Monday morning arrived, stripping away the fragile peace of the weekend and dumping them back into the fluorescent-lit reality of school. Jennifer and Caleb were at their usual spot before first period, but their conversation was hushed, orbiting a single, unspoken dread.

  “Do you think he’ll come?” Jennifer asked, her fingers worrying the strap of her backpack.

  Caleb, leaning against the lockers with his arms crossed, gave a short, definitive nod. “He’ll come. It happened Friday. He’s had two days. Martin doesn’t do long sit-outs.”

  “This isn’t the goldfish case, K,” Jennifer whispered, her voice tight. “He took two days for a fish. This… he might not know the word for it, but he knows it’s bad. He felt it.”

  As if summoned by their debate, the classroom door swung open. Martin walked in, his movements a fraction slower than usual. He offered them a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey. Jenny. K.” He slung his bag off his shoulder, letting it thud to the floor beside his desk.

  “You’re late,” Jennifer blurted out, then immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “Overslept,” Martin shrugged, collapsing into his chair. He glanced at the empty teacher’s desk at the front of the room. “Where’s the Chemistry teacher? Don’t we have first period chemistry?”

  “Apparently not,” Jennifer said, seizing the change of subject. “The seniors said she hasn’t been in since school started last week. No sub, either.”

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  A ghost of his old grin appeared. “Oh. Okay, that’s great.” He unzipped his bag and pulled out a wrapped sandwich. “Free period. Breakfast time.”

  He took a large bite, chewing methodically. When he looked up, he found both Jennifer and Caleb hadn’t moved. They were just standing there, watching him with an intensity that felt like a physical pressure.

  He paused, sandwich midway to his mouth. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Jennifer said quickly, too quickly. She turned and practically fled to her desk a few rows ahead. Caleb, without a word, followed and took the seat directly behind her, his gaze finally breaking away.

  The morning dragged on. When the bell for second period math rang, the air felt heavier. The teacher’s voice droned through equations, a stream of numbers and symbols that meant nothing to the churn of anxiety in Jennifer’s gut.

  Then, a sharp tap on her shoulder. She flinched.

  Caleb’s voice, a low, toneless murmur meant only for her, cut through the algebraic monotony. “Isn’t he acting too normal for someone who’s going to die?”

  The words were a needle jammed into her heart. A visceral, panicked denial erupted from her before she could stop it.

  “Martin is NOT going to die!”

  Her voice, loud and sharp, sliced through the classroom. The teacher’s chalk squeaked to a halt on the blackboard. Every head in the room turned toward her.

  The math teacher, Mr. Hargrove, fixed her with a withering look over the rim of his glasses. “Miss Briggs. If you have such a firm grasp of today’s lesson that you can hold loud conversations with yourself, perhaps you’d like to come up and solve the next problem for the class?”

  Heat flooded Jennifer’s face. Conversations with herself? Confused, she glanced sideways at Caleb.

  He was the picture of scholarly attention. Spine straight, eyes fixed on the board, face a mask of innocent concentration. The perfect, silent student.

  Traitor, she thought, fury and betrayal boiling in her chest.

  Her eyes, seeking any kind of anchor, found Martin. He was a few desks over, staring straight ahead at the teacher. But he wasn’t seeing the board. His expression was blank, distant, as if the entire embarrassing interruption—the shouting, the stares, the teacher’s reprimand—was happening in a different room, to different people. He was just… looking straight through it all.

  The normalcy he was projecting wasn't reassuring. It was a thin pane of glass, and Jennifer could see the terrifying void right behind it.