She hated him the moment she saw him. He didn't even get frozen yogurt, didn't even come with someone else; he just hovered outside, staring in the windows like a total creeper. Emery thought at first that maybe he was trying to find someone, the way he peered in, shielding his eyes from the sunlight to better see through the wall of glass, and she'd kept serving the parents who'd come in with their kids, half-heard as the mother scolded her little boy for piling on too many toppings, half-heard the father asking whether they could start over. She shouldn't have responded with a yes, but she'd been distracted by what was going on outside, and she'd had to pay for the extra fro yo herself. When the family had taken their treats to sit at the tables outdoors, Emery had gone back into the kitchen, dragged Adam out as a witness, and he, too, had seen the stranger prowling about, blatantly staring into the shop, obviously looking at Emery. And Adam had gone out and yelled at the guy, told him to shove off, which the stranger had grudgingly done.

That was the first time she'd seen him. It'd been some afternoon in early July, and she hadn't seen him for the rest of the summer.

So when school started back up, she was flustered to see him again on that first day, standing at the bottom of a stairwell she descended, as if he'd been waiting there for her.

Emery turned to the girl she was walking with, Natalya, and gossiped about something inconsequential, just to avoid having to make any sort of eye contact with him. The minute they were away, she grabbed Natalya's arm. "Did you see him?"

"See who?"

"That guy at the bottom of the stairs."

"Uh, no--not really. Should we go back--"

"No! He's a total creeper. He was staring at me."

Natalya pulled out her phone and started swiping through it. "Maybe you had something in your teeth."

Emery sighed, "Whatever," and split away from Natalya. It wasn't as if they were good friends, anyway. She picked up her pace and made her way to the other end of the building, where her first class of the day was located. She hoped he wasn't in eleventh grade. She hoped he wasn't in any of her classes, even if he were in eleventh grade. Something about him just made her very . . . uncomfortable.

As the morning moved into afternoon, Emery began to forget about him. She was an entirely normal person with an entirely normal life. She didn't hate school; she'd been with these same people all the way, and she was comfortable with them. There were the couple of guys she'd had awkward-turned-friendly relationships or non-relationships with, the girls she'd fallen out with in middle school only to fall back in with in high school, the teachers who appreciated her intellect and responsibility. She had the same plans as anyone else, to do well enough on this year's standardized tests to set her up for some sort of scholarship so she could go to a decent out-of-state school. She got along with her parents and her two siblings. She had no enemies--only friends or acquaintances. Everything had always been normal. Good normal. Boring but good normal. Vacations to the beach in the winter, vacations to the mountains in the summer. Service trips, swim and dive team, birthdays, casual parties, dances and carnivals, holiday gatherings, grandmas and grandpas, bike rides and shopping--nothing weird.

So why was this weird person suddenly there?

Lunch. The courtyard, where the normal people ate on particularly sunshiney days. Emery was there with the others, not eating but just talking about summer and teachers and others. And one of the guys said, "Who the hell is that?"

The eight or nine of them looked too obviously in the same direction, and Emery recognized him, sitting alone at a table, staring so shamelessly at her that she choked on her bottled water.

"Why's he looking at you?" said one of the girls.

"Yeah," said one of the guys. "He's definitely looking at you, Em."

"He creeps me out," she replied.

"Is that the one you said was staring this morning?" Natalya asked.

Emery nodded, looking away, embarrassed and flustered.

"It's the same weirdo we saw over the summer!" That was Adam. "I'm going to go talk to him." He made to get up.

"No! Not here. Please?" Emery grabbed Adam's wrist, and he sat back down, though he looked disappointed. "Just ignore him."

The others exchanged looks but ultimately did as she said, shifting their positions to block Emery from his line of view. It was difficult to ignore his dark eyes as they bored holes through everyone else to get to her.

"He's really freaking weird," said one of the girls. "He's making me uncomfortable, and I'm not even the one he's looking at."

"Do you know him?" asked one of the guys.

"No! I have no idea who he is."

"Must be a junior; he's at our lunch. Anyone have a class with him?" Adam's question went unanswered. "Well he's being really inappropriate. I'm going to say something to somebody. He doesn't have a right to make you feel nervous like that, Emery."

"Yeah," added Natalya. "Is he stalking you? He is actually kind of hot."

