I think that this year we are going to a party that Hannah’s college boyfriend, Kasey, is having. I told Sky about it, and I hope he might go, too. It’s been one week since homecoming. I don’t think he wants to have a girlfriend, because of what Kristen said about how he just “has girls” sometimes. I try to remind myself of this so that I don’t scare him off. But to tell the truth, I’ve never liked someone so much. Since the dance, I’ve caught him watching me a few times at lunch. And I watch back. Then yesterday, when I was getting stuff from my locker, I closed the door, and there he was, out of nowhere. My body instantly remembered kissing him. The feeling almost knocked me over.

“What’s up?” he said, just smoothly, the way he does.

“Um…” I was thinking fast. I was not going to say nothing. “It’s almost Halloween.”

“Indeed.”

“What are you going to be?”

Sky laughed. “I usually just put on a white sheet and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters with my mom.”

“Well, we’re going to this one party, because Hannah’s seeing this guy or whatever. It’s a college party, and, I don’t know, you should come…”

“You’re going to a college party?” He sounded vaguely disapproving.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess maybe I better. I don’t want you getting into any trouble.” Sky said it like he was mostly teasing, but meant it a tiny bit.

I tried to keep myself from giggling. “I’ll send you the address, you know, in case.”

When I told Natalie and Hannah about this at lunch, they were eating Halloween candy early, and Hannah said, in the middle of a handful of candy corn, “That means he wants to do you.”

Natalie hit her shoulder and said, “Han-nah!”

“What? That doesn’t mean she’s gonna. Laurel’s a good girl, can’t you tell?”

My face got all hot.

Then Hannah said, “Sleepover at my house tomorrow, are you in?”

I was so happy, because the invitation meant that Hannah thinks I “get it,” like she said Natalie does. That now we were real enough friends for me to go to her house. In my head, I started calculating how I’d get permission. I’d still be with Aunt Amy, before I switched to Dad’s on Sunday.

Finally, as a last resort, I decided to call Mom and ask her to tell Aunt Amy that she should let me spend the night at my friend’s house.

“What friend?” she asked.

“Hannah,” I said. “I always hang out with her. My friend Natalie’s going, too. Dad already lets me spend the night with them.”

“What’s Hannah like?” Mom asked.

She could probably hear the shrug in my voice. “I don’t know. She’s just normal.”

“What does ‘normal’ mean?”

“She’s cool and nice. What is this, twenty questions?”

“I just wanted to know a little bit about your life now,” Mom said, sounding hurt. “Who your friends are.”

I felt bad, but I couldn’t help thinking that if she really wanted to know, she’d be here.

It was quiet for a moment, and then Mom laughed a little. “Do you remember when we used to play that game with your sister in the car on the way home from school?”

She meant twenty questions. “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t help laughing a little, too. May was great at that game, like she was at everything. She always thought of something super specific. Instead of just a train whistle, it was the train whistle from the lullaby that Mom would sing us. And she added her own category, too—in addition to a person, place, or thing, you could also think of a feeling. Her feeling wouldn’t just be something like “excited.” It would be the exact feeling of waking up on your birthday.

“I’m thinking of a feeling right now,” I said to Mom.

“A feeling that’s more happy or more sad?” Mom asked.

“More sad,” I said.

Mom asked a few more questions, but in the end she didn’t guess, so I had to tell her that the feeling was missing her.

And of course, after all of that, she told Aunt Amy to let me go.

Hannah’s house is outside of town, in the red dirt hills. Natalie’s mom dropped me and Natalie off, and Hannah brought us upstairs to say hi to her grandpa. When she knocked on his bedroom door, he came out to the hallway. He smiled at us, but Hannah had to yell when she told him my name, because he doesn’t hear very well. Her grandma was sleeping, and after we met him, her grandpa went back into his room to watch TV.

Then we went wandering in the forest behind the house, and Natalie and Hannah smoked cigarettes. You can walk to the river through the cottonwood trees covered in brambles and webs. The leaves have all turned yellow now, so the light looks golden even when the sun just leaks through the clouds. But when we started to get close to the sound of the river, it made me start to breathe too fast. I saw May that night in a flash, before my brain shut off and wanted to blank out. So while Natalie and Hannah walked to the riverbank, I hung back, pretending to get lost in looking at a spiderweb or something.

When we got back from our walk, we went to visit Hannah’s horse named Buddy. Buddy was actually her grandma’s horse, but since her grandma isn’t doing well, Hannah takes care of him, and she says Buddy is more like hers now. She says that Buddy is her favorite one in the family. She also takes care of Earl, their donkey, since she doesn’t trust her brother to be nice to the animals. To tell the truth, Hannah’s brother, Jason, is scary. He’s trying to train himself for the Marines, so he goes on obstacle courses he made for himself near the river, with old tires and ropes and things. He used to be a football player, but then he tore his shoulder, and he hasn’t been able to play since. He should have gone to college this year, but he didn’t. I don’t know if it’s because he couldn’t get in now that he can’t play football or because their grandparents are old and can’t really watch after Hannah. I think her brother thinks he’s supposed to be like her parent, but he’s bad at it. For groceries he only buys Vienna sausages in a can and grocery store–brand sour cream and onion chips. Even though their family isn’t poor or anything, maybe part of why Hannah wants to have a job is so that she can pick her own things to eat, without having to ask Jason. She likes to eat spinach out of the bag and Doritos (the real brand) and Luna Bars.

When Jason went for one of his workouts, which Hannah says take at least a couple hours, we decided to take Hannah’s grandma’s old van and practice driving. Natalie and Hannah both turned fifteen at the beginning of the year and have their learner’s permits. Natalie went first. She rolled the van down the dirt road, and Hannah stood up and stuck her head out of the sunroof and screamed, “Woohoo!” which I guess made Natalie want to go faster, so she did. The thing is, she went off the road when she swerved to miss a bird. Probably the bird would have flown away at the last minute, but I guess Natalie got nervous. So the car wheels stuck in the soft sand. Natalie revved the gas harder, but the wheels just spun farther into the ground.

Hannah kept saying, “We have to get it out. My brother can’t know.” She sounded terrified. She yelled for Natalie to push the gas harder, and Natalie was all shaky because Hannah was so upset, and then Hannah made Natalie and me get out, and she went behind the wheel and tried to make the car go herself. Natalie and I pushed from outside, but it wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t move at all. Hannah started crying, and she yelled at Natalie, “Why did you do that? Are you stupid?” Natalie’s cheeks and her chest turned red. I know it’s because she was trying not to cry, too. Eventually there was nothing to do but to walk back and tell Jason, who by now would be done with his workout.

Hannah told us to wait outside when she went into the kitchen. But we followed her and watched from the hallway. Jason wasn’t just angry. He was really, truly mad. His face was red, and he was screaming. He called Hannah a lot of bad names. I’ve never seen Hannah like that before. She laughs at everything and does whatever she wants, like she’s not afraid of anything. Like nothing can hurt her. But this was different. She was crying and she kept saying, “Please, Jason.”