Shara lays her palms flat on the table, looking right into the camera so intently that Chloe wants to look away, but she can’t.
“The real reason I ran away isn’t a reason at all. It’s a person. I did all of this for her attention, and I told myself it was because I wanted to beat her, but really, I wanted to know she was looking at me. This part shouldn’t be a surprise to her—she figured it out before I did. I guess she already won something, huh?
“So, that’s the truth,” Shara concludes. “All of it. I’m done lying. And if you hate me now, fine. Only two weeks left. I can take it.
“See you on Monday.”
FROM THE BURN PILE
Passed notes between Shara and Smith Found in Smith’s Free Enterprise notes
Do you wanna go out for dinner tomorrow? It’s my turn to have the car and Olive Garden has unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks on weekdays
I can’t, I have to study.
At your house?
I was gonna go to the library.
ahhh got it
Actually, I can do it at my house. Wanna come over?
yeah!
18
DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 13
DAYS SINCE SHARA CAME BACK: 1
Chloe is, as she often is, and as she has in fact been every single time she’s thought about Shara since she first saw her on that cursed billboard, fuming.
She was in control. She had all of Shara’s secrets. For exactly thirty-six hours, before Shara outplayed her. Again.
And now Shara’s coming back, and Chloe’s behind on her studying in three different classes because she’s been wasting all her time and energy trying to win a rigged game.
It’s Monday morning, and she’s not waiting for Shara. She’s sitting alone on the hood of her car in the student lot because Georgia still isn’t speaking to her, because of Shara, and neither are the rest of her friends, because of Shara, so she’s going over her AP Lit study guide by herself, and she’s definitely not waiting to see Shara’s white Jeep pull in for the first time in a month.
It’s not Shara’s white Jeep, but Rory’s red BMW that purrs into the lot.
He’s got the top down, Jimi Hendrix screaming out of the speakers, and Shara in the passenger seat.
Chloe’s notecards hit the concrete.
Rory, the absolute traitor, is at the wheel in a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. All Chloe can do is gape as he pulls into the spot next to her and throws it in park. Gaping is all anyone’s doing, actually—a ripple of shock that starts at the edge of the courtyard, where Emma Grace Baker drops her vanilla bean frap all over her Superstars.
Shara opens the door and steps out.
Her skirt’s hiked up at least three inches above regulation length. Her face is bare. And her hair—the trademark Shara Wheeler wavy blond waterfall—has been chopped off just above her shoulders in a jagged line, like she did it herself with a pair of kitchen scissors over the bathroom sink, and dyed a shade of hot pink expressly forbidden by the Willowgrove dress code. When she runs a hand through it, her fingers are dye-stained.
“Hi,” she says to Chloe over the sound of the guitars.
“Hi,” Chloe says back.
They stay there. Chloe’s brain is stuck replaying the last minute of Shara’s livestream. The defiant tilt of Shara’s jaw as she spoke, the burn of her eyes. I wanted to know she was looking at me. Here Chloe is, looking.
Finally, stiffly, Shara says, “Didn’t want to miss any exams.”
She turns and walks away, and like always, the whole world bends around Shara Wheeler. Everything goes slow motion. Obnoxious freshmen shut up. Marching band couples stop groping each other. April smacks Jake so hard that he expels a surreptitious vape cloud. Mrs. Sherman’s overlined mouth goes so thin, it disappears. A football hits Ace in the side of the head and bounces away, completely forgotten.
Chloe watches Shara’s skirt swish in perfect time to the music still blasting out of Rory’s car and feels like she’s losing her mind.
She rounds on Rory. “Really? ‘Purple Haze’？”
He shrugs. “It’s a good song.”
“Why are you driving her around?”
“Her parents took the steering wheel off her car, so she came next door and asked me for a ride. We talked. It’s chill.”
“It’s chill? After everything she put you through, it’s chill? I thought you weren’t in love with her anymore.”
“I’m not,” he says. He slides his sunglasses down his nose and raises an eyebrow. “In fact, I think we might both be gay.”