Skye Gilchrist.

Jesse leans against the wall, out of sight of the school doors. When he spotted her, he backpedaled so fast he nearly fell on his ass.

It isn’t Skye. Cannot be Skye. She left three years ago and never looked back. Never reached out. Never contacted him. Never even said goodbye.

The last time he saw her, he was standing under her window. He escaped the hell of that day and went to the only person he could talk to. He ran all the way to Skye’s house and stood under her window, seeing the light on, knowing she was in there, tossing pebbles at her window, getting no response, and growing more and more frustrated, the stones getting larger until finally she looked down. Looked down…and shut the blind.

It took him a day to calm down. A day for the turmoil in his head and in his home to settle, just a bit, and let him realize, well, he’d kinda been an ass. Skye had lost her brother, too, and he’d only been thinking of himself, his anguish, his confusion.

Skye had been hurting, and she just hadn’t felt like talking. He needed to understand that. So a few days later, he went to try again…and she was gone. Left Riverside without a goodbye, and that hurt—hurt like hell—but he told himself it was temporary. She knew where to find him. She would text. She’d email. She’d do something.

She did nothing.

Three years of silence.

He thought they were friends. Good friends. Maybe even becoming more. He liked her. No, let’s be honest, he fell for Skye the way only a thirteen-year-old kid can fall. The first girl he couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t wait to see again, to talk to again.

Now, at sixteen, he looks back and wants to roll his eyes at that. Silly kid stuff. Only it didn’t feel like silly kid stuff. And when he caught a glimpse today of someone who looked like her, what he felt…

One spark of heart-in-throat joy, followed by a gut-twisting crash, the pain of her rejection and her betrayal coming fast and hard.

Not kid stuff. Damn it. Not kid stuff at all.

But it isn’t her. Can’t be. Jesse takes a few deep breaths. Then he heads back to the door and walks inside, and there she is, up ahead, turning down a side hall. He sees her, and there is no question. Absolutely no question that this is Skye Gilchrist.

He backs up fast, bumping into a kid who mutters, “Watch it!” Then he breaks into a jog and gets out of the school as fast as he can.

He makes it two blocks before a silver minivan pulls over. It’s his chem teacher, Ms. Blake.

“Going the wrong way, aren’t you, Jasser?” she says.

He tenses at the name. It’s his, and he’s fine with it, but no one uses it at school, not since first grade, when a kid called him Jesse by mistake, and he declared that was what he wanted to be called. He feels silly about that now, being so eager to jump at a name that made him fit in better, but by sixteen, he is Jesse, and no one outside his family uses Jasser…except Ms. Blake, when she’s annoyed with him.

“I forgot something at home,” he says.

“Well, you’d better hop in, and I’ll drive you. You have that makeup quiz with me this morning, and I’m not rescheduling if you skip it, too.”

“I was home sick Friday. My dad called in.”

“Your dad. That’s right. He’s phoned in sick for you a few times this term…and it’s only October. I’ve started to wonder if we should follow up with your mom. I know she’s a doctor, and I’m sure she’s concerned about your health.”

Jesse wants to shrug and say whatever and continue walking home. If he does, though, his parents will get a call, and they don’t deserve it.

“Climb in,” she says. “Let’s go pick up what you left at home.”

He mutters that it’s not important and jogs back to school.