“On the first day of school after Christmas break, I climbed up on the bell tower ledge. That’s where I met Finch. He was up there too, but he was the one who talked me down, because once I realized where I was, I was scared and I couldn’t move. I might have fallen off if he wasn’t there. But I didn’t fall off, and that’s thanks to him. Well, now he’s up on that ledge. Not literally,” I say to my dad before he can jump for the phone. “And we need to help him.”

Mom says, “So you’ve been seeing him?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry, and I know you’re mad and disappointed, but I love him, and he saved me. You can tell me later how unhappy you are with me and how I’ve let you down, but right now I need to do what I can to make sure he’ll be okay.”

I tell them everything, and afterward my mom is on the telephone, calling Finch’s mom. She leaves a message, and when she hangs up, she says, “Your dad and I will figure out what to do. There’s a psychiatrist at the college, a friend of your father’s. He’s talking to him now. Yes, we’re disappointed in you, but I’m glad you told us. You did the right thing by telling us.”

I lie awake in my bedroom for at least an hour, too upset to sleep. When I do drift off, I toss and turn and my dreams are a twisted, unhappy jumble. At some point I wake up. I roll over and drift off again, and in my dreams I hear it—the faint, faraway sound of rocks hitting the window.

I don’t get out of bed, because it’s cold and I’m half asleep and anyway the sound isn’t real. Not now, Finch, I say in the dream. Go away.

And then I wake up fully and think, What if he was really here? What if he actually got out of the closet and drove to see me? But when I look out the window, the street is empty.

I spend the day with my parents, obsessively checking Facebook for a new message when I’m not pretending to focus on homework and Germ. The contributor replies come in from all the girls—yes, yes, yes. They sit in my inbox unanswered.

My mother is on the phone periodically, trying to reach Mrs. Finch. When she hasn’t heard from her by noon, Mom and Dad head to Finch’s house. No one answers the door and they’re forced to leave a note. The psychiatrist has (somewhat) better luck. He is able to talk to Decca. She leaves the doctor on the line while she checks Finch’s bedroom and closet, but she says he isn’t there. I wonder if he’s hiding somewhere. I send him a text, telling him I’m sorry. By midnight, he still hasn’t texted back.

On Monday, Ryan finds me in the hall and walks me to Russian literature. “Have you heard from all your colleges yet?” he wants to know.

“Only a couple.”

“What about Finch? Do you think you’ll wind up at the same place?” He’s trying to be nice, but there’s something else there—maybe the hope that I’ll tell him no, Finch and I broke up.

“I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I don’t think he knows.”

He nods and shifts his books to the other hand so that his free hand is now next to mine. Every now and then I feel the brush of his skin. For each step we take, about five people call out to him or nod a what’s-up. Their eyes move past him to me, and I wonder what they see.

Eli Cross is having a party. You should come with me.

I wonder if he remembers that it was his brother’s party Eleanor and I were leaving when we had the accident. Then I wonder for a minute what it would be like to be with him again, if a person could ever go back to someone like good, steady Ryan after being with Theodore Finch. No one will ever call Ryan Cross a freak or say mean things about him behind his back. He wears the right clothes and says the right things and is going to the right college after all of this is said and done.

When I get to U.S. Geography, Finch isn’t there, of course, because he’s been expelled, and I can’t concentrate on anything Mr. Black is saying. Charlie and Brenda haven’t heard from Finch in a couple of days, but they don’t seem worried because this is how he is, this is what he does, this is the way he’s always been.

Mr. Black starts calling on us, one by one, down the rows, asking for progress reports on our projects. When he gets to me, I say, “Finch isn’t here.”

“I know very well … he’s not here and that he won’t … be coming back to school.… How are you … coming along on … your work, Miss Markey?”

I think of all the things I could mention: Theodore Finch is living in his closet. I think there’s something seriously wrong with him. We haven’t been able to wander lately, and we still have four or five places left on our map.

I say, “We’re learning a lot about this state of ours. I’d never seen much of Indiana before I started, but now I know it really well.”

Mr. Black seems happy with this, and then he’s on to the next person. Under my desk, I text Finch: Please let me know you’re okay.

When I don’t hear from him by Tuesday, I ride over to his house. This time a little girl answers the door. She has short, dark hair sliced into a bob and the same blue eyes as Finch and Kate. “You must be Decca,” I say, sounding like one of those grown-ups I hate.

“Who are you?”

“Violet. I’m a friend of your brother’s. Is he here?” She opens the door wider and steps out of the way.

Upstairs, I pass the wall of Finches and knock but don’t wait for an answer. I push the door open and rush in, and right away I can feel it: No one is here. It’s not just that the room is bare—it’s that there’s a strange, dead stillness to the air, as if the room is an empty shell left behind by an animal.

“Finch?” My heart is starting to pound. I knock on the closet door, and then I’m standing in the closet, and he’s not there. The comforter is gone, along with his guitar and amp, the notebooks of staff paper, the stacks of blank Post-its, the jug of water, his laptop, the book I gave him, the license plate, and my picture. The words we wrote are on the walls, and the planets and stars he created are there, but they’re dead and still and no longer glowing.

I can’t do anything but turn around and around, looking for something, anything he might have left to let me know where he’s gone. I pull out my phone and call him, but it goes right to voicemail. “Finch, it’s me. I’m in your closet, but you’re not here. Please call me back. I’m worried. I’m sorry. I love you. But not sorry I love you because I could never be sorry for that.”