“We should send you home,” I say that night.

The idea of an imaginary friend was fun in class (I wrote snarky notes and he laughed), and it was great in study hall, when Amber and Company murmured and cast dark glances at all the nerds sitting around trying not to be seen. An imaginary friend who could secretly complain about how much they sucked was pretty ideal.

But now I was getting ready to shower, and, well.

I don’t know how to go back, Jake said. I don’t think I have a home anymore.

“Well, my room is not the place for invisible boys.”

I don’t look.

“Like I can tell,” I said.

He said, It’s not really my thing.

I wondered if it meant what I thought it meant; it would explain a lot about why he had committed suicide, but I didn’t push it.

“All right,” I said. “Hope you know chemistry.”

C plus last year, he said.

I opened my textbook. “Start reading up, then.”

I didn’t mention sending him back again. Even if I’d known how to, he didn’t seem eager to go. I guess any friend is a good friend if you’re lonely enough.

I knew the feeling.

Early on, the worst part of being jiang-shi is watching my body dying, a little at a time.

It’s not as bad as it could be; apparently if you don’t come back right away, you have to deal with the half-decomposed body you left behind. Disgusting.

But you can tell yourself a hundred times that what you look like doesn’t really matter; there’s still horror in waking up every morning to see your hair going white, that you’re getting paler and harder, that your eyes are bloodshot no matter what you do.

I deal. I dye my hair black even though it chokes me with the stink, and I wear those tinted sunglasses that make you look like a John Lennon impersonator.

Once, in the hallway, Madison calls me a poser, but no one else even notices I’m any different. Death hasn’t changed a thing about that.