For the first time I heard enthusiasm in his voice, something more than his usual worldly-wise nonchalance.

"Life is way more complicated and unbelievable than a movie. And we are all more amazing than we think we are."

Usually I would make a comment about how I wasn't amazing or even interesting, but now I knew it wasn't true. I didn't have to be destined for greatness to be remarkable to the people that mattered. In fact, it was almost stupid to ignore my importance to my friends and my family or eventually to Ren. I wasn't just cheating myself, I was cheating them.

"It changes everything," I said.

"I know."

He sighed, a deep contented breath. "I'm so glad I can tell you. You don't know what a relief it is."

I couldn't tell him I was completely awed. There was no doubt he was telling me the truth, I could feel it. In my wildest imagination I couldn't have dreamed him up-wise beyond both of our years and willing to deal with it alone. "It must have been driving you crazy. Did you tell your parents?"

He shook his head. "No. I only told one person-and he isn't my best friend anymore."

"I'm sorry."

He covered my hands with his, holding them against his chest. "It's okay. We might be friends again someday. Who knows."

His hands were turning icy and I suddenly realized how long we'd been talking. "We're so late!"

He took my hand and we started walking. "No big deal. Whether we're five minutes late or an hour, it's still counts the same."

I thought about it and had to agree. "That's true."

We walked in silence; I was too filled with what it was like to know so much about my friends and Ren and I. I wanted to warn Crystal. Could we change what would happen to Noah? Would any of them believe us? I thought about my family. Did Ren know about my parents? Or James? Or Derek?

I stopped and he looked back at me, puzzled. "What is it?"

"Do you know if Derek will wake up?"

"I told you already, but you didn't understand what I was trying to say," he said it softly. "He's going to wake up. He's going to be okay, just a little different."

I remembered how Derek was before the coma, confused and struggling for words and the odd emptiness in his face. Was that how he would always be? I shook my head, a big, ugly weight crushing down on me. I should be grateful that he would wake up, but I couldn't be. Stunned, I couldn't say anything. Tears stung my eyes.

"I'm sorry," Ren said.

Thinking back to the day when I realized Ren first tried to tell me about the future I wondered how long Ren had known Derek was going to be hurt. "How long have you known about Derek?"

He hesitated. "The moment I met him."

"You let it happen?" I asked, praying I was wrong.

"MacKenzie," his voice changed, unhappy and pleading, "I only knew he would be different. I didn't know about the bike accident. I had no idea what would change him, I only knew he would. Of course I would have saved him if I could have."

Relieved, I sighed. "I'm sorry. I still don't understand it all the way."

"I don't understand it very well either," he said. "As for the rest of your family, James becomes a neurosurgeon and your parents are fine-your mom and dad spend vacations visiting grandchildren..."

We looked at each other and then he hastily continued, "...and researching family history. They find out some pretty cool stuff. The past is as interesting as the future, I think. It's like what I see, sort of." He stopped. "Anyway, it's a pretty good future."

"Good," I said relieved. "My parents stay boring. That's nice of them."

"Yeah. My parents stay boring too, thankfully."

"Do you ever get tired of knowing all this?"

He looked up at the sky and blew out a white, frosted sigh. "Yes. And no. It's draining, sometimes. It's hard to see the present, to live in it. It's like I'm the one out of time. The present for you is the past for me. It's weird sometimes. And sometimes I know...things that...are depressing."

"Like what?"

"I've got something that has never happened to me before. I don't know what to do." He had that tone-the one where he wanted to talk but was afraid to. What else was there?

"What is it?" I asked.

"I know someone who is thinking about killing himself. I mean, I've seen suicide futures before, but this one is someone I know. He's not a stranger."

I wondered who it was-maybe someone I knew as well. It couldn't be any of my regular friends, though, we'd already talked about them. And it wasn't someone in my family, so I didn't have to worry about that. But if he knew who it was, he might be able to change what happened. "So this time you can help?"

He shook his head. "Maybe. None of the Yurei have talked to me before, but this one did. And he told me to stop it. I don't know how, though. I think this guy is going to do it no matter what I say."

"Who is it?"

"Kyle."

It made so much sense it was almost as if I already knew, before Ren said his name. I hadn't been imagining Kyle's inconsolable anguish. He really was in trouble.

"What are we going to do?" I wondered aloud.

"We? I think you've got enough to worry about."

"Well, is it because of Derek?"

He explained that Kyle had some other things happening in his life-like his parents getting divorced. I hadn't thought much about it because Kyle seemed okay with it. He even talked about how this year he had two birthdays and two Christmases, two vacations. He was getting money and stuff by the ton. And it's not like divorce never happens. But that didn't mean it wasn't a big deal to him. He wasn't some statistic.

"I don't think this is going to be easy," I said. I told him about the way Kyle couldn't be comforted when he saw Derek. "It's like he's got walls all around him and he can't see outside and we can't see inside. He's not making the walls, they're just there. You know what I mean?"

He was thoughtful, his face somewhere between a scowl and frown. "I don't know...sort of. We've all kind of felt that way. Maybe his is deeper. And he's been there longer."

We walked the rest of the way to school, thinking and talking in bits and pieces. We walked in to the attendance office together, but not holding hands. We didn't want it to look like we were late on purpose just so we could hang out. Mrs.-TH Haggerty narrowed her eyes suspiciously at us, but she always looked like she'd been sucking on a lemon. I didn't care. Her irritation didn't matter.

"I missed homeroom," I told Ren. "It's the only class I have with him."

"We'll find a way to talk to him," he promised me, his eyes distant.

