Where She Went by Gayle Forman

would it be?
    But now, here was Kim. Had Mia sent her as some sort of an emissary? Kim was smiling awkwardly, hugging herself against the damp night. “Hey,” she said. “You’re hard to find.”
    “I’m where I’ve always been,” I said, kicking off the covers. Kim, seeing my boxers, turned away until I’d pulled on a pair of jeans. I reached for a pack of cigarettes. I’d started smoking a few weeks before. Everyone at the plant seemed to. It was the only reason to take a break. Kim’s eyes widened in surprise, like I’d just pulled out a Glock. I put the cigarettes back down without lighting up.
    “I thought you’d be at the House of Rock, so I went there. I saw Liz and Sarah. They fed me dinner. It was nice to see them.” She stopped and appraised my room. The rumpled, sour blankets, the closed shades. “Did I wake you?”
    “I’m on a weird schedule.”
    “Yeah. Your mom told me. Data entry? ” She didn’t bother to try to mask her surprise.
    I was in no mood for small talk or condescension. “So, what’s up, Kim?”
    She shrugged. “Nothing. I’m in town for break. We all went to Jersey to see my grandparents for Hanukkah, so this is the first time I’ve been back and I wanted to stop and say hi.”
    Kim looked nervous. But she also looked concerned. It was an expression I recognized well. The one that said I was the patient now. In the distant night I heard a siren. Reflexively, I scratched my head.
    “Do you still see her?” I asked.
    “What?” Kim’s voice chirped in surprise.
    I stared at her. And slowly repeated the question. “Do you still see Mia?”
    “Y—Yes,” Kim stumbled. “I mean, not a lot. We’re both busy with school, and New York and Boston are four hours apart. But yes. Of course.”
    Of course. It was the certainty that did it. That made something murderous rise up in me. I was glad there was nothing heavy within reaching distance.
    “Does she know you’re here?”
    “No. I came as your friend.”
    “As my friend?”
    Kim blanched from the sarcasm in my voice, but that girl was always tougher than she seemed. She didn’t back down or leave. “Yes,” she whispered.
    “Tell me, then, friend . Did Mia, your friend, your BFF, did she tell you why she dumped me? Without a word? Did she happen to mention that to you at all? Or didn’t I come up?”
    “Adam, please . . .” Kim’s voice was an entreaty.
    “No, please, Kim. Please, because I haven’t got a clue.”
    Kim took a deep breath and then straightened her posture. I could practically see the resolve stiffening up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, the lines of loyalty being drawn. “I didn’t come here to talk about Mia. I came here to see you, and I don’t think I should discuss Mia with you or vice versa.”
    She’d adopted the tone of a social worker, an impartial third party, and I wanted to smack her for it. For all of it. Instead, I just exploded. “Then what the fuck are you doing here? What good are you then? Who are you to me? Without her, who are you? You’re nothing! A nobody!”
    Kim stumbled back, but when she looked up, instead of looking angry, she looked at me full of tenderness. It made me want to throttle her even more. “Adam—” she began.
    “Get the hell out of here,” I growled. “I don’t want to see you again!”
    The thing with Kim was, you didn’t have to tell her twice. She left without another word.

    That night, instead of sleeping, instead of reading, I paced my room for four hours. As I walked back and forth, pushing permanent indentations into the tread of my parents’ cheap shag carpeting, I felt something febrile growing inside of me. It felt alive and inevitable, the way a puke with a nasty hangover sometimes is. I felt it itching its way through my body, begging for release, until it finally came tearing out of me with such force that first I punched my wall, and then, when that didn’t hurt enough, my window. The shards of glass sliced into my knuckles