After Nathan’s memorial service, Sage, her father, and Aunt Ini stay to talk with others. Sage is dismayed when her father refers to the girls from her grief group as her “new friends.” She fights back tears, feeling the words diminish the irreplaceable role of her best friend.

While walking home from the memorial with her family and her new acquaintances, Ebony and DD, Sage internally rejects the idea that they are her friends. When Ebony’s mother suggests a shortcut, Sage freezes, realizing it will take them past the intersection where her best friend was killed. Sensing her distress, her father and Ebony each take one of her hands, and Aunt Ini offers a supportive look. Shielded by their comfort, Sage walks past the makeshift memorial at the accident site, drawing strength from their presence.

Sage spends the weekend at her mother’s apartment, and her mom insists on meeting her “new friends.” Though Sage still considers Ebony and DD classmates from her grief group, she invites them over for dessert. Sage’s mother asks the girls numerous questions about their lives and their experience in the grief group before concluding that she is glad they are now in Sage’s life.

Sage’s mother takes her, Ebony, and DD on an outing to Times Square, wanting them to experience their city like tourists. After enjoying the chaos of subway performers and street vendors, they go to a favorite ice cream shop. Sage orders the same two-scoop combination she always shared with her best friend. As they leave the shop, a nearby car is playing her best friend’s favorite song, and Sage finds herself smiling while eating the ice cream.

Mr. Dixon begins class with his usual ritual of telling a corny joke. It makes Sage laugh slightly, amused by the teacher’s sincerity rather than the joke itself. Mr. Dixon notices this and tells Sage it is “good to see [her] smile again” (86).

This chapter consists of a single, introspective question wherein Sage asks whether she has been smiling.

During a math lesson on transversal lines, Mr. Dixon draws a parallel to human relationships. He explains that, like these lines, some people cross paths only briefly, creating a connection despite walking different journeys. His analogy gives Sage something to ponder.

Sage attends her after-school grief group with a mix of anticipation and dread. Ms. Carver introduces the topic of guilt associated with loss. Ebony shares her guilt over not feeling as sad as her mother anymore. Zay admits to feeling relief that his grandmother’s death has freed up his family’s time. Ms. Carver validates their feelings, explaining that grief can bring “relief” and encompasses many kinds of losses.

Sage reflects on Ms. Carver’s statement that “[s]ometimes grief brings relief” (92). She struggles with this idea, reasoning that her best friend’s death was the beginning of her pain, not the end of it, and she wonders what could possibly bring her relief from her grief.

When Ms. Carver asks Sage to share, she breaks down and confesses her belief that her best friend’s death is her fault. Afraid that Ebony and the others will see her as selfish, she nevertheless pushes through her fear and tells the group the full story of what happened on her birthday.

Sage recounts how she rejected her best friend’s suggestion to briefly attend a skate party before their planned slumber party. Sage insisted they spend the entire birthday together, just the two of them. Her friend agreed, wanting Sage to have the birthday she wanted. Sage explains that this selfish insistence is why her friend was walking to her house in the middle of the day and was in the path of the drunk driver who killed her.

Sage confesses the real reason she was so adamant about the sleepover: She was insecure and afraid that her best friend was growing closer to new friends from a coding class. She feared losing her best friend to this new group and tried to hold on tightly, only to lose her completely.

Sage reveals an even more painful part of her guilt. While her friend was lying in the street after the accident, Sage was at home, completely unaware, sending a series of angry text messages. She accused her friend of ignoring her and ruining her birthday, and her final text told her friend not to bother coming over.

As Sage finishes her story, she feels Ebony squeeze her hand, bringing her back to the present moment. The entire grief group sits with her in supportive silence, which Ms. Carver calls “holding space,” making Sage feel held and understood.

After the session, Sage declines an invitation from Ebony and DD to go to a Jamaican bakery, stating a desire to be alone. Instead of walking home, she continues to Morningside, choosing a quiet path away from the busier areas. Just as she begins to regret her decision and wishes for company, she unexpectedly sees “him.”

