The familiar water tower looms against the September sky as Mom's car rolls down Main Street. Everything looks smaller. Dingier. The video store is now a blocking video, and the arcade has a "FOR LEASE" sign taped crookedly across the glass.

My fingers trace the outline of the scar under my shirt—the one the doctors gave me last spring. You're in remission, they'd said. You can go home.

Home. Funny word for a place I ran away from.

Mom pulls into the driveway of our old house. The porch swing still creaks in the breeze, and Mr. Henderson's dog is barking two houses down. I spot a familiar blue bike thrown haphazardly in the grass.

Like I never left.

Except I did. And Will is still dead.

Mom cuts the engine and turns to me with that careful smile—the one she's been wearing since I got out of the hospital.