I looked out into the common room. There was still a pleasant celebratory mood in the air, now that Yasmin had been found and was okay. The other kids from Jayden’s party had left, so it was pretty much just shelter staff and residents here now. Daniel was sitting with the other staff and volunteers, but his face no longer showed relief, or joy, but a kind of melancholy acceptance. It broke my heart a little bit.
“Yeah, I think I need to stay with my friend.”
Cass nodded. “Yeah, I think you need to, too. I can swing by and get you when I go home from Jayden’s.”
“Yeah, or I could call my family. You go. And ... thanks, Cass.”
They smiled. “Anytime, bestie, but don’t grow too attached to thatfriendlabel for Daniel. I’m pretty sure that’s about to change.”
I chuckled as I took the cookies out to Faduma in the common room. She thanked me for the package before heading out to the ambulance with Yasmin and the medics.
Then I moved to sit next to Daniel. I squeezed his arm gently. “You good?”
He looked surprised that I was still here. He blinked a few times. “Can we talk? Outside?” he asked.
We went to the kids’ play structure and climbed onto the little metal platform at the top of the big slide. It was pitch dark out and getting colder. I zipped up my hoodie. Thank god Daniel had found Yasmin when he did. She hadn’t even had a warm coat on.
I wrapped my arms around my knees.
“What’s up?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.
He still didn’t speak. His legs were crossed, and he was trailing his fingers over the raised bumps on the metal of the floor of the landing.
“Thank goodness you found her,” I said, mostly to escape the silence. “And thank goodness she’s okay. I think you will forever be a hero to Faduma. And to Muniba. Actually, to everyone here.”
He nodded again, then looked up at me. “Muniba told me that she told you,” he said. When I didn’t respond, he clarified: “She told me she slipped and said I used to live here.”
I nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t mean to say anything. She was scared about Yasmin.”
Daniel looked down again.
I wanted to reach out and squeeze his knee, reassure him that it didn’t matter, and that he didn’t have to talk about it. I would respecthis parameter. He seemed so closed in on himself, like he didn’t want to be talking about this.
He took a breath. “I knew it would be awkward if I didn’t say I knew Muniba told you. So that’s why I’m mentioning it,” he said. He paused. “But you don’t have to treat me different or feel sorry for me. It doesn’t need to change anything.” He paused again. “But if you want out of our deal, I understand.”
I shook my head. “Why would I want out of our deal? You’re supposed to be my date for the dance. I’m helping you with calculus. I still want to go ahead with our arrangement.”
That wasn’t completely true. Our arrangement was that he would be my fake boyfriend. And maybe a few days ago I’d wondered if I should end it because I was growing too attached, but right now I wanted out of it because I wanted this to be as real as it felt.
He shrugged.
But I didn’t want to say that yet, because right now, this was about him, not me and my feelings. “Daniel, I understand why you didn’t want to tell me this. But ... I wouldn’t have treated you differently if I knew. I would have still asked you to be my fake boyfriend.”
He shook his head, not making eye contact. “As if I could tell you that I used to live in a shelter. That my mom couldn’t afford rent anywhere and we had no one else who would let us crash at their place. You, whose friends live in multimillion-dollar houses and whose mother drives an Audi. You said your parents loved your ex because his parents are a cardiologist and an engineer. My mother is a glorified babysitter. How could I have told you?”
He sounded bitter ... and all I could think of was when Cass called me an elitist. Was this really what people thought of me? Were they right?
I shook my head. “Okay, that might be true about my friends and my parents, but why do you think I care about any of that? None of that matters to me.”
He turned away. “I’m not smart like your friends. I’m not rich like them. I can only play hockey because a right-to-play charity covers the cost. I barely passed my classes last year because it was impossible to get any studying done at the shelter. Today you said that the first thing your parents ask your friends when they meet them is what their parents do. My mom is a personal support worker. Basically, a nursing assistant—not even a real nurse. And my uncle that we live with? He’s not even my uncle, but my mother’semployer. Mom cares for his mother. I live in his only spare bedroom, and Mom sleeps on a cot in the old lady’s room. The reason I have to do whatever he wants is because Mom’s afraid if I don’t, he’ll decide I can’t live there anymore once I turn eighteen.”
“Daniel, look at me,” I said. He turned to me, and thanks to the bright lights at the shelter door, I could see his eyes were glistening. I shook my head. “I don’t care about any of those things. I’m really sorry I gave you the impression that I wouldn’t like you foryou. Just the way you are.”
He blinked. “You wanted me to pretend to be someone I’m not.”
That was true. But that was because I needed Daniel to pretend to be LostAxis.
But ... he was kind of right, too. Deep down, I didn’t care about how much money his parents had, or about how he did in school. But on the surface, I sure looked like I cared about that stuff. A lot. I was so wrapped up in my image—in showing the kids at school that I could move on from Devin to someone smarter, and better-looking, that I turned this amazing person into someone who I thought everyone else would find perfect. And deep down, the whole time I knew he was perfect just as he was.
