“Emily, I don’t,” Collins said, now sounding annoyed. “Come on. We’re friends.” I just looked at him for a moment, and maybe something of what I was thinking was in my expression because he frowned. “What?”

“I just . . . ,” I started. I really hadn’t expected to have this conversation with him, but we were there, so I might as well tell him what had been bothering me, just a little bit, all summer. “It’s just sometimes . . . it seems like you don’t want me around. That’s all. Sometimes I think you do,” I added quickly. “But it’s just a little confusing.”

Collins just looked at me for a moment, then tipped his head in the direction of the side porch. I nodded, and he led the way outside, as though he was the one who knew this house well, like he’d been the one to sit on this porch with Sloane on the Adirondack chairs, feet propped on the railing, looking up at the stars, talking for hours.

The porch was empty, maybe because the air was humid and damp, and there was a charged, heavy feeling, like the sky could open and it could storm at any moment. “Are we actually talking about this?” he asked, when we were both outside. “We have our honesty hats on?”

“Um,” I said. “Okay. Hats on.”

Collins looked away for a minute, out to the rolling hills that had been Sloane’s backyard, then turned to me. “Frank’s my best friend. Has been since we were kids. But most of the time, I only get to hang out with him when he’s not with Lissa, or student government, or the newest species of frog that needs saving.”

“Collins,” I started, but he waved this away.

“It’s okay,” he said, “it is what it is and I’ve accepted that. But this summer, when she was away, when he wasn’t trying to save the world or get the most polished transcript in history, I thought it was going to be the summer of Frank and Collins. Working together, hanging out . . .”

“And that’s happened,” I said, hearing how defensive my voice was, since I thought I knew where this was going.

“For about a week. And then you showed up.”

I swallowed hard. Even though I’d agreed to the honesty, that didn’t mean I necessarily liked this conversation. “But . . . ,” I started.

“And I’d been planning this camping trip forever, and when it gets rained out, Frank tell me he has this great idea for how to make up for it. And he invites you and Dawn.” He let out a breath and stared down at the scuffed wooden floor, his shoulders hunched.

“I didn’t mean to get in between you guys,” I finally said, hoping he knew it hadn’t been anything deliberate. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Collins said, shaking his head, sounding frustrated. “And I’m sure Frank doesn’t even know he’s doing it. It just gets hard, always being someone’s second choice.”

I took in Collins’s expression and realized why it was so familiar. It was the same one I’d had when Sloane had started choosing Sam over me. It was the reason I’d started skipping meets and cross-country practices, since I wanted to hang out with her whenever I could. “I know,” I said quietly.

“I think you do,” Collins said. He shrugged. “Or at any rate, you will soon enough.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Collins just looked at me for a long moment, and I got the impression that he was weighing how much to tell me. “Hat,” I reminded him.

“Okay,” he said, folding his arms. “What do you think is going to happen when Lissa gets back?”

This question, on top of what I’d realized in the tent, hit me with what felt like physical force. “I . . . What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you think he’s still going to keep hanging out? And are you going to keep hanging out with Dawn when she’s back to school at Hartfield?” He gave me a measured look, and I realized Collins had been paying much more attention this summer than I had given him credit for. “September’s coming soon, Emily.  And I know you lost your friend, but you didn’t do a great job picking replacements.”

I took a step back; it felt like Collins had slapped me. “That wasn’t . . . ,” I started. “I didn’t do that.” But the words had hit a nerve; they wouldn’t be affecting me this way if they hadn’t. It was pretty much what I’d just thought, after all.

“Okay,” Collins said with a shrug, clearly willing to let it go.

“And are we not going to be friends?” I asked, a little combatively. I was still trying to get my head around the fact that apparently everything I thought had been building this summer was going to disappear in a few weeks’ time.

“We’ll be friends,” he said to me. “But,” he said, and in that word, it was like the old Collins persona came back; his very posture seemed to change. “When I start dating the very lucky lady who’ll be my steady hang, maybe not so much.” He winked at me. “You understand.”

“Do you want to hear the truth?” I asked. I didn’t even think about it, just suddenly wanted to be as direct with him as he’d been with me. “Are our hats still on?” Collins nodded, looking wary, and I said, “You ask out the prom queens because you know they’ll say no.” It had just been a theory, but when he flushed a dull red, I realized that it had been correct. “Why don’t you try asking someone who might actually say yes?”

