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heart pounded and I racked my brain for what holiday it could possibly be. It was Monday, the first week of October. Why would there be no school?
    I closed my locker and turned around, leaning against it to think. A mirror lined the back of the trophy case on the opposite wall, but my reflection looked nothing like me. There was color in my cheeks I hadn’t seen in a year or more; my dark hair glistened. I looked almost healthy.
    An eruption of laughter floated down the stairs at the end of the hall and I headed toward the sound. Then I smacked myself in the forehead. Of course! The assembly. I’m a genius.
    All sports assemblies were the same at OHS. Technically this was a football assembly, since soccer season was still a ways off, but I knew that like always, it would somehow turn back to soccer. Soccer was like a religion for Oakville High students. No matter what group you hung with, no matter who your family was, no matter what else happened throughout the school year—we were all unified about soccer.
    This actually might work out pretty well , I realized. The entire student body would be there, and it would be easier to find Megan when everyone was in one place.
    I pushed open the doors to the auditorium. The smell of dust mixed with a hundred different kinds of cologne, perfume, and deodorant assaulted my senses. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room. There were three seniors on stage doing some kind of skit.
    I saw Finn motion to me from a few rows up.
    “Thanks,” I whispered as I took the seat next to him. I glanced around, trying to spot Megan in the crowd. Finn watched me for a minute before raising his eyebrows.
    “Who are you looking for?”
    “Me? Nobody.” I dismissed him with a wave as I craned my neck and squinted, trying to make out the features of a dark-haired girl a few rows behind us. My heart dropped to my feet with a nearly audible thud—it was Penny Charles, not Megan. We’d been partners on an astronomy project in junior high. Penny dreams an awful lot about fishing.
    “Yeah, obviously—nobody.” Finn laughed and turned his attention back to the stage. He let out a low whistle. “Wow, check that out.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said without even a glance forward. It had to be one of the many cute girls that Finn was into and I wasn’t. In junior high, every girl I’d found interesting ended up having dreams about us getting married—even having kids. I hate watching myself in other people’s dreams. No one should have to do that. It’s like being possessed and having an out-of-body experience at the same time. What made it worse was my fear that the dreams were a lie—that I’d never live long enough to do either of those things. It was enough to cure me of any attraction I felt for the girls at school.
    Yet here I was, pulling a stupid neck muscle trying to spot one at the assembly. And she wasn’t even here.
    I sighed and slouched back in my chair. The idea that I’d never see Megan again, never feel so rested again, was like a dump truck driving onto my chest and then parking there. Everything felt so tight around me that my vision swam, and it scared me. I needed to chill out. It was just one night, and it had probably been a fluke anyway.
    Back to reality, Parker.
    The stage was full of bouncing cheerleaders. Their swirling, colorful skirts made my head hurt. Jeff Sparks grinned and walked across the stage as they cheered. Leading the pep assemblies seemed to be Jeff’s favorite part of being senior class president. It didn’t hurt that it meant he could throw in at least one mention of soccer, whatever sport the pep rally was actually for.
    Scattered around the stage, behind Jeff, stood more than half the jocks at school. I was probably supposed to be up there—Finn, too, for that matter—but he was a slacker and I didn’t care enough at the moment.
    I watched Jeff, trying to distract myself from the misery that clung to my bones even after I