The SAT is a couple of weeks later, and Monday Harry’s still in a weird mood, worrying about the test. He’s taken it twice already—first he got a 1580 and then the second time he dropped down to 1540, which really rattled him.

“The worst part is, I know I’m always bad with dangling modifiers,” he says as we’re heading to the rally court for lunch, talking loud over the echo of all the footsteps and conversations in the concrete hallways outside the math wing. He’s holding his books against his waist, and it contours all those lines of muscle in his arm. “I swear I miss every single one of those questions. So I studied them all the night before, and I think I still missed them anyway.”

“You dangled modifiers in public? Have some decency.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He smiles, but in an obligatory way. “I wish I remembered the questions so I could look them up.”

“You probably got it this time,” I say. But I kind of hope he didn’t, that somehow his scores will magically be exactly good enough for Brown and no better. We’d be just miles apart.

And then we’re at the planters and everyone’s milling around and eating—no Regina today—and Harry marshals himself for lunch, teasing Priya Dev about something that happened when they were both taking the SAT, sitting cross-legged, his hands on his knees, nodding sympathetically as Margie Rhee talks about how she’s gotten maybe four hours of sleep a night all week. He’s soothing for a while, and then—he has impeccable instincts—knows just when to pivot into joking around again, teasing her about the time she made wristbands with the solubility rules printed in five-point font sophomore year when we all took Honors Chem.

I know him well enough to know he’s still down about his test, though. I’ve never brought up the thing that I always felt like, underneath everything, knitted us together early on: that the truth about Harry is that he’s always felt like he has to distract the world from noticing he doesn’t measure up, that deep down he believes that if you take away the GPA and the test scores and everything he put on his college apps, there’s nothing left.

I wonder where Regina is. I have a goal today, after watching Grace and Mina come find her last week: I want to talk to her. Really talk, not the way we’ve been navigating around each other since last year. I want her to know I miss how it used to be between us and that I’m here for her. I was lying awake last night thinking about all these convoluted ways to try to lead into it, but really probably the easiest thing to do is just say, Hey, I hope you know I really care about you, and I hope things with us are okay.

Regina comes back ten minutes before the bell rings. Harry looks up at her from where he’s sitting on the steps, putting up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, and says, genially, “Where’d you go?”

“I was just looking at some things for story assignments.”

“Anything juicy?”

“I was just—no, not really. Just trying to figure out—some things.”

She sits down next to him. Regina and Sandra used to always sit next to each other at the very edge of the planters, sometimes cross-legged with their backs to each other, leaning against each other, or sometimes with their arms linked together, Sandra peering around the rally court and murmuring things darkly into Regina’s ear as Regina laughed or sometimes rolled her eyes in disapproval. They always pooled their lunches together, so you’d sit next to them and not be able to pick out what belonged to each of them. A few times I tried to draw those lunches but I could never quite get the details right, never get it to look like more than just food.

I practice mentally: hey I hope you know I really care about you and I hope things with us are okay. I have the words ready, all arrayed in order like a paint palette, but as soon as I open my mouth they dry out. Regina reaches into her backpack, pulling out a container of soy yogurt and a plastic spoon. I’m eating a satsuma, and I hold it out for Regina to tear off a segment. She either pretends not to see or doesn’t.

I’ve never said this aloud to anybody, and I resist letting the thought form in my own mind, too. But this is the thing I’m most afraid of, the fear that fits its lens over everything Regina ever says or does to me: that she blames me. Even if she doesn’t know the whole story—and it would be so much worse if somehow she did.

I wonder sometimes which moments are the ones where she misses Sandra the most. There’s a case to be made, I think, for when things are rough, when nowhere else in the world is a safe harbor and all that history you built with someone collapsed—every fight she has with her parents, every time the grief overtakes her. But I think there’s something to be said for when it’s just moments like this, too, the mundane ones that you can’t talk about with anyone else because they don’t matter all that much. One time sophomore year after Harry’s sister was already away at Harvard he texted her a picture of their dad casually walking around in a pair of skinny jeans he’d gotten himself. I’M DEAD, Evelyn texted back, and then like twenty skull emojis. DEEEEEADDDDDDDDDD. And I missed my sister all through middle school when my dad was struggling, sure, I missed her every time things were tough at home, but after that I felt cheated by her absence in all those small things and in all those times that were various opposites of hard: how one Christmas my parents, who never buy each other presents, both independently bought each other the same Costco garage opener as their sole gift, or the way my mom looks driving in her gigantic sun visor when no one else is in on the joke. Who does Regina text now about those stupid things that don’t matter enough to tell anyone else, when she sees twin puppies on a walk or when a pair of shoes she’s been eyeing go on sale or when she reads a mildly interesting article and wants to talk about a single line in it—is it Harry? Or do they just wither in the ether?

