“Just stuff.”

Mom waited a beat before she said, “Well, Jake’s a boy, after all.” She glanced at the pot on the stove. “They don’t talk about their feelings all that much.”

“And by ‘all that much’ you really mean ‘at all,’ right?”

She laughed. “Something like that.”

The door leading to the garage opened and closed, and Dr. Griffin’s voice rang through the house. “Paula, I’m home!” He strolled into the kitchen and greeted my mother with a kiss on her temple. “Hi, Talia.”

I pressed my lips together for a tight smile and waved in greeting. Quality time with Mom was over.

Whether he knew I was kind of annoyed at his sudden arrival, I couldn’t tell, but he squeezed my mom’s shoulders and said, “Mind if I disappear for a few? I’ve got some paperwork to finish.” After she pecked him on the cheek and shooed him away, we were alone again.

“Do you think he’s going to leave?” I said, looking in the direction my stepfather disappeared.

“Rob?” Mom said as she added dried noodles to the pot. “I hope not. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Her expression was skeptical, and I quickly added, “It’s not wishful thinking or anything. It’s just a question. Like, do you think people break up when one person’s basically done with the other?”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake. I braced myself for direct examination. Or voir dire. Or whatever it was lawyers did when they questioned people on the witness stand.

She pulled a colander from a cabinet. “I assume this is about Hunter and Ally?” When I didn’t respond, she said, “You make it sound like he was using Ally for whatever reason and never cared about her at all.” I remained silent. “Hunter may have genuinely liked her and Kyle both.”

“But he just couldn’t pick one.”

The colander clattered as it slipped from her hands to the floor. “I suppose,” she said, picking it up and placing it in the sink. “Or maybe he went out with Ally because that’s what was expected of him. Maybe going out with Ally was just a front to hide how he really felt about Kyle.”

“And that makes it okay to basically use her?”

“Absolutely not.” She looked hard at me, like she was studying me. “Where is this coming from?”

“I was just thinking. Forget it,” I said, hoping she would drop it. But that was unlikely.

“Is this what Ally thinks?”

“I don’t know. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. It’s fine, okay?” I sighed and slid off the stool. “I’m going upstairs. I didn’t get much done at Jake’s.”

Mom opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and I braced myself, half-expecting her to press further and pepper me with questions I couldn’t answer — or didn’t want to answer, if I was being honest. But instead, she gave me kind of a sad smile. “Don’t get too wrapped up in anything,” she said. “The pasta’s just about done.” I nodded, and she added, “Talia, honey, you know you can—”

“Tell you anything,” I finished for her. “I know.” I hugged her. “Thanks, Mom.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

I spent the next couple of days simultaneously looking forward to seeing Jake and dreading the thought of being near him. It was like dealing with the tide. I’d be away from him long enough to rationalize all the reasons I shouldn’t be in love with him, but then he’d envelope me in one of his massive hugs, and I wouldn’t be able to stop smiling for the rest of the period.

The really sick part about it was I kind of liked it. I liked how my heart couldn’t decide if it should hide in my stomach or fly out of my chest. I liked how he’d put his arm around me and we’d try to synchronize our steps as we walked through the halls. I liked how he’d look at me like I was the only person in the world, like whatever I was telling him was all that mattered.

But I kind of hated myself for it, too.

Ally’s powers of observation were as keen as ever. She cornered me in the lunch line on Thursday.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on between you guys, or do I have to go to Jake?”

I fumbled with a container of macaroni and cheese, and it fell through an opening on the tray rack and onto the floor. “Sorry,” I said to the worker behind the counter. He shook his head, handed me another container, and waved us on.

“Nice one,” Ally said with a laugh. “And now I know something’s up. You never get flustered like that.”

I was glad my hair was down so she couldn’t see my ears burning. “Drop it, Katz.”

“Like you just did?” She giggled, and I begrudgingly smiled. As much as I didn’t want her interrogating me about stuff I didn’t understand myself, it was good to see her back to her non-mopey self, even for a little while.

“How do you know anything’s going on?” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Things have just normalized. No big.”

“Funny how different your ‘normal’ looks from what I remember it used to be.”

“Maybe I’m just overcompensating for being such a witch.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, with a quick bob of her head, but she’d agreed so easily, I knew she didn’t believe me. I hoped I’d at least earned a reprieve for the rest of the period, though. Maybe even the day, if I was lucky.

Our table was more crowded than usual. Keith was hovering over Jake and Finn, and Brady was in my regular seat next to Bianca. I set down my tray and handed Brady my container of fries.

“Hey, thanks,” he said, getting to his feet. He grinned and reached for my head as though he was about to mess up my hair, but I ducked out of reach.

“You don’t have to feed him, you know,” Bianca said with an annoyed glare at her brother’s back as he left. “Dad gives him money for lunch, too.”

“It’s a habit,” I said. “I think of it as tithing.”

She shook her head. “I’m so glad he didn’t hear that. The last thing we need is for my big-headed brother to think there’s a Church of Brady.”

“No,” Tim said beside her. “Worse would be if he decides to create one.”

An image of Brady dressed like a televangelist and surrounded by adoring freshmen came to mind, and I laughed. Bianca shuddered when I shared it with her.

“That’s so not even funny,” she said.

Keith threw a straw wrapper at me to get my attention. “Open mic’s tomorrow night, Talia,” he said. “You going?”

I glanced at Jake. He kept his eyes down, as though he was expecting his food to do tricks.

“Of course she is,” Ally answered. “She wouldn’t miss Jake’s new song for anything. Talia’s his biggest fan.” She smiled sweetly, and I fought the urge to pelt her with macaroni.

“So you’re definitely going?” Bianca said to Jake.

“Going?” he repeated. “Yeah. But I don’t think I’ll perform, no.”

“You have to!” Ally wailed.

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. Jake glanced up at me, and I added, “Not everyone wants to be in the spotlight, Ally. Leave him alone.”

“But Clover says his new song is amazing,” she said with a pout.

“Clover’s a little biased,” Jake said, his eyes downcast.

I remembered the times I’d caught him working on it and the snippets of lyrics I’d heard. Jake said it was the most personal song he’d ever written.

Clover’s a little biased, I repeated silently as my heart splintered in my chest. Of course she was. She was his muse. I’d be biased, too, if anyone had written a song for me.

****

Jake was antsier than usual that afternoon. He wasn’t focused, and he wouldn’t sit still, either. It was impossible to concentrate on schoolwork when he was bouncing around like a hyperactive terrier.

I threw down my pencil. “Why are you so spastic?” We’d been at his house for twenty minutes, and I hadn’t solved more than three geometry problems.

He froze. “Nerves?”

“Why?”

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Were you listening when I was talking to Clover the other day?”