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“Yes, sir,” I say, looking down again.

There’s a stretch of silence, then Mattix asks, “Want me to call your dad?”

“No, sir,” I say, coming to my feet, and offering my hand to shake.

He does, reaching over the desk and squeezing it. “Think I will anyway,” he says. “I know what the camera caught, but I’m also confident there’s more to this than meets the eye. Talk to your dad, son.”

I nod, feel my eyes prickling when he says the word son, can’t stop the cascade of the thousand thoughts that follow of a world where that’s true. A world where I’m Micah Mattix, and everything is different.

But this is the world I’m in. I’m Micah Harding, and I’m meeting Ava Germaine in four hours, and having a conversation where I have to convince her that I’m not who she thinks I am. That I’m better. That I’m worthy. That I’m a good man.

It would help if I believed it.

My leg won’t stop bouncing. I got to Sheetz half an hour early, an upside of being suspended. I muted Ethan after I got his first text—What the fuck, man?—then both my parents when they heard from Mattix, assuring them that I was okay and we could talk when I got home. I let them know my location sharing is on, but to please leave me alone for the next few hours. Hailey I’d muted immediately, but she’s apparently pretending I don’t exist, so it’s not a problem. Murph and Blake both went into the mute pile as well, even though Siri trying to interpret Murph’s medicated, slurred speech into text was pretty funny.

My phone vibrates, and I lunge for it, ignoring the twenty unread texts and going straight for Rock Bottom, where I’ve got a DM.

burnedoutgirl: Traffic, sorry.

She pulls in ten minutes late, and my heart rate kicks up a notch. She stays behind the wheel for a second, taps away at her phone. On the table, mine vibrates.

burnedoutgirl: I’m here. Give me a second. Nerves.

I tell her no problem, whatever she needs, but what I don’t tell her is that I’m wearing a baseball cap, and that it’s pulled down low so that she can’t immediately clock me when she walks in, can’t run for the door or throw my milkshake in my face before I get a chance to talk.

Before I get a chance to tell her about the worst thing.

I decided last night it’s the one thing I can say that might make her trust me. It’s not the best route to showing Ava that I’m a good guy, but what it will do is show her that I’ll put it all in her hands. Everything. The truth about who I am and what I’ve done. I’m trusting her with my biggest secret, in the hopes that she’ll trust me in return.

She’s coming through the door, and I look down, messing with my phone, because as soon as she sees me it’s over, and I’m going to bolt, going to hide and pretend, because that’s what I do because I’m Micah Harding and I don’t ever do the right thing, not ever. Not once.

Except for now. This time, I swear to God, I fucking will.

She slides into the booth across from me. I take a deep breath and raise my head.

“Hey, Ava,” I say.

Thirty-Six

Ava

No.

It’s in my head and in my heart, but it hasn’t made it to my mouth yet. I walked in here hoping to find the one good guy in the world; what I got was Micah Harding.

“Ava, please listen—” he says my name, unsurprised.

“You knew,” I say.

He nods, his goddamn perfect square jaw tightening and glittery blue eyes shining. Another wave of heat hits me, but this one isn’t anger, it’s the insecurity of every girl like me when she’s around a guy like Micah Harding. I didn’t do my hair, didn’t put on makeup, didn’t try, because I didn’t want it to be like that between us, me and averageamericanmale. I wanted to just show up as myself and have that be enough.

“How’d you figure it out?”

“Your art project,” he says. “You used lines from—”

“Don’t say my own words to me,” I cut him off, sick at the thought that he read my poetry, knows all the inadequacies of me.

“What I said is still true,” Micah goes on. “I’m excited to meet you. To talk to you. To see you.”