Collins just shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand this, Emily,” he said after a pause.  “But who’s going to want to go out with me?” His voice was shaky, and after a summer of bravado and theatrical winks and neon polos, I felt like I was finally seeing him, hat on and guard down. Not the guy who tried the week before to get everyone to call him LL Cool C—Ladies Love Cool Collins—even though it only seemed to stick with Doug from work. This was the real Collins. And the real Collins just looked sad and disappointed. He gave a short laugh and gestured to himself. “I’m not exactly a catch.”

“Of course you are,” I said, surprised and a little mad that he couldn’t see this. “And you should ask Dawn.” As I said this, I just hoped that I’d understood her offhand comments about him, not to mention how long it had taken her to look away when he was skinny-dipping.

Collins just looked at me for a long moment, then down at the ground. “You think she’d say yes?” he finally asked, sounding more nervous than I’d ever heard him.

I wanted to be able to tell him yes, definitively, but I didn’t really feel sure about anything anymore. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked, doing my best to give him a smile. He gave me a tentative one back just as the porch door opened.

“Matthew!” an older woman, half of a couple who had been talking to Frank for most of the night, motioned for him to join them inside. Collins glanced at me, but the woman seemed pretty insistent, making large Come here movements with jewel-encrusted hands that caught the light and reflected it onto the walls.

“Sorry,” Collins said to me. “Uh . . .”

“Go,” I said, giving him a smile. “I’ll be fine.” He nodded and made his way back into the house, and I followed a minute later. As I passed the living room, I sensed Frank trying to catch my eye, but I looked away, into my glass. I could hear fragments of conversations as I walked, architectural terms I didn’t understand, but also snatches of discussions that baffled me.

Yes, the house is stunning isn’t it? All the original Harrison furnishings . . . in trust . . . some fight over a will . . . I don’t know, some tenants, I think? Well, not any longer . . .

Every room I stepped into, I saw Sloane. There was the couch where we’d mainlined whole seasons of TV shows; there was the table we’d sat on top of, sharing a pint of ice cream while she told me all about her first kiss with Sam, there was the counter where she’d laid out every eye shadow she owned, trying to get my eyes to turn the same color.

I had just given my empty glass to a bored-looking cater-waiter when I spotted the back stairs at the end of the hallway. There was a ribbon tied across them, clearly indicating that the upstairs rooms were off-limits.

I headed toward the stairs, already coming up with my alibi if I needed one. I was just looking for the bathroom. I didn’t see the ribbon. I got lost. I looked quickly over each shoulder, then lifted the ribbon, ducked under it, and hurried upstairs.

Like the downstairs, everything upstairs was still the same. The hall table, the oil paintings, the framed maps. I looked for a long moment at the window at the end of the hall, the one with the beige curtains, the one that I had helped Sloane tumble into on the day we met, the day she told me that she’d been waiting for me—or someone like me.

I looked away from the window and walked on, down the hall to the room that had been Sloane’s. I paused for a moment outside of it, praying that it wouldn’t be locked. But the old glass doorknob turned easily in my hand, and I looked around again once more before slipping inside.

All the furniture was the same—but everything about it was different. When the room had been Sloane’s, there had been stuff everywhere, makeup and clothing and the British fashion magazines she special-ordered taking up the surface of every dresser and most of the floor. She’d twined twinkle lights around her four-poster bed and had covered the mirror with pictures—me and her, her and Sam, ripped-out pages from magazines. But now, every trace of her was gone. It was just an anonymous room, one that could have belonged to anyone.

It was worse, somehow, being up here than being in any other room of the house. I started to go when I suddenly turned back, remembering something.

The throw rug was still there, and I lifted it up, folding it back and trying to remember where the loose board was. When I found it, it just creaked open a little, and I pressed on it harder, easing it up. When Sloane had been using it, there had usually been a collection of things, rotating as their importance changed. But now, there was only one of her disposable cameras and a thin layer of dust. I pulled up the camera, wiping it off. There was nothing written on it, and it looked like all the pictures had been taken.