It was June and junior year was a week away from becoming a memory. The gloves I’d bought for traction were already getting worn, but the light, grip-soled shoes were still good.“Are we both insane?” I asked him, when I got into the front seat of the Jeep.He smirked.Without XP, Rob would have been able to run Iron County High. There would have been minions and maids hanging off him. Instead, he was a shadow presence, like the rumor of a spectacular guy. He supposedly had “friends.” We all supposedly had “friends.” I was on the yearbook committee. Once a month they met at my house. Nobody knew what to say to me. Melanoma yet, Allie? Or—did you hear that Kayla and Jeremy broke up? She was out for two weeks … she’s on antidepressants. Random gossip about strangers unknown to me.They tried, at least the nice ones. When Juliet was still skiing, I’d mostly hung with Nicola Burns. I really liked Nicola, and we still did things sometimes—rarely, but enough that we could say we were “friends,”
