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She sighs. “Shoot. I’m sorry.”
“Why? I’m the one who messaged you, remember? I just wanted to tell you because I know you said that Anae didn’t know about the necklace. I don’t think he would talk to her, but Dare seems like the second-worst person in the world to know about it, and he does.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “All right. Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m really sorry, Hannah.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I knew it was a risk when I sent it, I just… I couldn’t wear the necklace to Fright Fest because Anae would have seen it, but I thought it went with this costume so well. Briar Rose, you know?”
“It does. You look really pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry it’s dangerous just to wear a necklace you rightfully own and share a picture with a friend.”
“It’s fine. I’ll…” She trails off, then sighs. “Why do they have to be such pains in the ass?”
Caught off guard by her comment, a short laugh bursts out of me. “I don’t know, but they really are. Is Anae giving you grief this year?”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Okay.” I look down at my legs, considering how to approach this next thing. “Dare said you messaged him.”
She hesitates for the tiniest sliver of a second. “Yeah, I did. Just once. I had a question only he could answer. Honestly, I didn’t even expect him to respond.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of surprised he did, too.”
“Well, while he did answer me, he wasn’t helpful,” she says dryly, and her tone makes me chuckle.
“No? What a shocker.”
“I know. I should have warned you to sit down first. My apologies.”
“Hey, I am sitting down, so…”
“We’re all good then.”
I look down at my legs with an absent smile on my face. “Yeah.”
I must not sound convincing because she says, “What was the fight about? I hope it wasn’t because of me.”
“Most of our fights are about you,” I say, idly picking at a broken piece of netting on my destroyed tights. “Not your fault, though. It’s him. He’s… unfair.”
“How so?”
“He can have all the friends he wants, but if I want even one, it’s a problem.”
Hannah hesitates, then she asks, “Just me, or…?”
“You’re the only one we fight over, but he hasn’t really allowed me any opportunities to make friends here. He’s stingy with my time, and I won’t fight him over anyone else, but… that’s kind of the problem. Since Iwillfight him overyou, you’re an endless source of contention between us.”
“Have you tried not fighting?”
I frown, and my heart sinks a little. “You mean, like, stop talking to you?”
“No,” she says quickly. “I don’t mean altering your behavior in any way. You do what you want to do, and if he gets mad about it, okay. Just ignore it and brush past it. Immediately move on. Don’t give him an opportunity to turn it into a fight. No attitude, no negativity. Smother the flames completely—that’s an important part, you can’t be passive aggressive. You have to literally will his anger out of existence. If you can immediately shift the conversation to something unrelated that’s pleasant and makes you smile and have fun, even better. Just take control of the reins and haul that horse to a cleaner pool of water.”
That is so completely the opposite of what I would have expected her to say, for a moment, I can’t process it.
