“More like taste,” Rory says. “Interests. The ability to care about things that aren’t jock itch.”
“Yeah, it’s probably that delightful personality of yours, man.”
Chloe squeezes her eyes shut and tries, as hard as she can, to remember why exactly she’s subjecting herself to this shitshow.
An image immediately fills her mind: Shara with her brand-new-lip-gloss smile, leaning across the counter to give Tyler Miller a pink envelope. Shara putting everything in place to show Chloe she was already ten steps ahead, that she guessed Chloe’s exact moves before Chloe had even caught her scent.
“Okay!” Chloe snaps, and Smith and Rory pause mid-roast, mouths still open. “Hello! I also kissed Shara—which both of you seem to keep forgetting about—and I, personally, would like to know why, so can we please do what we came here to do?”
After a pause, Smith is the first to grumble, “Okay.” Rory makes a sound like his molars are stuck together.
“Rory,” Chloe says briskly, “what’s the password?”
He gives her a hearty glower, then extracts a Moleskine from the mess on his desk and lets it fall open to the center, where a pink card has been tucked.
“Thank you,” Chloe says. When she reaches for it, she glances down at the pages around it, which are covered in jagged, handwritten lines. Some of the words look like they might rhyme at the end. “Oh my God, you do write sad poems about Shara.”
“Don’t look at those!” Rory says, snapping the notebook shut.
“I wanna see,” Smith says, craning his neck for a better look.
“Fuck both of y’all,” Rory grumbles. “Chloe, you’re the one who just told us to focus.”
“Right,” she concedes. She drops into the chair at Rory’s desk, opening his laptop and laying out her card next to Rory’s. She can sense Smith hovering behind her. He’s probably reading what Shara wrote to her. Good. She’s tired of being the only one who knows Shara isn’t who she pretends she is.
“Hey, wait—” Rory starts as she opens up a browser window.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna look through your search history,” Chloe says, pulling up Gmail and typing in the email address from her note. “I can guess.”
Smith and Rory crowd together, leaning in to watch Chloe finish pounding out the password. She hears the soft thump of Rory elbowing Smith in the ribs and pretending it was an accident.
There’s nothing in the inbox when it loads, not even a promo email in the spam folder.
“The drafts,” Smith recites. “Check the drafts.”
There’s one email in the drafts folder, unsent. The subject line says, BRB.
Chloe sucks in a breath as she clicks it open.
Hi,
This is Shara. Of course it’s Shara. You already know that.
I had to leave. I promise it’ll make sense soon.
I’m sorry I haven’t told any of you how I really feel about you. I’m still not sure how. This is the only way I could think of.
XOXO
Shara
P.S. Chloe, the next card is for you. It’s somewhere you go almost every day. Until then, you’re keeping your vows, and I’m hiding in the brakes.
“What is this?” Rory asks. “This—this doesn’t explain anything.”
“A clue,” Smith says. “The postscript is another clue.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this is what Shara does,” he says. “It’s like … little hints. She can’t just let you in. You have to figure out your way there.”
“So, she wants us to find her?”
“I think so. It sounds like Chloe has to do it.”
“Chloe?”
“Chloe, do you know what it means?”
Chloe can hear their voices overlapping, struggling to get her attention, but she can barely make out the words through the ringing in her ears, growing louder and louder the more she imagines Shara sitting at her dainty little vanity and typing out her smug little email and knowing she could get Chloe to read it. That she could lay out all the pretty pieces of a puzzle and have the three of them fighting over who would get to put it together first.
Of course. Of course Shara gave her this instead of an explanation. Of course Shara cast herself as the main character of her own personal John Green novel. And now the rest of them are supposed to be happy getting shuffled around like stupid little chess pieces, because Shara kissed them, and it’s her board.