The pain came back much worse as Ash stood. He had to close his eyes, but that made him teeter backward. He felt Eun Kyung's hand on one shoulder. "Thanks," he said.

"Crap. Look at your nose," she said. "You'd better see the nurse."

He knew he was the weird kid at school, but Ash didn't want his parents to know just how much he got picked on. "No nurse. Tripped on the way home."

"Whatever," she said. He opened his eyes, saw her looking down at him. She was a few inches taller than he was and looked thin, even in her too loose clothes. After a moment, she rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Come on."

She pushed a path through the crowd, past James, who was curled into a ball on the sand, barely breathing.

They went into the school and up the stairway to the second floor. A few hallways later, Eun Kyung opened the door to the biology room and Ash followed her in.

At the head of the room, Shaunice was working at the teacher's table. With his eyes still fuzzy, Ash had to move closer to see that she held a mouse cradled in her left hand and a syringe in her right. She didn't look up at them.

"What are you doing?" Eun Kyung asked.

Shaunice moved her right hand steadily, as if she hadn't even heard them come in. She poked the needle into the belly of the squirming mouse and injected a clear liquid into it.

As she did, Ash started to drift away again. The needle in her hand somehow brought James to mind. He had been rubbing his arms and his feet all day long. Ash saw needles sticking out of James, then realized they were actually pins. The image changed and it wasn't James any more, not quite. He squinted, tried to make out who it was with the pins stuck in his arms and feet.

"Ow!" Ash said. He relaxed his face, reminded himself not to squint or make any expression for the foreseeable future.

That brought Shaunice's head up. She looked at Ash, her brown eyes lighter than her very dark skin. She set down the syringe and dropped the mouse into a cage without looking away. She stepped around the tall desk and peered at his face. "Definitely broken," she said

"He doesn't want to go to the nurse," Eun Kyung said.

Shaunice nodded. "I wouldn't either." She guided Ash to a stool and guided him down onto it. "I don't have a Boies elevator, but I can set it."

She stepped back and waved Eun Kyung in. "You get him cleaned up while I get my bag."

As she walked away, Eun Kyung let out a sigh. Ash looked at her, saw something competing in her, an urge to help struggling with a desire to get away from him, from everyone. "It's okay. You can go," he said.

She frowned back. "Shut up." She stepped over to the big table, grabbed a stack of paper towels and ran them under the faucet.

"Thanks," he said, "for all the help."

"What? I knew who to take you to. So what," she said. "Lean your head back." She started to wipe at the blood.

It wasn't too bad at first, but that was only because she started by wiping the blood off his jaw and lower lip. But as she worked upward to the bottom of his nose, Ash started to try to push her away and wasn't so grateful for Eun Kyung's help anymore. Finally, Shaunice came back, dropped a backpack sized first aid kit in front of them and Eun Kyung stopped torturing him. Shaunice opened the giant kit while she looked at Ash's face. "Bleeding has mostly stopped. Good."

Shaunice dug through the pack for a moment and Eun Kyung leaned in closer. "Whoa. You bring that to school?"

"It's for my locker. I have a better kit at home. My dad gives me suture sets to practice with there." She stopped when she saw Ash's eyes widen. "You're not going to need stitches, don't worry." Then, she pulled on a pair of latex gloves and opened two packets of gauze. She handed the gauze to Eun Kyung and set her hands on either side of Ash's face. She probed gently for a short moment, but that still hurt more than Ash wanted to deal with. He reached down and grabbed the edges of the stool he was sitting on.

When she put the base of her thumbs on each side of his nose, Ash closed his eyes. "This might hurt a little," she said. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes back up and looked at her. He always got distracted when he was around other people; got so lost in thoughts and memories that he forgot where he was. Maybe this once it could work for him. He stared at Shaunice, tried to let his mind drift off so that he could disconnect from the pain.

But it didn't work. Instead of finding something about Shaunice, he felt like there was something missing or switched off inside her. She had to have a helper, a friend, like everyone else did, he thought. But she didn't talk to hers. Not at all like he could, and not even in the limited way that everyone else did.

Those thoughts, and his attempt to distract himself, were washed away when Shaunice yanked down and outward on his nose with both hands. His eyes went wide and his hands came up, grabbed Shaunice's sleeves. "Ow. Okay. Ow," he said.

Shaunice stepped back, looked at his nose from the front and both sides, then turned his face to Eun Kyung, who only shrugged. "Like I know what he looked like before...all this?" She waved at his nose.

A warm feeling started to ooze down Ash's upper lip. "Bleeding again," Shaunice said. She took the gauze from Eun Kyung and quickly rolled each. Before he could protest, she pushed them deep into his nostrils.

As the pain slowly faded, he kept his eyes shut, felt the two girls guiding him from the stool to a chair. He sat for a moment, leaned back and felt grateful that no one was touching his face.

"How did it happen?" Shaunice asked.

When he didn't answer, Eun Kyung did. "He got pounded."

Ash just listened, heard the disapproval in Shaunice's voice. "You need to tell the principal."

He didn't shake his head, knew better than to move. "No. It'll be okay."

"Then tell your dad...or both your parents."

"My parents still think I play on the monkey bars. They don't need to know," he said. "It'll all be okay tonight."

"Tonight? What?" Eun Kyung asked.

Ash kept his eyes closed, let his mind follow the tone of her voice. She wanted to know. She wanted to help and feel the connection between them. That is what her friend did. Her friend saw the connections between people, felt how they touched, led from one person to the other, like the roots of a forest. "My friend will take care of it tonight," he said. "He'll get James' friend to stop. And stop James."

He opened his eyes when no one answered. Finally, Eun Kyung shook her head. "You...you don't have any friends."

"We all have one. They help us. You just can't see them."

"What are these friends, exactly?" Shaunice asked.

"Hard to explain," Ash said. "Mine tells me things, shows me things."

Shaunice frowned at him. "Ash, are you mentally ill? Are you on any anti-psychotic medications?"

"Uh...no," he said. He wasn't sure how to explain, but he realized he did want these two girls to believe him. "Don't you ever dream that you're someone else? That's them."

Shaunice's face became still.

"I can show you, tonight. My friend will show your friends, and they'll show you." Ash said.

"Wow," Eun Kyung said. "I see why James decked you."

"I don't dream," Shaunice said. "Dreams are just random neural activity during REM stage sleep."

He looked at them both and knew it wasn't worth trying to explain any more. He saw that Eun Kyung just wanted to run away and that Shaunice had cut herself off from her friend.

He closed his eyes. Neither of them would believe him. But that was okay. Ash knew he was the weird kid in school, but he also knew he wasn't crazy. He did have a friend, and he even knew his friend's name; Blink.