Kofi greets Sage warmly in the park. He tells her she is pretty and notes that her eyes are puffy and red. After she admits she has been crying, he gently asks what is making her sad, and she decides to tell him about her best friend.

Sage finds that talking about her best friend with Kofi feels different because he never knew her. He asks many questions, eager to learn what she was like. As Sage describes her friend’s kindness, intelligence, and humor, she feels some of her own sadness begin to disappear.

Kofi walks Sage home, and they stop for chips and soda. Sage contemplates the combination of salty and sweet, comparing it to her coexisting feelings of sadness and happiness. She concludes that perhaps this balance is healthy and keeps her from being overwhelmed by one emotion.

During the next grief group session, Ana and Zay say that Sage’s story was brave and that they relate because they have all been through the same thing. Sage impulsively retorts that they don’t understand at all. When Ms. Carver prompts her to “rephrase” her comment, Sage refuses.

Sage angrily explains to the group that their experiences are not the same. Ana and Zay’s loved ones had prolonged illnesses, which gave them time to say goodbye. In contrast, her loss—like Ebony’s and DD’s—was sudden and traumatic. She tells them they can’t know how she feels. Convinced she is about to be kicked out, Sage storms out of the room.

Upset, Sage wanders the school’s empty halls until she finds herself standing in front of her best friend’s old locker. Remembering the combination, she opens it, expecting to see her friend’s belongings, but finds it empty. The shock and sense of erasure trigger an outburst. Sage begins screaming and kicking the surrounding lockers. Her math teacher, Mr. Dixon, and the grief group arrive as she decries her friend being treated as if she never existed. She lashes out at Ms. Carver, quits the group, and leaves. Rushing out of the school, she spots a bulletin board with the school’s flyers in the main hall. She pulls down the one for grief group and rips it into pieces.

When Sage gets home, she tells her father what happened at school. Both he and her mother, who calls later, tell her that while her anger is understandable, her disrespectful behavior was not. They insist that she must “[m]ake it right” (116). Sage feels hopeless, believing the only way to fix things would be to have her best friend back.

The next day, Sage tells Ebony and DD that she cannot return to grief group until she apologizes, but she doesn’t feel sorry. Her friends gently suggest that while her feelings were valid, her actions were harsh. They advise her to apologize for how she acted. During the conversation, Ebony refers to them as friends, and Sage realizes with certainty that their relationship has grown beyond the grief group.

Sage tells Ebony and DD that she needs a break from the grief group because it isn’t helping her learn how to live with her loss. Her friends speculate on what Ms. Carver might say, with DD offering a perfect imitation of their counselor’s metaphorical style: “Grief is like hunger. Just because you eat today doesn’t mean you won’t need to eat tomorrow” (120). The analogy connects with Sage, who realizes that grief is a constant presence that must be tended to daily, not a problem to be solved and overcome.

At night, when thoughts of her best friend are particularly painful, Sage copes by imagining she is a pilot. She pictures herself flying a plane high into the stratosphere, rising above the clouds, thunder, and tears, feeling in control of her journey.

Sage attends her new Saturday aviation program. The instructor, Ms. Barbara, explains that although engineers know how to build planes, science doesn’t have a complete explanation for why aerodynamic lift occurs. This revelation deeply upsets Sage, who had turned to the logic and formulas of science for the certainty that her emotional life lacked. She realizes that some “why” questions, like the reason for her best friend’s death, may never have a complete answer.

Sage allows herself to imagine alternate realities where her best friend survived the accident. In these daydreams, her friend lives to grow old with her, and they look back on that day, with her friend’s survival being the greatest birthday gift Sage ever received.

Sage lists the painful, unanswerable questions that haunt her about her best friend’s final moments. She wonders what her friend was thinking, if she knew she was dying, and most importantly, if her friend knew how much she was loved.

In her aviation class, a student asks about turbulence. Ms. Barbara explains that turbulence is a normal part of flight that planes are built to withstand and pilots are trained to handle—even if it is scary. She advises that when encountering it, “you just have to keep rising” (128). As an aside, she quietly adds that the same principle applies to life’s turbulence, and Sage overhears her.