“No, seriously, he’s lying facedown in the grass and he hasn’t moved for, like, twenty minutes and Lola’s gone.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Well, he asked me if I’d heard anything more from Seeta, so I told him about her new boyfriend, and then he kind of sank to his knees and laid down and refused to get up. I think he might be dead. I can’t deal with a dead body, Henry.”

“Christ. Send me a drop pin of your location. I’ll come and get him.”

“We’re at the football field. Everyone’s gone. You need to get here ASAP.”

I didn’t get there ASAP. I hung up and wandered slowly from Grace’s house to the school, hoping Murray would grow up before I got there so I could go home and die in peace. While I walked, I messaged La and told her I might not make it to her party because Murray had been injured at the pregame.

When I got there, I almost didn’t spot them because it was dark and Madison was lying down as well, using Murray’s lower back as a pillow.

“I thought I might as well get comfortable while I waited for you,” she said.

“Sugar Gandhi really has a new boyfriend?” I said.

“If you’re referring to Seeta, a) yes and b) that is incredibly racist.”

“How bad is he?”

“Watch this.” Madison stood and proceeded to kick Murray in the legs, to which he didn’t react.

“Jesus, woman, stop. Don’t kick a man when he’s down.” I poked him in the neck to make sure he was still warm, which he was. “Muz, buddy?” When he didn’t respond, I instructed Madison to grab his legs as I took him by the shoulders and turned him over. Murray’s eyes were open, staring unblinkingly at the night sky. I squeezed his cheeks together until he had fish lips.

“How you doing, man?” I said.

“Oh, hey, Henry. I didn’t see you there,” he said without looking at me, his cheeks still squished together.

“You wanna maybe sit up?”

“Oh no, I’m gonna lie here until I decompose and carrion birds pick apart my innards.”

“I don’t think the groundskeepers are gonna let that fly.”

“Drag me under the grandstand, then. Bury me next to Ricky Martin Knupps.”

“Is he high?” Madison asked. “Did you take something, Murray?”

“No, we buried a fish under the bleachers,” I explained. “It’s a long story.”

“Racist fish murderers. Nice.”

Then someone shouted my name from across the field and a small, dark body sprinted toward us through the night. Lola skidded on the grass to Muz’s side and took his head in her hands and turned it this way and that as she pushed his hair back and inspected him for injuries. “What happened? Do you have a concussion? Should I call an ambulance?” she said frantically.

“Not unless the docs can fix broken hearts,” Murray said.

Lola looked up at Madison and me, frowning.

“Seeta Ganguly,” Madison said in explanation, “has a boyfriend.”

“He’s not even Indian!” Murray wailed. “His name’s Taylor Messenger! Her parents don’t care who she dates!”

“Your message,” La said, narrowing her eyes at me, “said he was hurt.”

“I said he might be hurt. Besides,” I said, gesturing to Murray’s slumped form, “heartbroken is a kind of hurt.”

“The fucking pair of you.” Lola smacked the back of Murray’s head as she stood. “I’m sick to goddamn death of all this hormonal teenage bullshit. You.” Lola jabbed her finger in my direction. “You will get your shit together. You will hand your essays in when they’re due. You will stop obsessing about a girl who never asked you to love her.”

I nodded without speaking.

“And you,” Lola said, turning on Murray with even more ferocity. “It’s been months. Frankly I find your behavior deplorable. Leave her alone. You’re better than this.”

Murray started crying then, and proceeded to vomit in his own lap.

“Can we go to your party now?” said Madison.

“No! No parties for any of you! Get up off the ground right now, Murray Finch, or so help me God . . .” Sobbing and covered in vomit that smelled strongly of tequila, Muz fumbled his way to his feet. La pushed his hair out of his eyes, not unkindly. “We’re going to get some Burger King, we’re all going to sober up, and then we’re going to Henry’s house to do something productive with our lives.”

An hour and two Burger King meals later, I was sitting cross-legged beneath the elk head in my basement, twirling a cold onion ring around my finger. I had a dictionary in my lap, Lola was using a random word generator on the iMac, and Murray was browsing Urban Dictionary on his phone. Madison Carlson, who’d silently followed us back to my house (quite likely in fear of Lola’s wrath if she tried to escape), was asleep in my bed. Which is not a place I ever imagined I would see teen goddess Madison Carlson. I tried not to notice the way her black jeans clung to the curves of her hips, or the way her hair fanned out across my sheets, or the way she smelled of vanilla and soft spices, the very antithesis of everything that was Grace Town.

“Survey says . . . costumed,” Lola said, who’d decided the best use of our Saturday night was to try and salvage the newspaper, which I already knew at this point was beyond salvaging, because it was too late to put together anything decent. “That could actually work. You could do articles about the masks we wear as high schoolers and other kinds of deep shit.”

“No, shh, this is way better,” Muz said. “You should make the theme ‘species dysphoria.’ A feeling that one is in the body of the wrong species. We could finally address my transspecies desire to become a dragon. Think of the possible articles: ‘Six Degrees of Smaug.’ ‘Puff the Magic Dragon Gives First Post-Rehab Interview.’ ‘Falkor the Luck Dragon: How the Story Finally Ended.’”