling like perfume and cologne, I slam the locker shut as hard as I can. And it feels good.

Because I am late to class, I’m forced to sit up front. The back row is ideal for spacing out or for texting, but I have no one to text. Today, I could space out on a roller coaster, so the front row is as good a seat as any. I glance around the room as Mr. Pinner passes out a class-rule sheet. Model airplanes hang by strings from the ceiling, timelines stripe the walls, and black-and-white pictures of the Egyptian pyramids adorn a nearby information board. History used to be my favorite class, but in view of my new vendetta against time, I’m just not feeling it.

Mr. Pinner is on Rule No. 3 when he looks up and to the back of the class. “Can I help you? Surely you’re not already violating Rule Numero Uno! Anybody remember that one?”

“Arrive on time,” chimes in a do-gooder from the back.

“Is this world history?” the presumable violator asks. His voice is even, confident, nothing like it should be, given that he’s violated Numero Uno. I hear a few people shuffle in their chairs, probably to get a look at him.

“The one and only,” says Mr. Pinner. “Unless, of course, you mean the one down the hall.” He chuckles at his joke.

“Is this, or is this not, world history?” the student asks again.

A rash of whispers breaks out, and I smile at the timeline I’m looking at. Mr. Pinner clears his throat. “Didn’t you hear me the first time? I said this is world history.”

“I did hear you the first time. You didn’t make yourself clear.”

Even the do-gooder snickers. Mr. Pinner fidgets with the leftover rule sheets in his hand and pushes his glasses up on his nose. The girl behind me whispers, “Gorgeous!” to her neighbor, and since she can’t be talking about Mr. Pinner, I take the bait and turn around.

And my breath catches in my throat. Galen. He is standing in the doorway—no, he’s filling up the doorway—holding nothing but a binder and an irritated expression. And he is already staring at me.

Mr. Pinner says, “Come have a seat up front, young man. And you can sit here for the remainder of the week as well. I don’t tolerate tardiness. What is your name?”

“Galen Forza,” he answers without taking his eyes off me. Then he strides to the desk next to me and seats himself. He dwarfs the chair meant for a normal adolescent male, and as he adjusts to get comfortable, a few feminine whispers erupt from the back. I want to tell them that he looks even better without a shirt on, but I have to admit that a tight T-shirt and worn jeans almost do him justice.

Even so, his presence sends me reeling. Galen has been a key player in my nightmares these past weeks, which have been nothing but a subconscious rehashing of the last day of Chloe’s life. It doesn’t matter if I sleep for forty minutes or two hours; I smack into him, hear Chloe approaching, feel embarrassed all over again. Sometimes she asks him to go to Baytowne with us and he agrees. We all leave together instead of getting in the water.

Sometimes the dream gets mixed up with a different one—the one where I’m drowning in Granny’s backyard pond. The events run together like watercolors; Chloe and I fall in the water, and the school of catfish materialize out of nowhere and push us both to the surface. Dad’s boat is waiting for us, but I taste saltwater instead of fresh.

I would rather have the dream with the real ending, though—it’s horrible to see over and over, but it doesn’t last very long, and when I wake up, I know Chloe is dead. When we take the alternate endings, I wake up thinking she’s alive. And I lose her all over again.

But the tingles never show up in my dreams. I’d forgotten about them, in fact. So when they show up now, I blush. Deeply.

Galen gives me a quizzical look, and for the fIrst time since he sat down, I notice his eyes. They’re blue. Not violet like mine, as they were on the beach. Or were they? I could have sworn Chloe commented on his eyes, but my subconscious might have made that up, the same way it makes up alternate endings. One thing’s for sure: I didn’t make up Galen’s habit of staring. Or the way it makes me blush.

I face forward in my desk, fold my hands on top of it, and train my eyes on Mr. Pinner. He says, “Well, Mr. Forza, don’t forget where you’re sitting because that’s where you’ll be until next week.” He hands Galen a rule sheet.

“Thank you, I won’t,” Galen tells him. A few giggles sprinkle behind us. It is official. Galen has a fan club.

As Mr. Pinner talks about . . . well, really I have no idea what he’s talking about. All I know is that the tingles give way to something else— fire. Like there’s a stream of molten lava flowing between my desk and Galen’s.

“Ms. McIntosh?” Mr. Pinner says. And if I remember correctly, Ms. McIntosh is me.

“Uh, sorry?” I say.

“The Titanic, Ms. McIntosh,” he says, on the verge of exasperation. “Have any idea when it sank?”

Ohmysweetgoodness, I do. I became obsessed with the Titanic for a good six months after we studied it last year. Last year, before I had a vendetta against history, the passage of time. “April fifteen, 1912.”

