Because you’re worth nothing less than stardust, but all I can give you is dirt.

DAD DROPPED ME OFF at Grace’s place on Saturday evening as the sky split and rain began to fall. I ran for shelter under the tall elm tree that stood in front of her house. As I got there, my hair already dripping, my phone buzzed in my hand.

GRACE TOWN:

I’m running 10 minutes late. Stay on the lawn. Don’t go inside.

I looked up at the sad, gloomy house with its drawn curtains and overgrown garden and thought back to how Murray had wondered if Grace was some kind of supernatural creature. A vampire. A fallen angel. There were definitely secrets inside these walls that she didn’t want me to know, but what kind of secrets were they?

The door cracked open and a small, balding man appeared from the shadows. The same man who always came by in the afternoons to pick up Grace’s car.

“Henry Page?” he said, squinting at me in the low light. “Is that you?”

“Uh, yes,” I said quietly. And then, louder, “Yes, I’m Henry Page.”

“Oh, wonderful. Yes, wonderful. Come inside, come inside. My name is Martin.”

An irrational pang of fear shot through me. Stay on the lawn. Don’t go inside. What if Grace’s message hadn’t been a request so much as a warning? What if Martin was a werewolf or something? And then, under the irrational fear was the real fear. Of betraying Grace. Whatever was in this house, she didn’t want me to see it yet. Or maybe ever.

“Uh . . . I don’t mind staying out here. Grace will be home in a few minutes.”

“Don’t be silly, the rain is getting heavier. Come in and get warm.” Martin beckoned me with one hand, his other pressed against the screen door to keep it open. So I went. Mostly because it was cold and dark and raining, but a little bit because I wanted to know what she was keeping from me. I thought again of Sully Sullenberger, how he would never do what I was doing, how I was falling further and further from his white-mustachioed grace.

“Shut up, Sullenberger,” I muttered to myself.

“Henry,” said Martin, shaking my hand. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Good things, I hope.” Which was the cliché thing you were supposed to say when people said that to you. But it gave me a little thrill. For someone so close to Grace to know that I existed.

“Mostly, mostly,” he said with a chuckle. “Please, make yourself at home. You can wait in Dom’s room, if you like,” he said, and then he faltered. “Well, Grace’s room now, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry? Dom. Lived. Here?” I said it in this weird staccato way, a pause between each word as my brain tried to process the meaning attached to the sentence.

Martin frowned. “Lived here? Grace has told you that we’re not her parents, hasn’t she?”

“Um . . . no. I kind of assumed you were her dad.”

“No, no. My name is Martin Sawyer. Dominic was our son. We had Grace move in with us about a month before the crash. I’m sure she’s told you all about her troubles with her mother? After Dom was gone, Mary and I insisted she stay with us. They were together for so long, so many years. Grace is practically our daughter.”

“Grace . . . lives . . . in Dom’s room?”

“I thought she would’ve told you this.”

“Uh.” I shook my head, licked my lips, and looked around for the first time. The walls were this off-cream color, almost pale orange, and all the furniture was made of dark wood. The stairs were carpeted, worn bare in patches with age, and on the wall were dozens of photographs. Smiling graduation portraits and faded wedding snaps and he was in all of them, Dominic, over and over again.

The closest photo of him was with Grace seated atop his broad shoulders, his hands resting on her uninjured calves. It was the first time I’d seen a picture of him. The sight of him stung me like venom. Dom was broad and built and classically handsome. The exact opposite of me. In the picture with Grace, he was wearing a football jersey and grinning widely. Grace had her head tipped back in laughter, shrieking with delight inside his football helmet, her fingers in his hair.

I felt bile bubble up from somewhere in the black, destroyed remains of my gut. Not jealousy. Not anxiety. Just sadness.

“Dom was our youngest,” said Martin, leading me away from the torture wall. “Bit of a gap between him and Renee. The older two had already moved out by the time of the crash. It’s been nice having Grace here. I don’t know if I could handle the silence.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea this was his house.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, kid. You’ve been a good friend to her. You and your girlfriend, Lola. We appreciate everything you’ve done for her.”

“My. Girlfriend. Lola?” I said, again in staccato, and Martin was looking at me then like I was a little bit slow. Grace had been lying to him. Had been lying about what we were. But then again, why wouldn’t she? How exactly would you tell your dead boyfriend’s dad that you were sleeping with someone else? “Yeah. My girlfriend, Lola. We love Grace.”

Martin nodded to a door at the end of the hall. “You can wait in there. Grace will be here soon. I’ll send her to find you.”

“Thanks.” I waited for Martin to leave and then opened the door slowly, with one hand, hesitant to step over the threshold into his tomb. The air was heavy and smelled distinctly like Grace.

No.

Like Dom.

I wanted to vomit. Or take a scalding-hot shower. Or vomit while taking a scalding-hot shower. But my curiosity was still stronger, so instead I turned on the light and stepped inside.

It was a fairly typical teenage boy’s room, filled with the same sort of clutter and haphazard order as my own. The checked duvet was crumpled and unmade at the foot of the bed. There was a bookcase filled with the likes of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. An acoustic guitar resting on a chair. A record player with stacks of old vinyl. A globe. A skateboard. A backpack. A desk and a laptop and sports magazines and trophies from his childhood. A chalkboard and a canvas with a portrait of Mozart on it and trinkets from faraway lands. On the dresser was Dom’s jewelry—an assortment of long leather necklaces with anchors and crosses and skulls—and his deodorant.