Every morning before leaving for school, Tristan stood in his driveway and gazed up at the tower. The trees were starting to bloom and soon the tower would be lost to him.

Each day that passed without a touch of Helena’s light stole a little something from him. He spent the weekend holed up in his bedroom, staring at paper cranes and resisting the urge to rip them down. He avoided his father as much as he could, studying in the library after school and coming home with takeout. He’d dump it on the coffee table and then retreat to his room, feigning a heavy study load. His father frowned each night this happened but didn’t fight him on it, and so Tristan sank further and further into a morose stupor. He even called and canceled with his mother. The idea of putting on a charade for her and Curtis was too much. She tried to argue, but he won with excuses of schoolwork and extra study. His sullen tone may have put her off as well. She was no doubt relieved not to have to deal with him when he was in one of his moods.

The world around him became dull, the conversations in the hallways were white, static noise, and he struggled to focus on anything clearly.

“Tristan. Tristan?” Mikayla tugged on his arm, jerking him out of his daze. “Hi. Where’d you go?”

He shook his head, shrugging with a frown.

“I’ve been chasing you down two corridors. Thankfully you were walking like a low-battery robot, so you were easy to catch.” She grinned, her freckles twitching with the rise of her cheeks. She caught the edge of her lip with her teeth and kind of cringed up at him. “You know you’ve got English now, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So.” She looked confused, and then her expression crinkled with worry. “Well, you’re heading in the opposite direction. Are you skipping out?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose and turning back the way he’d come.

Mikayla’s small hand stopped him, wrapping around his wrist and tugging him still.

“If you need someone to talk to, I could meet you under the bleachers.” She grinned. “I kind of owe you one.”

“No, I’m good.”

She gave his forearm a light squeeze. “You don’t look good, Tristan. Whatever’s tearing you apart, you either need to do something to stop it…or you need to let it go.”

“I know,” he murmured. “I…I just don’t know how.”

Her soft hazel gaze searched his face. “I’m always here to listen, if you need a friend. A burden shared is a burden halved, you know.”

His gaze snapped to hers, his eyebrows wrinkling with a fleeting frown. “That’s what my friend says.”

“Well, he must be a smart guy.” She chuckled.

“She,” he whispered brokenly.

Mikayla’s face puckered with concern and she moved to step in front of him, but he turned out of her way before she could. He was sure she was staring at him as he shuffled off to English, but he couldn’t look back to check.

All he wanted was Helena. He couldn’t let her go…but he didn’t know how to get her back either.

* * *

“Right, we’re starting a new topic today.” Miss Warren clipped through the class, dropping assignment papers on each desk.

Tristan picked his up and grimaced.

Poetry. Aw, crap. How the heck was he supposed to survive that? The only reason he’d done so well on Romeo and Juliet was because of Helena. He’d flunk for sure without her guidance.

Despair pierced him as he imagined going home to his morose house and enduring the unit alone. He’d try to decipher the confusing text with no one to help him. His father was useless when it came to homework.

Who was he kidding? His father was useless when it came to everything except drinking beer and watching TV.

Tristan lifted the page and read the assignment. They had to select a poem and analyze it, trying to draw out the writer’s meaning between the lines and figure out what kind of lessons the author wanted to teach the reader.

“I call bullshit,” Tristan muttered, slapping his paper down.

“Something to share, Mr. Parker?” Miss Warren dropped the leftover papers on her desk and faced him with a smile.

He shook his head, pressing his elbows into the desk and keeping his head down.

“Who’s your favorite poet?” Her voice, usually so calming, grated on his nerves.

He gritted his teeth and shrugged. “I’m not really into poetry.”

She nodded, a soft smile brushing her lips. “Well, let’s hope I can change your mind.” Leaning back against her desk, she shook her head to flick the long sideways bangs out of her eyes and asked the whole class. “Anyone else? Who has a favorite poet, or already knows the poem they want to pull apart and analyze?”

Tristan slumped down in his seat and let the answers turn to fuzz. The paper crinkled in his grasp, and it was an effort to even swallow. He was going to fail this assignment…and he didn’t even care.