Kyle was heading for disaster and Ren and I were watching every minute of it. I didn't have Ren's gift, but even I could feel that we were running out of time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

Kyle I stepped onto the bus, finding my usual seat. I missed driving to school, but after the accident they took my license away. I'd driven illegally a few times, once to see Derek at the hospital and a couple of times to Noah's. No one seemed to realize I wasn't allowed to drive. It made me feel even more like a ghost when I could get away with things like that.

It was gray today, and cold. I should have gone to the dance Saturday. That wasn't too smart. I didn't want anyone to start noticing I was slowly losing my mind. Slowly? It was already gone.

I had my earphones in but I wasn't listening to music. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Most of the time I couldn't wait until I was alone in my room and I could just drift off. Thinking about reasons to kill myself or ways to do it. It was sick. I guess.

It didn't feel sick anymore. They were my thoughts. No one could tell me what to think-that was all my own. It probably wasn't normal. What is normal? I didn't understand people that did their homework and went to football games and cared about stupid things like who was wearing what or who anyone was going out with.

The window was dirty and some of the gray stuff around the glass was peeling. Everything was so ugly. Ugly green seats, ugly smells...it all sucked.

What was keeping me here? No one would really notice if I wasn't here. There'd be some lame drama where girls would act like they were my best friends so everyone would feel bad for them. And they'd have counselors in case anyone was traumatized. Right. My parents might feel guilty. They'd get over it. They weren't that worried about me right now. Okay, they were, but they'd still get over it.

Did I want anyone to care? Why wonder what would happen if I was dead...why take the time to imagine what people would say? I wanted them to care and I didn't. Or didn't believe anyone did.

Only one person seemed to really know I wasn't right, and I barely knew him. Ren had looked at me when I shot myself with the paint gun. I couldn't get past the feeling that he knew about me, about what I wanted to do. How did he know? Did it matter? Not really.

I walked past my locker. I should pick up my books, but why? I didn't care about school anymore. MacKenzie wasn't in homeroom. Maybe Derek had taken a turn for the worse. God, please no. If he died I wasn't going to wait. I should do it before it happened. That way I would never know. I didn't want to know, ever.

I saw her in the hallway and she caught my eye but I turned away. So she was here, and that meant Derek was the same. She wouldn't be in school if he'd...died. Good. I could still do it. I could still leave before she lost Derek.

Tonight. My parents wouldn't be home. I could start the car in the garage, with the door closed. Done.

A huge weight lifted off me. Everything was going to be all right. No more pretending. Noah was yelling my name from too far down the hall. It was easy to act like I was happy. I was. Finally.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Ren "Do something."

I closed my eyes. I couldn't believe he was here...in the middle of History. I'd been shutting out Yurei all day, concentrating on Kyle. Maybe that was why his Yurei found me? No one else could hear him, I was sure, but I couldn't answer him.

Finally I looked up at him. I mouthed, I know.

He knelt down, his distinguished features urgent. No. I won't be here after tomorrow morning.

My skin prickled and I looked away. I needed more time. What was I going to do? The teacher was writing something on the whiteboard. I bent down and scribbled on my note paper.

Tell me what to say to him.

I'll try. But you need to talk to him now.

I sat back in my chair and sighed. A little too loudly because Ms. Cubber asked if something was wrong, her eyebrow raised and her lips pursed.

"No, sorry," I said.

"Am I boring you?"

"No." Actually, yes, but I was enjoying the boredom right now. She was going to retire in five years and she and her husband would move to Colorado to be nearer their grandchildren. Her Yurei was dull and comforting, fading politely away almost instantly when I first met her. I hadn't seen her Yurei since. Most of the time I only saw an Yurei once. Except for Kyle's, which had turned into some kind of haunting ghost. I didn't blame him.

She was discussing the death of Charlemagne and the fighting between his sons. I had missed all the stuff about Charlemagne and why he was important. I flipped through the last chapter in my book as she talked.

Class ended and I did something I'd never done before...I mentally asked for an Yurei. Kyle's Yurei reappeared.

"Where is he right now?" I asked.

Lockers were slammed shut and it got noisy as all the classes came out into the hall, but I could hear him clearly. "Upstairs."

That was convenient. Right next to Spanish, where I needed to go anyway. On the way upstairs I saw MacKenzie. She didn't see me at first because she was looking down at the ground, frowning. She was wearing a pink hoodie that made her eyes a bright, beautiful blue. I hadn't seen the hoodie before because she was wearing some kind of parka this morning. I should get one of those. Maybe I wouldn't be so cold on the way to school.

I grabbed her waist from behind. "Hey," I said. Her hair smelled good.

She smiled at me, the sadness disappearing instantly. Oh the power of Me.

"Hey," she said.

"I'm going to go talk to Noah and Kyle for a minute, okay? I'll meet you back in class."

She glanced over at them, lingering on Kyle. "Okay. Good luck."

Kyle was leaning against the locker, slightly taller than Noah, who was waving around some markers. Kyle grabbed one of them. "Dude, I do not want you to write on my posters. Not even your mom can read your writing. It sucks."

"Yours is worse," Noah said, unoffended.

"That's not possible." Kyle was smirking, rolling the marker between his fingers as he argued, his back still leaning against the lockers. He didn't seem at all depressed. Actually, he was pretty happy. That was weird.

"I'm just saying we need to get them up sometime soon," Noah said. "They're voting in two weeks."

"Relax. I've got it, Mr. President."

Noah turned to me, his lean face not even remotely relaxed. "I don't believe him."

"Don't look at me," I protested.

Kyle narrowed his eyes at me. "Hey, Ren writes like a girl. He could do a couple."

I laughed out loud. "I don't write like a girl. It's just that when I write the alphabet you can tell what it is."

Kyle and Noah looked at each other. "He writes like a girl," Kyle repeated.