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I tell Kappy what I've decided on Monday morning. You'd think, given her excitement, that I'd just asked her to help plan a wedding.

"We can get you a privately administered SAT," she says, pulling out her phone. "My mom will pay, so don't worry about that. We need to sign you up for the Common App, though. You want to just use my address? If you use yours, you'll start getting a buttload of college brochures. Also, letters of recommendation. I think Mrs. O, for sure, right? What other teacher adores you? You need two."

I place my hand on hers. "I love you for trying to help me, but right now I've just got to focus on graduating. I need to get my diploma before anything else. I have no idea what I'll do after that, though. My parents aren't going to let me stay with them if I refuse to go to Bolivia."

My mother would be willing, but I’m certain my father wouldn’t, and his rule is law. Where do kids my age go in that situation? A homeless shelter?

Kappy shrugs. “Then you can stay with me and Karla. She’ll be super pumped to have another skinny person in the house...I don’t offer her anyone to compete against.”

I laugh. I’ve never known anyone who says such outrageously terrible stuff about her parents as Kappy. “You’re joking, right?”

She grins. “My mom would love to have you, and she is incredibly competitive about her skinniness, but it’s mostly with her friends. Anyway, you could just get your GED instead, you know. You don't have to graduate."

I shrug. "I've got a 4.2 with the extra AP points thrown in. It seems like a shame to just throw it all away when I'm this close. Plus⁠—"

I glance across the hall, where Ford stands watching us, a small smile on his face.

"Ford," she says. "Yeah, I know, you lucky bitch. Fine. How are we feeling about the leverage situation?"

It's something I've thought about a lot since I left New Hope. Having things I can hold over my parents' heads may be the only way I ever get to see my sisters in the future.

"Yeah," I tell her. "I think it would be useful."

One week later, Kappy meets me and Faith at the park. She already had me spit into a vial at school. Today, she shows up with two Dixie cups and challenges Faith to a contest. "I bet I can spit more than you can," she says, handing one of the cups to Faith.

She's spent enough time with Faith to know my sister can't turn down a challenge. Faith begins spitting into the cup maniacally. Kappy congratulates her for winning and walks away to pour the contents into a vial like the one I used.

When we get home, my mother tells me to go outside and start weeding.

I barely feel bad at all about what I've just done.

On Tuesday, Ford messages me just as we're sitting down in English.

FORD

My mom has a double shift today.

I glance over at him. We swore we'd be extra careful until graduation, but...his whole house? To ourselves?

ME

I'll cancel my tutoring session.

That afternoon, he picks me up at the park and drives me to the old section of Penhallow. His home is the sort newlyweds get in New Hope: a one-story box that contains a living room, a kitchen, and bedrooms off to the side.

He shows me his mother's room—small and tidy, with a picture on the nightstand that I can't quite see from the hall—then Leila's room.

I'm not sure what I expected, but it isn't...this. There's an Olivia Rodrigo poster on the wall, a bed that's half covered by pillows and stuffed animals, a bookshelf with several complete series of books I'm dying to read: all the Sarah J Maas books Kappy's been telling me about, the Divergent series, Twilight.

There's a desk in the corner that still has last year's class schedule taped to the wall in front of it. A sticky note that says, "study past imperfect tense by Monday!!"

It doesn't look at all like the room of some sex-crazed seventeen-year-old with mental health issues, one who probably wasn't graduating whether she got kicked out or not.

I swallow. "She must like to read."

"Obsessed," he says. "She used to drive me crazy when we were small. We'd be getting out of the car and it would take her three minutes longer than the rest of us because she wouldn't put down her fucking book." His smile fades. "She'd have loved Mrs. O's class."

It pulls me up short once again. Once upon a time, I snottily told Ford we wouldn't be in the same classes and discovered in short order how very wrong I was. But it never occurred to me until this very moment that Leila might be just as smart, just as ambitious, as her brother. Never.