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Bailey introduces us, and Milvi takes my hands. “Sophia!” she gushes as though we haven’t seen each other in years. “Bail and Rach have told me so much about you.” She has the same faint European accent I detected in Raph. She squeezes my hands and says, “You’re right, Bailey, she is beautiful.”

My smile takes a nosedive, and I look at Bailey, expecting the punch line.
Okay, this is embarrassing
.

Bailey is engrossed in her iPhone but glances up long enough to shrug and say,
“Chica bonita.”

“Classic beauty,” Milvi says, as though that explains everything. She is still holding my hands and I get the sense that she is assessing me the way Raph did. It’s almost awkward, but then she strikes a dazzling smile and releases me, and I feel like I’ve passed a test or something.

I understand what Rachel meant about Milvi being special. Despite her outward energy, she exudes an unusual calmness that puts others at ease. Me included.

We follow the line around the room and eventually load our trays with lasagna, bread sticks, and apple pie. We maneuver through a maze of tables and plop down with the guys: Duffy, Casey, Raph, Michael, Gabe, J.D., and Holden. Casey is entertaining everyone with a story about a tourist at the Soda Shoppe, one of the many places he works around town. I understand it’s the family business.

The second heartbeat started before I sat down, and my arms tremble like they do when I forget to eat all day and get the shakes. I know I should eat but I have strangely lost my appetite.

I am pushing pasta and ricotta cheese around my plate when Rachel says, “Michael, tell your mom this recipe is soooo delicious. I love lasagna with fennel!”

The moment she says “mom,” a vision flashes in my mind: a lush green landscape, a giant Victorian farmhouse, and a tall greenhouse next to a vegetable garden.
The images are vibrant, the colors brilliant and pristine, as though the house is right in front of me and I can reach out and pick a flower from a vine.

I squeeze my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s the nicest hallucination yet, but I know I shouldn’t be having it.

I blink back to the cafeteria and look over at Michael. Simultaneously, the pain in my chest flares and the second heartbeat accelerates. Michael is frozen, a carbon copy of the night of the accident. He is staring—not at me—but across the table. I look and see Casey James laughing at his own joke. A moment later he stops, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish. His eyes gradually bulge in panic. Before I can think the words,
He’s choking
, Michael is there, wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist and hauling him out of the chair. I blink, and Raph, Gabe, and Milvi are there. Everybody else hesitates in surprise and then jumps up and rushes over.

I know CPR!
My mind springs into action. I’m a certified swim instructor and taught a CPR class last summer.
Omygod! I never thought I’d have to use it!

Michael administers the Heimlich maneuver over and over. It isn’t working. Casey leans forward, cut in half by Michael’s tight grip. Raph drops to his knees and shoves a hand against Casey’s chest, and I have no idea why.

“Again!” Raph barks the order, and Michael gives another hard squeeze. Casey flops forward and flails his arms. He’s turning blue. “Again!” Raph demands, and the scene repeats.

Someone is yelling for the school nurse but she can’t be found. We are paralyzed with fear and then someone else yells, “Call nine-one-one!” and the entire room jumps alive with cell phones. Teachers push us back and demand we give them room. No one interrupts Michael and Raph.

“Again!” Raph snaps.

Gabe and Milvi are busy herding the crowd away but I duck between the vending machines. I wait anxiously in case the Heimlich maneuver doesn’t work and Casey needs CPR.

Michael squeezes again and whispers, “Come on, kid, not on my watch.”

I snap to attention.
What the hell?

Raph glances up at Michael and shakes his head. They gently lay Casey on the floor, and the crowd noise increases with confusion. I lean in closer and look.

Casey James is dead.

Chapter 8

The Finite Capacity of My Reality

There are a few select things that I am certain about in life. One, high heels will never be as comfortable as flip-flops. Two, Christian Bale is the best Batman
ever
so give it a rest. Three, I know when I’m looking at a dead body. And I
am
looking at a dead body. The words
He’s dead
are running in a loop in my head. It’s all I can think.

No, it’s not all I can think; I am telling myself to help. Casey needs CPR. But the place is a madhouse: teachers racing in and out, students embracing one another, an ambulance crying in the distance like a wailing mother. Michael and Raph are hovering over Casey, and Gabe and Milvi won’t let anyone approach. It’s strange, almost like they are carefully blocking everyone’s view.

