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My phone dies and I’m left with nobody to help me gather my thoughts.

Fine, I’ll just speed up the pace, and I’ll use this time to figure things out. Better to break, prepare a statement, and confront. Just like a court case, I can’t ever be caught vulnerable and unaware. Though I’m not sure how the hell I’m supposed to logic my way out of this situation when I’ve been caught red-handed.

CHAPTER 5

I’m running on less than two hours of sleep.

My throat is burning from the two jalapeños I chomped on like gum during my quiz last period, and combined with my sleepiness and anxiety, I’m currently chewing on my final surviving fingernail as Mr. Howard explains something about biochemistry.

Theo was missing during first period, and I haven’t bumped into him at all. When I thought I saw the back of his smooth brown hair, I ran in the other direction. At every groan of a door opening, every tap of a footstep nearing, I whip my head in the direction, waiting for him to appear.

Out of every single person in the world, I had to match my father with Theo’s mom.

Being surrounded by people with big families, more money, and zero problems is not exactly a challenge, but not pleasant either. I try to keep my chin up and move forward, but this just feels like if the universe has favorites, it is so undeniably clear I am not one of them. I’m not even in the top hundred… thousand, even.

I drop my forehead onto my cold desk and smack my head against it a few times.

The bell rings, and I shoot to stand so fast stars dance along my vision. I gather my books against my chest and hide in the rush of the sixth-period hallway crowd.

All this morning Lexie has been messaging me about last night, but I told her I’d have to tell her in person. Some things you just don’t want to have a digital footprint.

I get caught behind a particularly thick crowd rushing for the gym doors, which slows my progress to Lexie and my study room. When it’s in my view, I rush for it, swinging the door open and running inside.

“Lexie, you won’t believe—”

My jaw drops at the same time my backpack makes a thud on the floor. Theo sits on a desk facing me, the sunlight beaming from the windows pouring over half his face as he smiles at me. “There you are, Lopez.”

“Where is Lexie?”

“Sent away with the promise that the cooking class has a platter of vegan pastries they’d like her to sample for their upcoming bake sale.”

“Traitor,” I mutter, grabbing my backpack. “Well, I should go join her.”

“I hope you choke on your own spit,” he says, and I tense. “That wasn’t very kind.”

“Google Translate can be so unreliable,” I say, regarding the message he memorized that I sent to his mom. “That’s not something I think I’d say to someone. Your spelling might have been off.”

He hops off the desk, his blazer wrapped around his waist, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, and red shoes nowhere near the approved blue, white, or black uniform colors.

I stand straight, trying to keep my hands from fidgeting. No matter how much I racked my brain last night and this morning, I could not think of what Theo’s reaction would be when we inevitably saw each other again. I don’t know him enough to know what it could be.

“We could do this back and forth for a while; I wouldn’t mind prolonging our time together. But should we just get to the point?” He reaches me, and I have to tilt my neck to meet his gaze. “Why were you catfishing my mom?”

Instead of answering, I go with the main topic that plagued my brain all night. “Why were you there at the restaurant where we were supposed to meet and not Ellie?” It crossed my mind that Theo could have been doing the same thing I was, setting up his mom on a date. It was just way too coincidental that he ended up at the same place where his mom was meant to have a date.

“I asked you first,” he says, his eyes bright and warm and filled with arrogance.

“I asked you second,” I say.

He narrows his eyes, not in annoyance, but when he looks me over, it feels like he’s analyzing me. “You know, I think a lot of people would be surprised how childish you are.”

“Childish?” I repeat the word back like it’s poisoned. “I’m not childish.”

I’d almost miss his smirk if not for the dimples at the corners of his lips. “You literally ran away from me rather than confronting the situation. That wasn’t childish?”

Well, that negates my current plan of turning around and running out the door to push back this conversation. Now I have to have it out of spite. “I needed to get my steps in, and I was running out of time.”

“Lopez.” He sighs on the edge of what sounds like a laugh. “Come on. You have to tell me what’s going on.”