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Everything is everywhere.

Conner knows it. He heard the old man playing the accordion on the bank of the Thames. The strings are always going to cross, weave, and burn; and I wonder if Conner wakes up every day saying those same three words to himself.

This is it.

None of it matters now, if I keep it this way.

Ben and Griffin started calling me again. For a while, it was almost like they’d vanished. They didn’t call me for the longest stretch after we came back from Marbury the last time.

Sometimes, I’d start to take the phone out to see if they were okay, to be certain they hadn’t ended up inside some fucking blue trash barrel, and every time I would stop myself, believing that never knowing is the same as not being. Jack’s Second Law.

But all this past week, just minutes after the school day ends, my phone buzzes and it’s the boys, asking when I’m coming back, and can they come over and see me when I do.

I know what they want.

And I haven’t been able to tell them it’s not going to happen.

Ben and Griffin want something else. Maybe they feel, as I once did, that all they need is one small peek at Marbury again. The boys aren’t finished playing yet.

But I am the King of Marbury, and I say this is it.

Conner’s been giving me shit for avoiding Ben and Griffin. He says it would be better if we all faced the truth, but I can’t bring myself to tell Ben and Griffin that they can’t go back to Marbury again.

I haven’t seen Henry since the night I told him good-bye at The Prince of Wales. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a sick sonofabitch who fucked me worse than Freddie ever did. And I knew two things for certain that night before I tried to hang myself, naked, inside our fucking closet: that I never wanted to see Henry Hewitt again; and that he would do anything to take another slide through the lenses, even if it meant winding up back in his crap-filled apartment in a crumbling city on a street plastered with fucking corpses and crucified kids who were begging to die.

Fuck you back, Henry.

He called a few times. I deleted his number from my phone and erased whatever fucked-up pleading messages he left in his civilized and reasonable-sounding appeal to Jack’s mercies.

We don’t ever go to The Prince of Wales now, just because I’m afraid I’d see him there, stalking the place, waiting for Jack and his lenses to pop in.

Now, Conner and I hang out in the places the St. Atticus boys go.

I’ve decided I love being here at St. Atticus.

Conner does, too.

In some ways, I suppose it’s almost like being in Marbury. There’s a Jack who lives in the minds of the people back in Glenbrook, and a Jack that does the things they’ll never find out about over here. We’ve talked about staying on through our senior year, too; and I think it’s what Conner and I are going to end up doing.

So, good-bye, Glenbrook.

Fuck off.

And good-bye, Marbury, too.

Seth never came back after I told him to leave me alone, when his thrashing rousted Conner out of the shower so he could cut me free from my gallows. I know he’s not gone forever, because I know more about Seth Mansfield than I know about myself.

So every time I hear some incidental tapping noise, my heart kind of tightens up and I look for him.

I do feel sorry for cursing him like I did that night, but there was nothing I could have done to stop myself.

He’ll come back.

But Nickie won’t.

That was my idea, too.

The day after Conner and I came home to St. Atticus from London, I took a crowded Monday-afternoon train to visit Nickie in Hampstead.

Nobody knew I went.

I didn’t even let Conner know about it for a few days. When I finally worked up the nerve to tell him everything I said to Nickie about me and Conner, he just smiled and shook his head and said, Holy shit.

I do love Nickie. I always will love Nickie. But I’m not going to lie to her, and there is too much of my life—my universe—that she will never be part of.

Telling her about it was one of the toughest things I ever did, here or anywhere, but Nickie … well, she’s just Nickie, and she’s always been so strong when it comes to putting up with Jack’s bullshit.

In the end, I guess she took the whole thing easier than I did. And she’s coming with us to Heathrow today, too. Conner and I are going back to Glenbrook for our school’s winter break. Our plane leaves this afternoon.

He had the “talk” with Rachel, too. Well, to be honest, there was nothing he could do about it after Nickie got involved. I didn’t need to ask Conner about it. Afterward, I could see on his face how rough it must have been, and I felt bad about that.

My fault, too.

We fucked up and we hurt those girls.

When there’s nothing we can do to make things better, at least Conner and I can stop letting them get worse.

Jack’s Third Law.

I guess I should say a few things about my friend before we leave.

You know how you can go all your life knowing someone, everything about him, no secrets at all, and then you get just a peek—a moment’s understanding—of one little thing that defines who he is, and then it’s like a spotlight gets turned on at nighttime; and you can see stuff that was always there, now unhidden, so clearly?

But it’s not a surprise, either.

That was what happened between Conner and me the night he saved my life in London. I realized that all that time when I took his game playing so personally, he wasn’t actually picking on me about being “gay” or whatever.

He was just trying to see if it might be okay.

Conner was testing himself more than he was testing me.

And, most of the times, acting like a dick about things is the only way Conner Kirk knows how to do stuff.

It’s just how he is.

But he’s always meant more to me than anyone in this world. Or any other world, I guess, for that matter. And one thing I do know for certain is that Conner has grown up so much since we’ve been here at St. Atticus.

Both of us have.

Anyway, I told him, it’s not like we’re talking about hyphenating our last names or anything.

He laughs about that still and, of course, makes fun of me just for having brought up the idea in the first place.

That’s Conner.

Right now, Ethan is packing clothes for his trip home to Bath. We’re riding into London together with Conner and Neal Genovese.

I watch Ethan for a moment. He’s every bit as disorganized as I am.

I take a breath. There are a couple things making Jack a little nervous.

I haven’t seen Nickie in weeks. I wonder if she’ll still be as beautiful as always; if she’ll act noticeably different toward Conner and Jack.

Maybe she’ll have a new boyfriend tagging along, and he’ll glare at me and Conner and mutter smartass British comments to her under his breath about American boys.

I pack just a few things in a small nylon bag. I don’t need much. I have plenty of stuff at Wynn and Stella’s house in Glenbrook. And I don’t care if Jack’s clothes are different than I remember or if they feel weird on me, because they’re just clothes, after all, and I’ve changed, too. But who hasn’t?

And this is it.

Conner’s in the hall, knocking, rattling the doorknob, saying, Hurry up, dipshits, let’s go.

Passengers again.

I zip the bag shut.

And never for one second do I think about bringing those two small bundles along with us on our trip.

A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK

An Imprint of Macmillan

PASSENGER. Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Smith. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN: 978-1-250-00487-1

Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

First Edition: 2012

eISBN 9781466827585

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