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whole thing. I remember us walking to the bus stop and then him moving away from me to talk to Lydia Franco, who was ten and unimaginably streetwise. But on some weekends we went for walks in the woods, and he’d show me the old stone homestead walls that ran through the back of our neighborhood.
    We did this until the year David started middle school. Although we waited at the same stop, he took a different bus now, and he had simply stopped talking to me. I think I asked him a question once and he just looked at me, smiled, and turned away. That was it, like someone finally switching off a TV that’s been left on too long. If I felt hurt, I never admitted it. Soon, Meg moved to the neighborhood and I had someone, and that was all that mattered.
    When I got to my room, Elliot and Selina were both on the bed, giving me these looks.
    “Sorry, guys, the dog’s not leaving yet,” I said, and crawled under the covers.

Chapter Six

    M r. Churchwell got up from behind his desk to join me on the small, beat-up leather couch in his office, forcing me to inch a little farther toward my end. The cushion made a poosh sound as he settled in, smiling at me. It felt like being on a date with someone’s tragically dorky uncle.
    “So, you feel okay? Anything you want to talk to me about?” he said.
    I had made it here, to school, just like I said I would. Mr. Churchwell had asked me to come in a bit early, before homeroom if I could, to “check in” and “touch base.” It hadn’t even been two weeks since the accident, but it didn’t seem possible that I could be anywhere else.
    “I’m glad to be out of the house, actually,” I offered. It was true. I had been able to look at people’s faces when I walked into the school and down the main hallway toward my locker. Some had smiled at me, and I had smiled back.
    “Mmmm, yes. I don’t blame you. It’s important to resume your usual routine.”
    “Plus, I was starting to get a little too good at The Price Is Right . Do you believe what a good washer-dryer combo costs these days?”
    He donated a short, humoring chuckle. “Well, take it easy today. If you need some time out of the classroom, a break or anything, just let your teachers know. They’re ready to help.”
    “You talked to them about me?” I asked.
    “Just to tell them you were coming back. And I spoke with Emily Heinz about the Tutoring Club. She says she can take charge of things until you feel like getting involved again.”
    I’d started the Tutoring Club my freshman year because of Toby. He’d struggled all through elementary school until they figured out he had dyslexia, when he was eight and I was eleven. Somewhere along the line I’d started helping him read and do his homework. He wouldn’t let my parents do it; he’d get annoyed with them and they’d fight. But me, he liked working with me. Somehow I found ways to make things click for him, like using his plastic soldiers to form letters on the floor.
    Eventually my mom started paying me five bucks an hour to help him, although I would have done it for free. It was the only time we got along.
    In ninth grade I wrote a paper about this, and my English teacher asked if I was interested in helping her put together a group of students to tutor other students. It seemed like a golden opportunity to get involved in something I already knew how to do, and Toby would need the Tutoring Club when he got to high school. My dad fought hard to keep him in regular classes, even though Mom would have let him go into special ed. “He won’t get bullied so much in special ed,” she’d say, but my father wanted so badly for him to have the most normal experience possible.
    A clear vision of Toby, slowly sounding out words on a page with his brow furrowed in concentration, started to push me off a little cliff in my mind. What was the point of the Tutoring Club now if Toby would never be able to take advantage of it?
    “Laurel, are you okay?” said Mr.