Emery just wanted the conversation to end. "I'm going inside. I just can't out here, right now." They all understood. Adam and Tess went with her. The rest said they'd make sure he stayed in the courtyard, but Emery didn't put much faith in their ability to do so.

In any case, she didn't see him the rest of the day, or even the rest of that week, and she was glad for it. Maybe he'd given up. Maybe he'd transferred schools. Maybe she'd imagined him . . . no. The others had seen him, too. He'd been there. But maybe he'd found someone else to stare at.

Emery was the second daughter. The middle child. She had never felt unloved or overlooked. She wasn't the prettiest of her sisters, she'd realized long ago--that was Deirdre, the youngest. And she wasn't the smartest of her sisters, either--that was Neve, the eldest. But Emery was smart and pretty enough to satisfy herself. She had never felt inadequate. A mirror would reflect her fair complexion, too-large brown eyes, and thick dark hair (which she kept long, as difficult as it could be to manage during the summer months). Her forehead was perhaps a little too large, but that was nothing proper hairstyling couldn't fix. And her figure was lankier than she would've preferred at her current age, but she knew she'd been blessed with height and a manageable shape, and those were enough to content her. Deirdre, the beauty of the family, was a stunning brunette with all the right assets and even at fourteen drew attention wherever she went, much to her parents' concern. But Deirdre had a temperament to ward off any unwelcome admirers and was well-equipped to snark her way out of any situation. Neve, similar in appearance to Emery but fuller and more freckled and smoother of hair, had gone off to college a month earlier, impressing everyone by double majoring in biomedical engineering and philosophy.

With sisters like hers, Emery had lived a life of happy mediocrity, satisfied to buzz beneath the radar of exceptionality. She had friends. She had a happy home. She was a comfortable, unextraordinary seventeen-year-old.

So to have someone suddenly make her feel uncomfortable and extraordinary was puzzling and entirely unwelcome.

The fourth time she saw him, she felt the need to put an end to the nonsense. It had just gone too far. Someone was having a party, an end-of-summer-start-of-the-school-year party, and there were so many people there that Emery didn't notice him for a long time. In fact, by the time she did notice him, she was entirely uncertain how long he'd even been there. She'd been conversing with Adam and Tess and a handful of others around a cooler full of drinks, outside on the deck. This same set of siblings had this same party every year, and it was a big to-do. Anyone who wanted to come was invited, adults and teens alike, but the adults stayed with themselves for the most part, leaving the young people to converse in the massive backyard. Emery's parents had declined to attend, and they'd deemed Deirdre too young for such events, so Emery was on her own and happy for it. She'd finally been given access to the family car, this year, and had even driven herself.

Adam was being his usual charming self, rambling about this and that, able to make everyone laugh with the simplest stories; he knew how to retell something uninteresting as a tale of epic proportions, and Emery was always glad to have him at her side. Sometimes, she was still amazed that they were even friends. Working at the frozen yogurt place all summer, the only two reliable employees (and, for that reason, overscheduled), had cemented their camaraderie. In any case, Adam was going on about something, and as much as she was listening, Emery's gaze wandered into the depths of the yard, and there, over the heads of all the others, dusted with a dim rainbow from the string lights strung about the yard, he was. He was alone, on the fringes, but his eyes were most definitely on her.

On instinct, Emery reached for Tess. "What is it?" Tess was what everyone called adorable, with her wavy bob and oversized-child style (right then, she was wearing shortalls with a cropped tee and sneakers and tiny barrettes). Emery had only to nod in his direction, and Tess spotted him. "No way!" she whispered.

"I'm going to go talk to him. This has gone too far."

"I'm coming with you."

"What's up? My story boring you?" That was Adam, catching their distraction.

"He's back," Tess said, her turn to nod.

"Son of a bitch!" Adam exhaled. "I'll tell him to leave."

"No," Emery ordered him again. "I'm going to talk to him. I want to know what his problem is."

"Like hell! Let me go with you."

"No, it's ok, Adam. Tess will come. You might scare him off."

Rather put-out, Adam conceded on the condition that he stand and watch from the deck, awaiting any signal that they needed him. "But I don't like it. Make sure you tell him you'll get a restraining order if he doesn't stop."

