I couldn’t watch them anymore. I stared into my punch glass. I picked a sequin off the hem of my dress and folded it between my fingers. I licked my lips and tasted the crayon color of the lipstick I had on. I thought of May wearing this dress at her first dance, brown curls all falling around her face, gliding across the floor in someone’s arms. I tried not to cry.

Then, out of nowhere, Sky came up beside me. “Hi,” he said.

I turned. He still smelled of the clean cold of the night outside. He was wearing his leather jacket over suit pants and a button-up shirt.

“Hi.”

“You’re wearing red,” he said. “Like the song.”

“It’s my sister’s dress.”

Sky smiled a little half smile that made me feel like he understood what this meant. He held out his hand to me.

The touch of his fingers sent everything that was electrical in us toward each other. And then we were dancing. The bleachers with their wood smell, the perfume of everyone, the twinkle of the white Christmas lights, all of it came together to build a place that was just for us. Somewhere I’d never been before.

I wished I could stay forever inside of the song with him, but it was over too fast. Sky whispered, “Thank you for the dance,” and I watched him start to disappear into the crowd.

But then he turned back. “I’m going to get out of here,” he said. “Do you want a ride?”

“Sure.” I could hardly hide the excitement in my voice. I felt giddy as I followed him out of the gym, just as they started playing the electric slide song. I caught Natalie’s eye as I was leaving and waved bye. She grinned back at me, because she could see I was with Sky. As we walked through the parking lot, I quickly texted Dad that I was getting a ride home. I told him good night and sweet dreams, and that I wouldn’t be late.

When we got in his truck, Sky turned on the stereo, and “About a Girl” came on. It was the beginning of your MTV Unplugged album. A little part of me thought that maybe Sky had planned that on purpose, because he knows that we both love you. Maybe he cared that much.

We sat there in silence for a moment, listening to the song. I wanted to think of something to say out loud. Finally I said, “It’s like part of what’s so great is he’s not afraid of his voice.”

“You mean Kurt?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Sky turned to look at me, his eyes amused. “Are you?”

“Afraid of my voice?” I laughed, nervous. “Yeah, I guess.”

Then Sky tilted his head to the side a little and got more serious. “I think we all are. With Kurt, it’s more like he just faces the fear, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”

“I think that’s why he’s so loud. I mean, he has to be. Because he’s staring the monster in the face, and the only thing to do is fight back.”

“Do you think,” I asked, “do you think he won?”

“The obvious answer is no, ’cause he died. But I think he did in a way. I mean, listen.” Sky turned up the stereo. “We have this now. And we’ll always have it.”

I knew then that I was right when I used to sit by the fence watching Sky and thinking that we were connected somehow.

I pointed ahead, to our exit off of the freeway. “You get off up there,” I said. “Rio Grande.”

“You live pretty far from school.”

“Yeah. I was supposed to go to Sandia, but instead I go in my aunt’s district. I live with her part-time.” I paused a moment. “May went to Sandia…” I said, trailing off. I waited to see if Sky would say he went there, too. Did he? I wanted to ask him how he knew May, but I was afraid of breaking the spell.

He just said, “I transferred to West Mesa, too. Only two more years left, and then I’m free.”

“What are you going to do after that?” I asked.

Sky shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s funny, if you’d asked me that at the beginning of high school, I’d have told you my whole plan of escape, all laid out.” He paused. “Pre-law at Princeton or Brown. Amherst, maybe. Somewhere far away, with snow.” I could tell by the tone of his voice that it was an ambition he’d created for himself, not one handed down by his parents. “But now,” he said, “well, I don’t exactly have the grades for that anymore, or the permanent record. I don’t know … maybe it wasn’t meant to be.” He was quiet for another moment. “I guess I sort of want to be a writer now.” He glanced at me. “But it’s not like I’ve ever written anything. And that’s not something I tell most people.”

“You’d be a really great writer,” I said.

“Oh yeah? How do you know?”

“By the way you talk. Like when you said that Kurt is so loud because he’s staring the monster in the face, and how you’ve got to fight back.”

Sky smiled a little bit, like he was happy that I’d really been listening.

I pointed ahead. “Oh! Turn left up here.” We’d almost missed my street.

When we parked outside of my house, we were quiet a moment, my breath clutched in my chest. I watched the sequins on my dress catch the glow from the street lamp. And then I looked up at Sky. He reached out and took my face in his hands. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. I closed my eyes and let him pull me in. It was a perfect first kiss, like a gust of wind that swept through me, taking my breath away and letting me breathe again all at once. A kiss to come alive in.

When Sky finally got out of the car and opened my door, I was longing for more. He was so calm. In control. Unlike me, whose everything was shaking.

“So,” Sky asked with a little smile, “did it turn out the way it was supposed to?”

“Yeah, it did,” I whispered.

“Good,” he said, and kissed me softly on the forehead.

As his truck pulled off, I went inside as quietly as I could, carrying the secret of the night as I tiptoed over the creaking wood floors, past the door of Dad’s room that used to be Mom and Dad’s. Past May’s room. The house felt haunted, like only I understood the way all of our shadows, the ones we’d left, had seeped into the wood and stained it. How the floor and the walls were full of our bodies at certain moments. I went to my dresser and stood in front of the mirror. I unpinned my hair. I wiped away my lipstick onto the back of my hand. I looked at my face until it was only shapes. I kept looking, until something reformed. And I swear I saw May there. Looking back at me. Glowing from her first dance.

I got in bed and played “The Lady in Red” off of her CD. I thought of Sky’s hands pulling me closer. How he had said that I was beautiful. And I knew that he had seen her in me. I skipped back the song again and again until my hand was too tired to move. Before I slept, I felt like I was breathing for both of us. My sister and me.

Yours,

Laurel

Dear Amelia,

I think I am going to be you for Halloween, which is coming up in a little less than two weeks. I’m excited about it, so I am getting my costume ready. I don’t want to be a ghost or a stupid sexy cat. I want to be something that I really want to be, and you are like bravery to me.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy. But on Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be.

I remember the first year Mom and Dad let us go trick or treating alone. I was still seven, and May had just turned ten. She convinced them that double digits meant she was grown-up enough to shepherd me along our block. We ran up to each house, the fairy wings we carried on our backs flapping behind us, ahead of the kids who had their parents in tow. Every time a front door would open, May would put her arm around me, and it felt like she would always protect me. When we got home, our noses were ice-cold, and our paper bags, decorated with cotton ghosts and tissue paper witches, were full. We emptied our candy onto the living room floor to count it up, and Mom brought us hot cider. I remember the feeling of that night so much, because it was like you could be free and safe at once.