Talk to her, I tell myself. Do it now.

The bell rings. “I’ll meet you guys,” Regina says, getting up. “I need to stop by the office first.”

Harry lifts his hand in a wave goodbye, then grabs his backpack kind of roughly and jostles it onto his back. When the rest of our group trickles out into the crowd he lets his public smile, the one with the crinkle around his eyes, slide from his face, and then he just looks tired after that.

It was March of last year, March seventh, that Sandra died. We found out in first period. It was a Wednesday, so it was a block day, and I was in AP English. When we came in and sat down we could tell Ms. Lee had been crying. When the bell rang she sat on the edge of her desk, a piece of paper in her hand, and said, “I want you to know that I love every one of you.” Then she read the letter from the principal: Dear Monta Vista community, it’s with deep sadness that I have to inform you that junior Sandra Chang died yesterday by suicide. Counselors are available to help you process the news. Please notify a staff member immediately if you are having difficulty coping or if you believe you might harm yourself. That was the whole letter, and when she finished it broke open a wall of silence that froze us in place.

Regina was whisked away by one of the counselors and we didn’t see her the entire day. After school we all ended up at Harry’s. Both his parents were gone on business, his mom in Taiwan and his dad in Singapore, and a steady stream of people trickled into his front room. Ahmed was there already, and he stood up when he saw me.

“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice hard. I’d never seen him look so angry. “You weren’t even friends. You’re just here because everyone else is, or what?”

I felt my face burning. “No, I’m—look, man, I’m sorry, I know you guys were—”

“You didn’t even like her. Why’d you even come?”

Before I could answer—and what would I have said?—he’d turned away. He set himself down roughly on the couch, and said to Lisa Teng, who was sitting next to him, “He’s never even liked her. He wants everyone to think he’s this deep sensitive artist, but all he is is some asshole who can draw.” Then he buried his fist against one of the cushions so hard the sound, even swallowed by the leather, made a sickish thud I felt in the pit of my stomach. I recognized the look Lisa gave me: she felt bad, or at least awkward, but also felt trapped by the moment, and that look was all I’d get from her. Harry was seeing Aaron and Maurice in at the door, and I don’t think he heard. I escaped to the bathroom, my face stinging, my heart carved into shreds. I washed my face and toweled it off and stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red.

When I came back I settled myself on one of the leather chairs in the far corner of the room, opposite the couch where Ahmed was sitting, Regina next to him. Harry was standing by the wall, still shell-shocked. Susan Tung had taken a bottle of Xanax from her backpack and was passing it around. I took one. My parents had been calling, and I was ignoring the calls.

Later more details would trickle down to us—how she’d taken pills, how she’d been drunk at the time, how it was late at night. But that day it was all a gaping mystery. No one knew why. That was what we talked about. We knew she was worried about next year, we knew she sometimes seemed unhappy, we knew she had it pretty bad at home. But then everyone was worried about next year, everyone was sad sometimes, so many of us had problems at home. And even if it was worse for her at home than for almost anyone else—which I’d believe it was—we couldn’t make that somehow fit cleanly up against death.

We still tried, though. All afternoon we kept trying to come up with some way to force the world into making sense.

Regina was staring at the wall, blinking rapidly, her face a mask. I watched her from across the room. There was an aura around her, something like a force field that made you afraid to get near her. Even Harry wasn’t near her, although I guess constantly having to get up and open the door was his excuse. Next to me Susan was shaking so hard she was struggling to put the lid back on the bottle of Xanax. I reached for it and twisted it on and then touched her hand a second, which she didn’t react to. It’s a strange and uniquely painful thing when you try to reach someone and instead you pass right through them, like a ghost; it makes you feel not all the way there yourself.