Shaking from adrenaline, my legs barely carry me from the vending machines where I’m hiding between Vitaminwater and Jujubes. As I move closer, Mom’s voice pops in my head, warning me to stay back. Her presence grows stronger with each step until she is practically yelling,
They know what they’re doing! Stay back!
It’s enough to make me pause and doubt myself.

But Casey is dead and they aren’t doing CPR!

There’s no time to wait for the ambulance so I creep closer. I can see Raph’s hand on Casey’s chest, and I wait breathlessly for him to start CPR. He doesn’t. His hand remains quiet while the other gently caresses Casey’s forehead, brushing aside sandy-blond hair. Raph embodies the calm, peaceful demeanor I remember in Mom when she soothed away my scrapes and bruises. Michael and Raph are whispering like they’re trying to coax Casey out of a deep sleep.

And I’m crawling out of my skin with anxiety.

“He needs CPR!” I yell over the ruckus of shouting teachers and ringing cell phones. I startle Milvi and Gabe and they whirl around, pushing me away. I put up a good fight because every impulse I have is screaming to help.

Michael’s head snaps up and he barks a harsh, militant order, “Get her back!”

And then Casey, who is now as blue as my vintage Vans, wakes up. His eyes flutter, blink, and open. I stop struggling and gasp. Milvi is stunned, too, and then Michael repeats his order and Milvi obeys like a well-trained soldier. She propels me
deep into the crowd. By now I have gone limp, too dumbfounded to protest. I let her push me down like I’ve been exiled to the time-out chair. She leaves me there and I stare straight ahead as the vision of Michael watching over the nurse at the accident flashes like a double exposure over the scene before me. It’s as if the images are trying to tell me something, but there is too much in my head. All of it beyond reason. I feel woozy so I drop my head between my knees, taking slow, deep breathes to avoid fainting. I have learned this is the quickest way to clear my head.

When the paramedics march in and take over, Michael and his family withdraw and huddle aside. They talk privately but Michael is animated, jabbing his finger in Gabe’s face. Michael is livid and Gabe looks ashamed. Of what, I can’t imagine. I don’t understand anything that just happened.

Another ten minutes pass and then Principal Davis announces that Casey is fine and just going to the hospital as a precaution. The paramedics wheel him out, and the crowd slowly disperses.

I shake off my dizziness, irritated with myself for not eating anything today. Standing carefully, I scan the room for Bailey and find her by the door. Her eyes are glued on Casey rolling by, and she has an oddly exhilarated expression on her face.

By the time the teachers herd us out, I have Bailey in my grip. “Did you see him?” I demand, as we mount the steps to the main building.

“Yeah, with both eyes!”

“He was blue!”

“As a Smurf!”

“But he was dead!” I whisper. “And Raph didn’t do CPR!” We stop at my locker and I throw my books inside.

“Well, he must have done something, right? I mean, Casey choked to death.”

“But … Raph didn’t. You saw that he didn’t, right?”

We stare awkwardly and then Bailey shrugs. “Probably we just didn’t see him do it.”

I gape at her but she turns and walks to her locker. It’s too loud and crowded in the hall to argue so we shoulder our way to the next class, journalism/technology.

The teacher is Mrs. Cooley, Sarah’s Mom. After taking our seats, we are updated on what we’ve already been told about Casey. He is fine and at the hospital for observation. Everyone starts describing what happened for Mrs. Cooley because she wasn’t there. Several different perspectives come out but none like mine. No one mentions CPR, and everyone sounds strangely detached.

I wonder about the Patronus family’s odd behavior: Raph’s quiet hand and strange
murmuring, and Michael saying, “Not on my watch.” All that aside, the weirdest part is knowing that Michael was staring at Casey moments
before
he choked, like he knew it was going to happen. No one from our lunch table mentions it. And no one from the lunchroom mentions the fact that Casey was blue, that he died, and that he wasn’t resuscitated but simply … I don’t know … woke up?

