From the whirring blender of my brain, I seized the first semicoherent thought. “I didn’t go to the dance with Alex.”
“You would have.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, then closed it again. An aching throb had started in my skull. “The thing is, Bo—”
“I know. That’s a long way off. A lot can happen in two years. Don’t you think?”
He had backed me into a rhetorical corner. “In theory,” I allowed.
The front door flew open. Jasper stomped inside, kicking snow off his shoes. “There you are,” he said to Bo. My brother fell silent when he spotted me.
“Mary and I were just discussing the future,” Bo explained. Jasper raised his eyebrows. Bo stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, not quite reaching my shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re doing two Decembers from now, but I’ve got my date for Winter Formal locked down.”
I whipped around. “What?”
“You didn’t say youwouldn’tgo with me,” Bo pointed out.
“I thought we had tabled the issue.”
“Potato, potah-to.”
Jasper caught my eye. When he was sure he had my attention, he mimed yanking something. I frowned to show I didn’t understand. He cut his eyes at the floor lamp—or more specifically, the cord attached to the outlet.
Pull the plug. How was I supposed to do that? Hopping to my feet, I moved to the doorway. “Listen, Bo,” I began.
He stuck fingers in both ears. “Can’t hear you.”
“I’m just trying to say that while I obviously esteem you greatly”—at this Bo flinched, before remembering he wasn’t supposed to be listening—“it’s in a purely platonic way. You’re like a brother to me.” I pointed to Jasper, as though the concept required illustration.
Bo started to hum loudly.
I had the queasy feeling I’d gone back in time to the night of the dance and was once again faced with the impossible task of telling people I cared about something they didn’t want to hear. It was so much more pleasant to have a clean, simple answer.No, I didn’twantto kiss Alex Ritter! Yes, I might suddenly develop romantic feelings for a boy who’s like a sibling to me!
Jasper sketched a circle in the air with his index finger, signaling me to get on with it.
“The thing is, I could maybe go with you—” I broke off when Jasper sighed loudly, shaking his head. Bo had stopped humming, though his fingers were still in his ears. “But I’m never going to another dance. Ever. That sort of thing is ... not for me. I plan to concentrate on schoolwork. My studies. And so on.”
I gave a decisive bob of the chin. And then I ran away—but not before seeing the hurt in Bo’s eyes.
Late Sunday afternoon I was creeping up the stairs with a mug of tea and a handful of cashews when Addie came running down from the attic with a sheaf of acid-green paper in one hand. The twins had been ghostly figures of late, their existence hinted at by midnight creaking from the attic and the random movement of objects from place to place.
She held out the stack of pages for my inspection.
I glanced at theOthelloposter, forcing a smile. “Cool.”
“It is,” Addie agreed.
I looked at her more closely. She seemed ... excited. Not withdrawn and brooding, the way she’d been the last few months. “The play’s going well?”
“I think so. It’s maybe not for me to say, but it feels like it.”
“That’s good.” I tried to make my voice hearty and bright, the way it would have sounded a week ago, but I was having trouble summoning that version of me.
“Yeah.” She smiled like her old self, which was to say with the unshadowed brightness of a summer afternoon. “I can’t wait for you to see it.”
It warmed me, both the smile and the fact that she wantedmeto be there. For a shining instant, I wasn’t persona non grata. Even Yarb had given me a wide berth, with a cat’s instinctive distaste for neediness.
“Here.” She handed me a few flyers. “You can give these to your friends.”
