I had no doubt that it was my friends, calling to try and find out what had happened—if this was all some elaborate joke, or if I had hit my head on something hard. Once inside my dry car, I took my phone out of my bag, preparing to check my Constellation messages, as was my ingrained habit. But at the last moment I stopped myself. The phone in my hand started to ring again, and I saw the call was from Ruth—though I had a feeling Lisa and Schuyler were currently clustered around her, and would be waiting to talk to me as well. I looked down at the picture that came up when Ruth called, one of the two of us that Lisa had taken at my seventeenth birthday party last month. Ruth was looking at the camera, smiling, but there was something in her expression that indicated that she was about five seconds away from cracking up. I was next to her, already laughing hysterically, pointing at something off-camera. I wished I could remember what it was we’d thought was so funny. Especially since right now, I had a feeling that I might never laugh, ever again.
