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Prologue
Maddison
“Oops… sorry,” I say to the tall, lean figure who just popped up on the study room couch. Was he lying there… in the dark? “I thought this room was empty.”
“It’s not,” he grumbles, his voice groggy.
His eyes scrunch up in a wince when I turn on the light.
“Sorry!” I say again. “Nobody likes to get light-blinded after a good nap. Then again, thisisthe study room. Is it—is it okay if we have this on?”
“You’re not going to let me get back to my nap, are you?” he mumbles, swiping his hand through his shaggy hair.
I’m already at the table. My books hit the surface with a thump. It smells like chicken broth in here. Not the homemade kind, but that salty, processed kind.
It’s a comforting smell, actually.
I eye the stack of books across the table. All science subjects: evolution, biology, chemistry. A thick one’s open, the highlighter crooked across the left page. Sleek laptop off to one side. Is this his stuff?
He flops down into the chair across from me and drapes one arm across the back. “It’s two a.m.”
Like I don’t know that.
“Yeah?”
“It’s two a.m.on a Friday,” he adds. “Most people are out at parties or tucked into bunk beds.”
“While some of us prefer to sprawl out on scratchy maroon study room couches, no blankets, snoring.”
“If you know that couch is scratchy, means you’ve stretched out on it a time or two yourself.”
“Maybe.” I have, but I’m not sure I need to tell Nap Boy about it.
“I was snoring?” he asks.
“You might have been… I don’t know. I woke you up too soon to tell. But you were out, that’s definite. Your eyes were squinty when you woke up.”
“I bet your eyes are squinty when you first wake up, too.” He peers at my glasses. “Is thatneonpurple?”
I touch the frames. “Actually, yes. I started wearing glasses in the first grade, and they had purple frames, and my class wrote a book about me. Laminated pages. Three-hole-punched. Book rings. The works.”
He snorts. The corner of his mouth inches up and he studies me, a playful look dancing in his eyes. “A book about your glasses?”
“You know, to help me adjust.Maddison’s New Purple Glasses.”
He nods. “My class wrote a book about our hermit crab, Bonzo. So, you kept up the purple look.”
“It’s sort of my thing now. A girl can get stuck in a rut.”
“But…neonpurple?”
“What, you think boring old black would be more becoming? They tried to sell me a pair of those, last time I went in. Obsidian black. The sales rep said they were ‘sophisticated.’”
“Obsidian black frames would be downright handsome.”
“Handsome is not the look I’m going for.”
He shifts to the side and reaches into his messenger bag—which is almost an exact replica of mine. When he pulls out a case and slips out black-rimmed glasses, I feel a happy giggle rise up inside. I try to swallow it down, but I can’t quite.