Mr. Pinner is instantly pleased. His thin lips open into a smile that makes him look toothless because his gums are so big. “Ah, we have a history buff . Very nice, Ms. McIntosh.”

The bell rings. The bell rings? We’ve spent fifty minutes in this class already?

“Remember, people, study the rule sheet. Snuggle it at night, eat lunch with it, take it to the movies. It’s the only way you’re passing my class,” Mr. Pinner calls over the bustle of students herding out the door.

I give Galen the opportunity to leave first. I open my binder, shuffle around some blank notebook paper, and make a show of tightening the straps of my backpack. He doesn’t move. Fine. I stand, snatch up my things, and glide past him. The lava rallies at my wrist when he grabs it, like he’s branding me with his touch.

“Emma, wait.”

He remembers my name. Which means he remembers that I nearly knocked myself out on his bare chest. I wish I had applied the porcelain foundation this morning—it might have covered up at least some of my blush.

“Hi,” I say. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.” I’m aware of a few stares coming from the back of the class—some of his fans have stayed behind and are patiently waiting their turn. “Well, welcome to Middle Point. You probably have to get to class, so I’ll see you later.”

He grips harder when I try to pull away. “Wait.”

I glance down at his hold and he releases me. “Yes?” I say.

He looks down at his desk, runs a hand through his black hair. I remember that Galen’s gift is not small talk. Finally, he looks up. The confidence has returned to his eyes. “Do you think you could help me find my next class?”

“Sure, but it’s pretty simple. There are three halls here. The one hundred hall, the two hundred hall, and the three hundred hall. Let me see your schedule.” He fishes it out of his pocket and hands it to me to unwad. Smoothing it out, I say, “Your next class is in room one twenty-three. That means you’re going to the one hundred hall.”

“But can you show me where it is?”

I check my schedule to see where I’m going, knowing even if my next class is in the complete opposite corner of the school from his, I will take him to room 123. Lucky for me, my next class is in room 123 as well—English lit.

“Uh, actually, we have the next class together, too,” I tell him apologetically. He follows me out the door and keeps my slowish pace as I scan over our schedules to see how many more classes he will have to endure my awkward company—and how many more classes I can expect to be blushing in. The answer is all of them. I groan. Out loud.

“What?” he says. “Is something wrong?”

“Well, it’s just that . . . it looks like we have the exact same schedule. Seven classes together.”

“Is that a problem?”

Yes. “No. I mean, well it isn’t for me, but . . . I just thought maybe you’d rather not have me around after what happened that day at the beach.”

He stops and pulls me out of student traffic to a row of lockers. The intimacy of the move gets the attention of some passersby. Remnants of his fan club linger behind, still waiting for me to relinquish my turn.

“Maybe we should go somewhere private to discuss this,” he says softly, leaning closer. He glances with meaning around us.

“Private?” I squeak.

He nods. “I’m glad you brought it up. I wasn’t sure how to approach you about it, but this makes it easier for both of us, don’t you think? And if you keep cooperating, I’m sure I can get you leniency.”

I gulp. “Leniency?”

“Yes, Emma. Of course you realize I could arrest you right now. You understand that, right?”

Ohymysweetgoodness, he came all this way to press assault charges against me! Is he going to sue me, sue my family? I’m eigh teen now. I could legally be sued. The heat on my cheeks is part kill-me-now embarrassment and part where’s-a-knife-when-you-need-one rage. “But it was an accident!” I hiss.

“An accident? You’ve got to be kidding me.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“No, I am not kidding. Why would I ram into you on purpose? I don’t even know you! And anyways, how do I know you didn’t run into me, huh?” The idea is preposterous, but it leaves room for reasonable doubt. I can see by his expression he didn’t think of that.

“What?” He is struggling to follow, but what did I expect? He can’t even find his class in a school with only three halls. That he found me clear across the country seems more miraculous than a push-up bra.

“I said, you’ll have to prove that I ran into you on purpose. That I meant to cause you harm. And besides, I checked with you at the time—”

“Emma.”

“—and you said you didn’t have injuries—”

“Emma.”

“—but the only witness I have on my side is dead—”

“EM-MA.”

“Did you hear me, Galen?” I turn around and yell at the remaining spectators in the hall as the bell rings. “CHLOE IS DEAD!”

Sprinting is not a good idea for me in the first place. Sprinting with tears blurring my vision, even worse. But sprinting with tears blurring my vision and while wearing flip-flops is a lack of respect for human life, starting with my own. So then, I am not surprised when the door to the cafeteria opens into my face. I am a little surprised when everything goes black.