I exhale in frustration and lean my head against the back wall; I’m doing it again—every time something unusual happens, I doubt what I have seen. He
was
dead, right? Raph
didn’t
do CPR, right? Questions weigh me down like a backpack during finals week, but somewhere in the fog I hear Mrs. Cooley begin class with a startling announcement.

“Sophia has been selected as the new school photographer.”

My head snaps forward.
What the hell? Nobody bothered asking me
.

Everyone looks at me, and Bailey bursts out laughing. Mrs. Cooley says I should pick up back issues of the
Haven Hurst High Newsletter
and familiarize myself with the layout.

I am beginning to get the gist of this small-town business so I don’t even put up a fight.

My next class is foreign government and international affairs. Talk about Casey has died down but I still have questions banging around in my head like loose kites. I can’t shake the feeling that something strange happened. Strange like the night of the accident. I just can’t put my finger on it.

By the time the bell rings my brain aches from overuse. Drained and exhausted, I finally arrive at my last class, astronomy.
Shit
. Another subject demoted to the back shelf in my mind. But I
am
craving a Milky Way bar.

It’s a large auditorium-like room with a high ceiling and astronomical posters everywhere. The astronomy teacher, Mr. Cummings, is late and everybody is lounging around talking and goofing off. Michael is standing alone and staring at notices on the bulletin board. I scan the room for Bailey. She and Duffy are doing their hostile, flirtatious mating ritual in the corner so I contemplate talking to Michael.

I know I should leave it alone and train my thoughts on class. So I revisit my brilliant plan to avoid trouble, finish my senior year in peace, and make friends, not enemies.

Yeah, well, the pit bull has her teeth in it again. I can’t help it when my curiosity is piqued. And it is most definitely piqued.

I wind my way through the labyrinth of desks toward Michael. The second heartbeat ignites in my chest, and I stop cold.
There it is again. But how
 …

I am poised to put the pieces together when Mom’s voice tells me to go sit down, to mind my own business.
But, Mom, I
—

Something warm passes through me and my mind stalls and I forget what I wanted to say. I blink hard and try to refocus.

Michael has crossed his arms over his chest and his jaw muscle grinds with controlled hostility. He stares at the bulletin board but his body is taut like he’s ready to attack something. It’s almost enough to make me lose my nerve. Almost.

I step closer, fumbling to gather my thoughts. Everything is scattered and I can’t snag a single wayward question, so instead I say, “Um, Michael? What you did for Casey James … that was … pretty amazing.”

He doesn’t look at me but waits a beat or two before murmuring his thanks. The fog in my mind finally dissipates and I ask the first question that floats by.

“Hey, you know that night at the accident … I was wondering … why were you hitting that guy?”

Michael’s jaw flexes violently and he turns to me, his nostrils flaring as he breathes. Honestly, he can be intimidating when he’s like this. I don’t know where my courage comes from.

Lowering his chin, he looks hard into my eyes. “You need to stay away from me,” he says in a deep, disciplined voice. Strangely, I don’t feel the impact of his threat like I should. Rather, I’m unusually calm and composed, until Michael’s eyes drift up to my eyebrow.

His face becomes still and he stares without blinking.

“Where is your scar?” he demands, sounding like Dad whenever I return from biking and he wants to know where my helmet is. I’m caught off guard by the question and Michael’s parental tone. Worse, I have no plausible answer.

“Uh …” I back up and bump into people and desks. I fumble through the maze of classmates until I land at my desk and plop down. Michael stares from across the room until Mr. Cummings arrives and tells everyone to take a seat.

I sit in my personal quiet riot, trembling and furious with myself for seeming timid with Michael. I hate that he unnerves me. I hate that I didn’t have an answer about my scar. Now that he mentioned it, I can’t pretend it was never there.

Bailey slides into a neighboring desk while covertly stuffing a handful of Starbursts into her mouth. She offers some to me but I shake my head.

Mr. Cummings kills the lights and we plunge into darkness. Gradually, glittering photos of breathtaking galaxies and other celestial wonders spring to life along the walls. The ceiling is alive and moving with a billion stars glowing and twinkling and swirling
around an orb in the center of the room. Soft instrumental music is playing, and we relax back in the special chairs with cushy headrests. It reminds me of the laser light show at the Griffith Observatory in LA, minus the blaring music and strobe lights. This small-town school is proving to be very surprising.