After ten or twenty minutes—or maybe it was shorter than that, maybe it just felt like an eternity—Regina jumped up and announced she’d make everyone coffee. I followed her into the kitchen. She was a whirlwind, flinging open cabinets and pouring water and staring daggers at the coffee maker while it dripped, pouring the coffee into cups roughly, so it splashed over the side. I touched her elbow and said, “You need help?”

“No.”

Her hands were trembling. I took the coffeepot from her, and even after I set it down the coffee still sloshed up the sides for a few seconds. Regina leaned against the counter and folded her arms against her chest.

And she almost said something to me. I could see how much she wanted to, and I was afraid I knew exactly what it was. She had the words formed on her tongue, and I could see them, and I put my hand on her elbow and I was ready for whatever it was she was going to say, I was determined to hear it and face it, and then she stopped herself. I could see her deciding not to tell me, deciding to hold it in. She took a deep breath that looked like it ached. “Open the cabinet over the oven, will you? Get me a tray and I’ll put the coffee on it.”

“Reg, are you—”

“Get a tray,” she hissed. Her voice was streaked through with hatred. I got a tray.

We all sat there in Harry’s living room as it got dark, clouds rolling over the hills and obscuring the treetops of Cupertino below. Every now and then someone would start crying. A couple people went home, and each time someone did it hurt, kind of, in this lonely way I was pretty sure everyone else felt, too, or maybe I was wrong and it was just me. Around dinnertime we ordered pizza. Well, Regina ordered it, and when people tried to chip in, she refused. No one ate any when it came.

It was around six when Regina broke down—the only time I’ve seen her do it. Ahmed was the first one to grab her and hold on to her, whisper something in her ear, grip her shoulders and rock back and forth with her. When he did it I could feel a kind of tightening in the room, like someone pulling on some kind of string that knotted us all together. I cried, too.

I was the last one to leave that night. I helped Harry straighten up, and lingered until I couldn’t anymore. I would be okay as long as I was here with him, I thought, but as soon as I left it would all hit me. When all the pillows were back in place and all the uneaten pizza slices thrown away and I was at the door to go, my mom waiting outside the gate, I said, “Ahmed thinks—” and then I couldn’t go any further with it, couldn’t say it aloud.

Harry didn’t make me. I have always loved him for that.

“No, I know you,” he said. “He’s wrong. I know you better than Ahmed. I know you better than anyone.”

That saved me in that moment, I think, that absolution. I’ve never told him that. It wasn’t enough to erase the rest of it—a part of me still shrivels whenever I’m around Ahmed, that same part that worries the universe chose wrongly in keeping me here—but in that moment it was enough to hold me. I said, “Okay.” I turned to go.

“Wait.” He reached for my hand, and then he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. “Promise me you won’t ever do that. What happened to Sandra, I mean.”

My mind had flashed blank for a second when he’d touched me like that, and it took me a second to recover and answer. “I won’t.”

“No, Danny, I mean—” He looked frantic. “Promise me.”

“I meant it. I promise.”

He scanned my face. There was a heat creeping into all those cold places I’d been sinking into all day, and a tingling that ran through me like a shock. I held myself still and let him look. I wanted, in that moment, to give him the entire world.

Finally he said, quietly, “Okay.” He dropped his arm. When he did it was like a cold gust of air blew over me and I wanted, kind of desperately, to ask if he’d found whatever it was he was looking for. He repeated, “Okay.”

I would have stayed there forever. And it didn’t mean anything, I don’t think, it was just that the world had spun out of control around us and when that happens you reach for literally anything you can to steady yourself. But the moment had moved on, and also maybe part of me was scared of it, or maybe scared of ruining it, which is a different thing. I wished I wasn’t, though, because the thought of leaving and being home without him felt like a small death.

Right before I closed the door behind me, though, something happened. Harry said, “Danny, wait—”

He stepped over the threshold and stood there for a moment in front of me. His breaths were shaky. He opened his mouth and I thought he might say something, but then he didn’t. Instead he reached out and cupped his hand on my cheek, then he held it there, and then very gently he brought my head closer and touched his forehead against mine.

“You promised,” he said finally, stepping back. “I’m not going to forget.”