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her breath as her eyes swam across the dizzying rainbow of colors, trying to make sense of it all.
    At the edge was the face of a sleeping woman, her skin a burnished white. She had the same flowing, straw-colored hair as Jim. On her eyelids were purple stars against the black canopy of night. The night sky opened up behind her, as if it was swallowing her, and her hair swam through it, forming a sunrise that traveled further down the tower. It was so deeply rendered that she felt like she could fall straight into it, so bright she could hardly look at it.
    “Wow,” she murmured, reaching out to touch the cold metal of the tower. Below the night sky was a train on its tracks, a train that traveled toward the bright orange backdrop of the sunrise, where the long and endless sprawl of Pearlton was rendered in violent shades of emeralds, scarlets, and navy blues. Everywhere, there seemed to be miniscule details that were just slightly off. Where Pearlton High School should have been, there was only a swirl of colors. Some parts of town glimmered in a blood-red hue.
    “What does it mean?” she asked, finally turning to look at Jim.
    Jim frowned. “I try to paint my memories sometimes, and other times I try to paint . . . I don’t know. The things I’m feeling that don’t even have names.” His eyes skittered to the picture of the woman, but quickly dropped back to his feet. Claire desperately wanted to ask him about her, but she bit on her tongue, willing herself not to pry.
    “This is basically what I did all summer, and I’m still trying to figure it out myself.” He laughed a little. “Sometimes I feel like there’s a part of me missing, and the more I draw, the more I have a map to find it.”
    Claire thought about her own experience in schools, being ripped from place to place by her mom. Running from something that only her mom knew about—if it was even real. More than once, Claire had wondered if her mom wasn’t a little bit . . . unwell. Sometimes she was so strong, and sometimes it felt like the slightest word would break her.
    “I know what you mean,” she said, moving closer to him. “Gunner and I have been to at least two schools a year since elementary school.” She ran her hand along the swirl of the night sky, and shivered. “Pearlton is the first one this year, but it won’t be the last. Every time, it’s a new house, new neighborhood, new school. New ‘friends.’ And every time we move, I feel like I’m leaving a little bit of myself behind. It’s . . .” She looked at Jim, who was gazing at her intently, hanging onto her every word. “Now I’m just going through the motions.”
    Jim stayed quiet for a while. Without thinking, Claire reached out and gripped his hand. For one long moment, she felt the electricity of his touch running through her body, but then they both startled at the same time. Claire wrenched her hand away from him. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
    “That’s okay,” Jim said, blushing.
    “Um . . .” Claire stammered, her heart pounding. “Anyway, I should get home. But thanks for bringing me up here, and showing me all this. It’s amazing.”
    “Yeah.” Jim looked at her with his piercing blue eyes. “It is.”

3
    The next morning, Jim spent the entire ride to school tapping his foot anxiously against the floor, waiting for Claire and Gunner to get on the bus. They never did. All sorts of questions began to fire anxiously through his brain. Was it because of what had happened yesterday at the water tower? Was Claire creeped out by him? He shook his head. Thinking about Claire was a waste of time. She probably wanted nothing more to do with him. He should never have shown her his crazy mural. It was just that, for some strange reason, he had wanted her to know him.
    He got off the bus and walked into the school lobby with the reusable grocery bag that he was using instead of his broken backpack. He gritted his teeth and started to dig through