Emery smiled her thanks at Adam, then looked to Tess, whose expression confirmed her resolution. Together, the two of them rounded the other people on the deck, descended the stairs, and immersed themselves in the crowd, heading in the direction they believed he'd been. They couldn't see him from down here; the deck had been above all of this. And as they waded through lights and conversations, red party cups and laughter, Emery found herself hoping he'd still be there, just so she could try to get some sort of explanation. So when they emerged from the sea of people, entered the dark shadows at the back of the yard, she was disappointed that he wasn't there. She and Tess glanced around, then looked to Adam who, they realized, was pointing wildly to the left, certainly trying to tell them their quarry had headed that way. But to the left were bushes and, presumably, a fence. Though the girls searched, they found no one but a couple who'd taken to the bushes to share more than gossip.

Embarrassed and thwarted, Emery and Tess returned to the deck, only to realize that Adam was no longer there. "He must've gone off to talk to someone else," Tess offered.

"Or he had to pee." Emery shrugged, though she was disappointed that he hadn't been where they'd left him.

Neither of them saw the mystery boy again at the party, and neither saw Adam, either. When Emery pulled the family car into her driveway around eleven, she sat in it for a few moments, just wondering about her friend. Adam wasn't the sort to go somewhere without telling her. He couldn't possibly have just left the party. At the very least, he would've messaged her or responded to the several texts she'd sent him. And even more disconcerting was the fact that someone else had told her "Adam went off to talk to some guy down in the yard," and nobody had apparently seen him after that. Emery briefly considered calling Adam's house, but it was so late. What could she do? He'd probably gone home. She'd keep texting him, go over there first thing in the morning.

But as she got out of her car, the neighborhood velvety dark and quiet in its late summer nighttime haze, she caught sight of the stranger again, standing at the end of her driveway. Her heart skipped a beat. Nobody else was anywhere in sight--and he certainly hadn't been standing there when she'd pulled in. Where was he coming from? And who was he? More importantly (and this concern managed to trump her fear), did he know where Adam was?

Angry, Emery slammed her door and strode several paces down the drive. Her brown hair flowed behind her; her eyes spun fire as she stopped about fifteen feet away from him and stared in equal intensity. "Where's my friend?" she called, unconcerned with her volume.

Nothing from the stranger.

"Did you talk to him?"

Still nothing. He didn't even move, did nothing to acknowledge the fact that she'd spoken. His eyes stayed on her, and her fury grew.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

Then, at last, he spoke. "I want you to come with me, Emer." He held out his hand to her.

He pronounced her name strangely, like "dreamer" but without the "dr." Emery widened her eyes, shook her head slowly. "That's not my name. And I'm not going anywhere with you." She was unsettled by the deepness of his voice, the chord it struck in her. Emery stood rooted to the driveway. Her intentions of continuing to yell at this person until he told her about Adam were suddenly unclear in her mind. He'd been making her uncomfortable for days, but for the first time, she really scrutinized his appearance, beyond the darkness of his eyes. He was tall and athletic, though his casual clothing didn't do much to show that off. His hair was a deep auburn, longish, in need of cutting, and some of it was braided on one side of his pale face. His features, she noticed--the strength of his jaw, the high bridge of his nose, the solidity of his shoulders--were not quite those of a high school junior, and Emery was suddenly far more unsettled than she had been before. "Who--who are you?"

"You know me."

"I don't."

He remained serious, stood straight and still as stone. His dark fitted jeans and white T-shirt, his black jacket and somewhat shiny, a little-too-dressy shoes made her certain he wasn't a high school student. How hadn't she realized he was older, before? But her friends hadn't either . . . had they? Maybe it was the darkness that aged him, now. He had to be twenty, at least. And Emery heard alarms go off in her brain. She didn't want to be there, but she had to ask about Adam.

"Where is Adam?"

"Home," the other replied after what seemed suspiciously like a brief hesitation.

Emery narrowed her eyes. "He went home?"

"I said as much."

She frowned. "If I see you again, I'm calling the cops. Do you understand me? You can't just--just stare at me like that. It's freaking weird." Her words were strong but her delivery revealed her nerves. She began to shake a little, back up. "Leave me alone, do you hear?" She turned and hurried up the driveway, checking over her shoulder, her heart pounding. The whole while she jogged up the path to the door, fumbled with her keys in the lock, she felt as if he were following her, right behind her, and that quickened her pace. But when she opened the door and turned to shut and lock it behind her, no one was there. And when she raced up to her room and peeked through the blinds to the street below, he was nowhere to be seen.

Amidst all her fluster, Emery wondered if maybe she hadn't also felt a hint of attraction, and that bothered her more than anything else.