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And maybe on Monday I won’t feel like punching her.

And maybe she won’t try to make me.

31. ALEX

I have a boyfriend.

I have said the word aloud only once, at Anna’s grave. I went to tell her because she’s someone who should know. Claire knows; Jack knows. My circles don’t extend farther, so I stalled at the end of my run, picking my way through the monuments until I found hers.

I haven’t been back since the funeral, since the day my dad called me a firecracker and reduced my wrath into an adorable nickname. I know that the parts of Anna’s body they could recover are six feet below, as sheltered as can be from the worms and the ruin, resting on satin and in an utter darkness that even I can’t contemplate. But I know that’s not her. Whatever makes us flew from her with only one witness to the moment, someone who should have never known her at all.

But I told her anyway, pronouncing the word boyfriend carefully, like it might break in my mouth, or chip my teeth on its way out. Her stone stared back at me, blank and uncomprehending, which I imagine is exactly what her face would have looked like in real life if I were able to tell her in person.

I laughed at the thought, the sound echoing in the cold evening, bouncing off rocks whose names have been rubbed out by time, silent testament that someone lived and died, but we no longer know who. My laugh came back at me from the snow-covered ground, frozen beneath my feet, the bare trees with black fingers reaching toward the darkening sky.

It echoed back off the stone from a grave behind me, one that I filled, the sound breaking across my shoulder blades accusingly. I stopped laughing, the sound cut short by my throat closing over the fear.

I ran. I bolted from the cemetery and back to my path, my pace bearing nothing of a runner’s stride, no calm, measured beat to my steps. I ran like one pursued, with the conviction of my unworthiness fast on my heels.

The conviction that I don’t deserve this.

32. JACK

Alex Craft is my girlfriend.

This is a statement that has to be examined, turned over carefully, and marveled at even as the days we’ve been together accumulate into weeks. Alex is my girlfriend, but the word doesn’t do justice to what is between us. It’s been applied to other girls—okay, lots of other girls—and it’s always been appropriate, an indication that this is the female I call or text, the one whose hand I hold in the hallway, and the name that gets tossed around in the locker room when we’re talking pussy.

Alex and I are past that. Alex and I have never been there.

I have things to say with her, things I want to share. I call her because I want to hear her voice, especially the cautious way she says hello, like she’s trying not to care too much that it’s me. I liked the guarded way she controlled her enthusiasm at first, unsure about making the leap. But I like even more that it’s gone now, the quick uptick in her tone when she answers telling me that her heart just skipped a couple of beats when she saw I was calling, just like my fingers still shake a little when I dial. There is nothing routine about having Alex Craft for a girlfriend, and I’m not just logging my time when we talk.

The guys take their jabs in the locker room, for sure, but they’re more careful than they have been in the past. I don’t know if it’s out of respect for what happened to her older sister, or if enough of them remember what Alex did to Ray Parsons to know better than to pry me for details about getting any.

And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something that I’d thought about. I’m her first boyfriend. I haven’t been somebody’s first boyfriend since Branley and I moved on from sharing candy bars to sharing mouths, and even then I don’t know exactly what our relationship was. But I know what Alex is to me, and I hope I know what I am to her, and if that means I’m not going to be getting laid for a while, that’s okay.

And the best part is that’s something I can just say to my girlfriend and she doesn’t try to pick apart my sentence and find an insult in there to get pouty about. In fact, she laughs.

“I know it’s okay,” she says back to me.

We’re at Park’s house. His mom and dad are gone for the weekend, so he had some people over. Not a ton, a couple of guys from the basketball team, couple of girls from their team. Peekay is roaming around, and I know Branley is here because she squeals somewhere upstairs and asks who dropped an ice cube down the back of her shirt.

Her high-pitched yelp pierces right through drywall and cinder block, right down to the basement, where I’ve finally got Alex to myself. We’re cozy on a beanbag, the lights are off, and I told the guys we were going to watch a movie, which everyone knows means leave us the fuck alone for at least two hours. And for some reason I interrupted our heavy makeout session to tell her that if she’s not ready to do it, that’s okay.

“I know it’s okay,” she says again, totally confident in being a virgin. And damn if it isn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard her say.

I worried that Anna would be with us whenever we were alone, a shadowy voice of caution that would put itself between us anytime I tried to get closer. If Anna is there, I think she’s more in my head than Alex’s, because my girlfriend likes to touch and be touched. But I’ve gone slow, still reveling in the fact that this girl, who was an utter mystery to me at the beginning of the year, lets me kiss her now, whenever I want. I know her body, maybe not thoroughly but definitely more than anyone else, and when I touch her I feel how strong she is, yet I can’t ignore the voice insisting over and over: don’t hurt her.

Right now her hands are all over me, and mine on her, and with any other girl it’d be time to bring out the condom, but with Alex I don’t even consider reaching for my wallet. Instead I pull back to put some space between us. Because I’m not exactly thinking with my heart right now, and my dick is trying to undo my zipper from the inside.

Another girl might ask me what’s wrong, a little bit of a whimper in her voice like she hasn’t lived up to something I expected. Instead of that I get Alex’s palm, flat against my bare chest, an unspoken question in the amount of pressure she exerts.

“Need a minute,” I tell her. Honestly, I need about a year and six feet of bricks in between us to keep myself under control, but I go for the next best thing.

“I think you should meet my parents.”

She laughs again, this one coming out in kind of a snort that might embarrass other girls, but not Alex.

“Why is that funny?” I ask her.