Day 1: early

My stomach hurts, and my eyes ache. I haven't slept. I sit on the front step, holding my coffee cup tightly. Tangled branches overhang our yard. It's not even nine in the morning, but the heat is rising already. I'm listening to St. Vincent while I watch Dad pick tomatoes. Even from here, their leaves smell rich and dense, almost spicy. Because he's a mechanic, he has grease on his shirt from work, but it hasn't stopped him wearing it again.

Alec's truck arrives. I remove one earbud and watch him get out. He's wearing his usual outdoorsy clothes, and he's holding three red roses. Roses again. I think of the orange ones that I left in his truck yesterday. I wonder if he threw them out after what happened. Alec steps through our gate, seeming giant in our nineteenth-century English garden — style yard, his shoes crunching on the gravel path, and he holds out the bouquet to me. My eyes travel over him. The neat stitches are stark against the skin of his temple. His shirt is pale green, and his hoodie is emblazoned with the slogan hit the woods. His sleeves are pushed back, revealing his strong, tanned arms. The air stills, and a bird calls a warning overhead. I chose him, I chose him, I chose him. I left a little girl facedown in the water. The bird calls again, and it sounds to me like a judgment. I swallow my nausea, seeking Alec's gaze to reassure me I made the right choice. I catch his eye. Something between us quickens, intensifies, becomes solid.

"You look ..." He pauses, as if he's finding the right word, his tongue resting on the right of his bottom lip, close to his piercing. "Lovely."

"I look tired." I smile wanly. I take the roses. "Thanks." "I didn't sleep either." He turns to my dad, who has emerged from the bushes. "Mr. Hardy? A pleasure to meet you." He even reaches out to shake Dad's hand. "I mean, I know we saw each other yesterday."

He means at the hospital, where Dad had to come and get me. Where Alec had to be checked over. Where little Annabelle is in a coma.

Suzanne asked us not to visit her. "Family only, please," she said. Not unkindly, but with a quiet firmness.

Alec continues. "But that feels like months ago ..."

"Call me `Vince.' `Mr. Hardy' makes me feel old."

"Will do. Thank you, Vince." Alec turns to me. "I just wanted to check you were okay."

I tremble. I can still hear that desperate cry: Lark! DO SOMETHING!

Day 3: period three

Alec's thumb circles my palm, and shivers spread through me. I could write about this feeling, put it in a song. I think about the last time I wrote a song and push away the lyrics that are trying to come. Instead I peek at his hand, his silver thumb ring, his bitten nails. He's wearing one of those checkered shirts that make him look like he's on his way to hike up a mountain. His jeans have that rugged look, too — not skinny or trendy. The "man outside" look works for me. Yep. Works for me. The piercing in the middle of his bottom lip doesn't quite fit the look, but I like it, too. I look everywhere but at the stitches on his temple. They only remind me of what I did. His clothes contrast totally with what I'm wearing: a black shirt, short black skirt and knee-high low-heeled boots.

It's the first day back at school after the summer break, and it's already the period before lunch. The day has gone by without me really being a part of it. Mr. Hidlebaugh, tall, bald and enthusiastic, stands at the front of the class emphatically talking about The Road by Cormac McCarthy. His hands make huge gestures, and then he writes Who is anyone really? on the smartboard.

But I hardly pay attention. The world has tilted on its axis. My mind clutters with images of Annabelle in the water. She was dusky blue. My heart pounds. I have to get out of here. Suzanne's shriek echoes in my head. Alec's thumb tracks another slow circle, and I take a breath. Cool it. I hear my cell, but no message appears. I silence it.

"The boy is asking who the footprints belong to," Hidlebaugh cries. He raises his right arm and brings it down in a chopping motion. "Who? I ask you."

We're sitting at desks in a U shape. Alec is on one side of me, Lucy the other. I lean my shoulder against hers. She smells of the horrible clove cigarettes she always smokes, and of incense. The incense gets in her strawberry-blond hair at her mom's store. Her mom, Dolphin — her actual name — was my mom's best friend. Lucy pushes her shoulder against mine.

Finally, finally, the bell rings. We only have a half day the first day, so school is over.

Alec is still holding my hand as we file out into the crowded hallway of Edenville High. Lucy asks if we want to go for lunch.

I glance at Alec, who is staring into space, not really listening. "You know what, Luce?" I say. "Why don't I call you later."

She flashes me a smile. "Sure."

We've known each other since we were babies, so I know she means Go for it, Lark. Have fun with the new guy.

"See ya later, lovebirds."

Alec slips his hand from mine and rests it around my waist. My whole body feels his heat.

We walk across the parking lot away from the school. The day is so soft, so luminously agreeable, that my skin becomes part of the weather. My mood suddenly brightens, and my thoughts float across my mind as lightly as the shining white clouds above. Alec tightens his grip around my waist, pulling me slightly toward him. I stumble. He catches hold of me, and we end up facing each other.

"You trying to make me fall?" I say. It's corny, but I don't care.

"Mebbe."

I glance at his mouth, the piercing there. If he kissed me, would I feel the metal in his lip? Electricity sparks between us.

"You hungry?" he says.

"Sure. What do you want?" I ask, then blush at my accidental innuendo. "I mean ... to eat. How about a burger?"

"Burger! Lark — the Chicken Shack is the way to go. I'll convert you."

"To greasy, triple-fried wings? I don't think so."

"I'm pretty persuasive. But first, sing me something." He tugs my hand and steps back from me.

"Sing?" I glance around the parking lot. "You don't mean here."

"Why not?"

"I — I haven't really got anything new right now." "An old song, then."

"I don't have my guitar."

"Guitar? Do you need it with you to sing?"

"Honestly? No." I watch other kids get into their cars or wander to the usual lunch places. "Anyway, I don't use that guitar anymore."

"Why?"

"Uh, next question, please ..."

"Interesting." He taps his chin like he's pretending to be working something out. "Ms. Lark has a secret. I'll get it out of her. But not before I've heard her sing."

"I won't! You can't make me!" I say, dramatically stepping back.

He narrows his eyes. "So-o-o-o, what type of guitar is it? This one you don't use?"

"You won't get my secrets from me." I smile at him coyly. "But I will answer you that. The one I actually use belonged to Iona, but I also have a Takamine guitar. A Tak — that's what it's called in the business. It's an electric acoustic." I remember the feel of it. "It has a pickup built into it for amplification."

"What's that?"

"A pickup? It's a small electronic device, set right into the body of the guitar, that picks up the sound."

"But you don't use it. And you don't have Iona's guitar here. So ... there's just you, me and your voice." He produces a pair of...