It was senior year. Between school, the newspaper, deciding which colleges to apply to (hint: any one that would take me), and maintaining the slim resemblance of a social life, my existence was already busy and knotted enough.

And then, of course, I’d Googled the crash. It had taken a while to find the article, because Grace’s name was never used, and I didn’t know her boyfriend’s full name. When I found it, I didn’t want to read it. It felt like getting a shitty mark back on an essay and seeing a wall of text from the teacher about everything you’d done wrong, everything you couldn’t change now, so what was the point?

Still, I skimmed it, picked up quotes here and there, tried to read as little as possible because the words stung me like barbs.

Classes at East River High School were suspended on Wednesday after a junior died and a second was severely injured—

Skipped to next paragraph.

The unnamed passenger, a 17-year-old girl believed to be the driver’s girlfriend, remained in critical condition Friday with major injuries to her—

Skipped to next paragraph.

The car skidded off the road and flipped several times before impacting a tree near—

Skipped to next paragraph.

It’s believed that the 17-year-old driver, Dominic Sawyer, died on impact, while the passenger was rushed to—

Skipped to next paragraph.

“The car is just destroyed,” said the officer. “There’s nothing left—

Skipped to next paragraph.

At East River, school counselors are on hand today to provide support to students and—

Skipped to next paragraph.

Jeffers said Sawyer “was one of the kindest students I’d ever taught. Brilliant at everything and—

Skipped to next paragraph.

Plans for a memorial service for the popular East River student are—

Closed website.

By the time I reached my afternoon drama class, I’d all but decided that we couldn’t be together. We couldn’t make it work. Grace was too broken. Too weird. How could you move on from that? What she needed was a friend, not a boyfriend. I could be that for her. I could be a good friend. God knows she needed one. So I sat where I normally sat in the black-walled drama room, across from the door, close to the stage, waiting for her to arrive. Surely it wasn’t too late to nip it in the bud. Feelings could be suppressed if you tried hard enough, right?

Grace got there late, as she always did, and Mrs. Beady didn’t say anything, because she never did.

Nothing about her had changed, specifically. Her hair was still a mess. Her skin was still sallow. She still had guys’—her dead boyfriend Dom’s—clothes on. She still walked with a limp that was in no way attractive. But the moment our eyes met across the room and her hard expression softened at the sight of me, I knew.

I knew I wanted to try.

So she was grieving and broken and it would almost definitely end in one or both of us getting destroyed. But some things were worth fighting for, right?

BECAUSE I’M A COWARD, I didn’t ask her about him. Maybe it would have been the best thing for both of us to sit down and for her to talk about him and cry about him and tell me that she still regularly visited his grave.

There were things I was curious about, of course. How long had they dated? How long had they known each other? Had they slept together?

Had she loved him?

But Grace didn’t belong to me. She wasn’t my girlfriend. I’d only kissed her twice. In fact, she’d asked me not to tell anyone about us, to keep it on the down-low, at least until she knew for sure what she wanted, because it was generally considered poor taste to date someone so soon after your significant other had died. I tried my best not to feel hurt that she wanted to keep me a secret, because, well, fair enough.

So it didn’t feel like my place to ask about him, and I think, deep down, I kind of didn’t want to know. The Grace I’d fallen for hadn’t been a girl in mourning for someone else; she’d been a mystery to be unraveled, and part of me wanted to keep it that way.

The trick to dating, I figured, was to have some kind of activity to do. Going to the movies seemed kind of lame and antisocial, but there was a new Liam Neeson action flick out, and we had the whole Liam-Neeson-improvisational-comedy in-joke thing going, so I decided to message her on Monday afternoon to see what she was doing.

HENRY PAGE:

Are you busy tonight?

GRACE TOWN:

Nothing at the moment. What are you up to?

Was thinking of going to see that new Liam Neeson flick. There will no doubt be much improvisational comedy involved. I mean, I’m pretty sure it has the same plot line as all of Liam Neeson’s other movies, but I’m okay with that.

Where and what time?

Well, I would normally suggest the theater near my place, but Regal is probably going to be easier if you’re busing it like us peasants. 7:45 p.m.

Yeah, I may have to. But that sounds good. Liam Neeson vs. the world. My money’s on the big man.

No one messes with Neeson! Meet you there at like 7:30 p.m.?

Sounds good, Henrik Page. See you then.

• • •

Grace was waiting outside the theater when I arrived, hunched over her phone, unkempt as ever.

“Hey,” I said when she looked up and saw me. Was I supposed to kiss her? We’d already kissed before, but did that mean I was allowed to kiss her whenever I wanted to now? Were we allowed to be affectionate in public places, or did that break the down-low rule?

“Henry Page,” Grace said. Why had I still not kissed her? “Shall we get our tickets?”