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“You could have stood with the seniors,” he says, a single brow raised. “Not everyone here is terrible.”

“That’s not what you said the night you made me leave the party.”

He frowns. “I...shouldn’t have. I was just worried you were in over your head. There are some rumors about Tim.”

I smile at him. “Rumors that he...what? Vandalizes houses? I notice he’s not here on detention.”

He tugs at his collar. “You know, you’re the headmaster’s daughter, and you came here looking like a deer in headlights, and there are certain things that would be considered...a prize, if you know what I’m saying.”

My brow furrows. “A prize?”

“Fuck,” he says, running a hand down his face. “Your virginity, Grace. A few guys have discussed it. Anyway, I’ve heard he roofied someone. I didn’t want you to be his next target.”

Oh.

My stomach bottoms out at the possibility.

Roofies are something out of frat parties and crime shows I’m not supposed to have watched. It never occurred to me it could happen in high school. The party might have gone so much more poorly for me than it did. “You could have just told me that.”

“Right,” he says, opening the refrigerator door, “like you’d have believed a word I said.”

I begin handing him sandwiches to put inside. I can’t argue—I wouldn’t have believed him that night.

“I had no business being there,” I admit. “I was out of my depth.”

“You realize that feeling will never go away if you keep choosing to stand with the freshmen instead of the seniors at things like this.”

I shrug. “It’s never going away regardless. I don’t fit in—that’s not changing.”

“So, you’ll just weather the storm until you can be with right-path people in Bolivia,” he says with a slightly sour laugh.

“I don’t have much choice,” I reply. “And at least I’ll sort of fit in there.”

“Will you?” he asks softly, taking a pile of sandwiches from me. “I think most people spend their entire lives feeling like they don’t fit in anywhere. I do.”

I laugh. “You’re the star of the football team, and one of the most popular guys in school. In what way do you possibly not fit in?”

He pauses for a moment, looking at me over the refrigerator door. “I’m one of maybe twenty kids here on a scholarship, for starters. Ty gets it, but my other friends don’t. I worked two jobs last summer, and part of it went to pay for these fucking uniforms. My friends just throw down a credit card at some expensive restaurant like they’re partners in a law firm while I’m shitting my pants when it’s my turn because I know it’s money I needed for something else. And everyone else here is consumed with where they’re getting into college while my primary concern is getting it paid for.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He raises a brow. “For what?”

My hand brushes his as he takes the next stack of sandwiches. “I assumed a lot of things about you when I first got here, and more and more I’m finding I had no idea.”

He glances at me. “I guess it was all bad then, what you thought?”

I smile. “You did spray-paint our house and tear up our yard.”

He’s quiet. I wish I hadn’t brought it up.

“It wasn’t me,” he finally says.

I still, a stack of sandwiches suspended in mid-air. “What do you mean?”

He reaches out and grabs them from me. “I didn’t do it. I don’t know who set the fire... since the matches from the restaurant I worked at were there, I assume it was someone trying to either frame me or it was someone making a statement on my behalf. As for spray-painting your house, I do know who did it, but I stayed in the van. We were on the way back from a summer scrimmage, and I had no idea the guys responsible had hatched this plan until we pulled up to your house. And then I got accused, for obvious reasons, and it was either I take the hit, or rat everyone out and have a bunch of guys on the team hate me.”

My hand brushes his again. And this time it stays there, pressed side by side with his. I could happily stay like this with him forever. Just two of us, our hands barely touching, telling each other the truth for once.