Sometimes he whispered his real name in the dark, in the middle of the night.

“Luke. My name is Luke.”

He was sure no one could hear. His roommates were all asleep, and even if they weren’t, there was no way the sound of his name could travel even the short distance to the bed above or beside him. He was fairly certain there were no bugs on him or in his room. He’d looked. But even if he’d missed seeing a microphone hidden in a mattress button or carved into the headboard, how could a microphone pick up a whisper he could barely hear himself?

He was safe now. Lying in bed, wide awake while everyone else slept, he reassured himself of that fact constantly. But his heart pounded and his face went clammy with fear every time he rounded his lips for that “u” sound — instead of the fake smile of the double ~ in Lee, the name he had to force himself to answer to now.

It was better to forget, to never speak his real name again.

But he’d lost everything else. Even just mouthing his name was a comfort. It seemed like his only link now to his past, to his parents, his brothers.

To Jen.

By day, he kept his mouth shut.

He couldn’t help it.

That first day, walking up the stairs of the Hendricks School for Boys with Jen’s father, Luke had felt his jaw clench tighter and tighter the closer he got to the front door.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Mr. Talbot had said, pretending to be jolly. “It’s not reform school or anything.”

The word stuck in Luke’s brain. Reform. Re-form. Yes, they were going to re-form him. They were going to take a Luke and make him a Lee.

It was safe to be Lee. It wasn’t safe to be Luke.

Jen’s father stood with his hand on the ornate doorknob, waiting for a reply. But Luke couldn’t have said a word if his life depended on it.