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He holds my eye for one long moment. “I don’t think you do,” he says softly. “I don’t think you hate me at all.”

I turn on my heel and go back to Kappy, so angry I’m worried I might burst into tears.

“I have to go,” I whisper.

Her mouth opens to object and then closes again once she sees my face. “Ford?” she asks.

I nod and she wraps an arm around me and walks me through the back gate. “Jesus,” she says. “I always thought he was a good guy until now.”

We wander down to the small dock behind the house and swing our legs over the edge, while I fight the urge to cry. Why do even the best moments always seem to end in ruin? It was going so well until Ford got involved.

“What did he say to you?” she asks.

“A lot of things. Mostly that I have to leave or he’s sending a picture of me dressed like this to my dad...who would ground me for the rest of the year if he saw me here.”

“But why the fuck does Ford care that you’re here?” she asks, frowning over her shoulder as if he’s somewhere close enough to wither from her glare. “You weren’t even talking to him.”

“He said people would mess with me. Which is insane, because he’s the one who’d be behind it if they did.”

She removes her flip-flops and trails her toes through the water. “Are you sure about that?”

“Whether you believe it or not, he did admit to vandalizing my house. Who else has the same motivation to mess with me that he does?”

She shrugs. “You’re probably right. I just...”

“What?”

“If he’s saying people will mess with you here, it doesn’t sound like he hates you. It sounds like he’s worried.”

I’ve wasted enough time interfering. I assumed he’d meant he’d wasted enough time tonight, but was it more? Is it possible that the guy with the best reason to hate me has been looking out for me instead?

We leave a few minutes later, and I change clothes in Kappy’s car as she drives me home. “I’m sorry I ruined your night,” I tell her. She’s never going to invite me anywhere again.

“You didn’t,” she says. “Ford did. But can I ask you something?”

I nod warily.

“Why are you so scared of your parents?” she asks. “I mean...I get it. I try not to piss off mine either because I don’t want to wind up grounded, but you live in this state of being, like, permanently grounded anyway. You’re legally an adult and can do whatever you want, but they barely even let you come out tonight.”

I rub my shoulder, tense in a way I wasn’t a moment before.

“It’s just how I was raised,” I tell her. “Disobeying my parents would be one of the worst things I could possibly do, and in my church—” I stop myself before I finish the sentence. Telling her bad things happen to people who argue would make it sound like the mafia or a cult, and it’s not.

And yet it’s true. Bad things happen to people who argue. Bad things happened to Mary Joyce, to her parents. To everyone who ever said a contrary word, offered a new suggestion.

“I’m going to keep inviting you out anyway,” says Kappy as she pulls into my driveway. “If you only get one year to live like a normal kid, Ford fucking James isn’t about to ruin it for you.”

I hope she means it. As frightened as I was to live like a normal kid when I started at Penhallow, I hunger for it now.

“Let’s go to the mall tomorrow instead of next weekend,” she says. “I’ll shoot you a text.”

I shake my head. There’s no way I’ll be able to go to the mall without sufficiently warning my parents. I’m not even sure they’ll let me go with sufficient warning. “I don’t think I can go this weekend, but maybe next. And don’t text...”

Her head tips. “Why not?”

I wince. “I’m pretty sure my parents are monitoring my cell.”

Now that I think about it, it might be why they got me the phone. So, they’d always know my location and what I was actually discussing with my secular peers.