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to meet with the chief today,” Noah says. “Maybe he can tell me more about what my role in all of this is.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Maybe he has more news about the crash.”
    â€œI’m coming with you,” I say.
    Noah sets a hand on my knee. I suck in my breath. We both look at it, but he doesn’t take it off. “You can’t,” he says. “They already don’t want you here.”
    â€œSo why am I?” I move away from his hand. I stand. “Why did they let me live? Why not just spear me? Or give me some magical dose of poison and not let anyone heal me?”
    Noah knits his hands together. He looks out over the ocean. “Because you’re with me,” he says.
    That’s all. “Because you’re with me.”
    I glance sideways at him, and I know we’re remembering the same thing. We’re calling up the same memory. Sophomore formal. Ed had to cancel and go to some leadership seminar. He told me I should go anyway. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be there with him. But I had a dress, and Miss Opportunity and my dad were making such a fuss about the whole thing—“You’ll cherish these memories forever!”—so I went.
    Jessica Eldridge stopped me at the door. She was checking people in and wanted to know why Ed wasn’t with me. “You’re alone ?” she said. Her look was dripping with pity and glee—I could read it. Predictable. Like you could ever hold on to Ed.
    I heard someone behind me. In the next moment Noah was there. He was dressed in a suit. To this day, I have no idea where he got it from, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he put his hand down on the check-in table and said, “She’s not alone. She’s with me.”
    I’ll never forget the way Jessica’s jaw unhinged.
    He put his hand on my waist as we made our way into the dance. Girls eyed him up and down, but girls were always eyeing Noah up and down. Ever since we hit puberty. I knew what they saw. I saw it, too. I tried not to, but I did. His insanely perfect abs. The rippling muscles of his shoulders and arms. His piercing blue eyes.
    I knew Noah hooked up with girls. I’d hear Ed asking about them when they thought I wasn’t listening. But Noah had never had a girlfriend. It was the one thing that kept me sane. The one thing that kept the insanely inappropriate jealousy at bay.
    Which was crazy. I had no idea what these girls meant to him. And besides, jealousy wasn’t my right. I was with Ed. I loved Ed. But that night at sophomore formal was different. Ed was away, and it felt, somehow, when we walked in together, when we got drinks, when he asked me to dance—pressing me up close against his chest—that we were living in some kind of alternate reality, one where Ed wasn’t just not there, but maybe didn’t exist at all.
    Noah blew off Alison Sussberg and Kendall Highdell, and when he drove me home that night, I can’t ever remember being so nervous. I sat in the passenger seat of his pickup, my hands in my lap, my heart hammering against my ribs like a prisoner at his bars, screaming to be set free.
    â€œI had a good time tonight,” I said. “Thanks for filling in.”
    â€œThanks for letting me.”
    I turned to him. I don’t know how I let the words slip out. Probably because I had been holding them tightly, pinned down in my throat since the night Ed had asked me to be his girlfriend, and tonight my grip wasn’t so steadfast: “I liked being there with you.”
    Noah set his hands on the wheel. He blew some air out of his lips. “August…” he started, but I just shook my head. I opened the door before he could say anything else. I ran from the car, into my house, and we never talked about it again. We never really talked about much again.
    â€œShe’s with me.”
    â€œBecause you’re with