“I was. I am. Still. Kind of. But then not really.”

“Uhhh . . .”

I almost shout, “WHAT’S THERE TO THINK ABOUT?”

Then he says, “I think, um . . . I don’t think that’d be a good idea right now.”

I nod, but inside I’m shriveling up. No one has ever just rejected me like that. Why did he even bother asking me out awhile back if he was going to change his mind? “Okay. Well, uh, good luck hiding out?”

“You too,” he says.

The pep rally isn’t over yet, but I’m sure as hell not hanging out under these bleachers with him now.

I turn on my heel and take the exit right outside the bleachers into the hallway.

Maybe Bryce told him some horrible lie about me. Or even worse, maybe he told Mitch a horrible truth about me. It could be that Mitch just changed his mind all on his own, I guess. He asked me out at the gym in the moment, so maybe he’s had time to come to his senses since then.

I think I might want something I can’t have, and that’s not a feeling I’m used to.

After school, while I’m waiting outside for my mom to wrap up a few things, I plop down in the grass with my legs crossed and scroll through my phone to delete old pictures of Bryce and me. Time for some long-overdue housekeeping. Seeing him at school is awful enough.

“Didn’t see you at the pep rally today.”

I look up, shielding my eyes, until Melissa comes into focus. She still wears her Shamrock uniform, but her hat is stuffed into her tote bag and she’s ditched the boots for flip-flops.

“Oh, I think you saw me.” I lift my hand up to give her the middle finger. “This jogging your memory?”

“Ah,” she says. “That’s more like it. I didn’t recognize you without your shitty attitude.”

I grin. “Never leave home without it.”

“You know, I actually feel bad for you.” She shakes her head, an incredulous look on her face.

“Wow, that’s so generous of you, but I’m good without your misguided pity.”

She continues, “Whatever moral fiber you have is so flimsy that you would just dump the deepest, darkest secrets of people you once called friends.”

“Friends?” I ask. “You mean acquaintances who let me take the fall for something we all did?”

“Maybe keep it down?” she asks, looking around.

“Nope.” I shake my head. “And besides, no one got in trouble for any of that stuff.”

“You don’t even get it. Maybe no one got in trouble, but you really humiliated some of those girls. Sam and Jess are both mortified. Natalie, Lara, and Addison are all in serious trouble at home. You really screwed everyone over. I mean, Bethany came to school the next day to a locker full of Q-tips.”

“How horrific,” I say, voice flat.

She shakes her head, her voice dropping low. “Just so you know, my sister got wind of that list, too. She’s not even talking to me right now. I’m not allowed to go to my niece’s birthday party.”

Up until now I was fine, but I have to admit that this one gets me in the gut. But I’m determined not to let it show. I almost blurt an apology, but instead I sit there, unmoving. I’ve never been that great of a sister, but the idea of Kyla or Claudia finding out I’d done something like that to them makes me feel a little bit nauseous.

“Whatever, Callie. You’re off the team, you lost captain, and you’re a shitty human being. I guess that’s enough to live with.” She walks off to where Sam and the rest of the team are waiting for her at the track.

The moment she walks off, I push my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose to let them conceal the tears burning at the corners of my eyes. Anger, guilt, shame. They all bubble to the surface at once.

Millie

Twenty-Five

After work one night, I drag Callie to the Crafty Corner to pick up upholstery fabric my mom special-ordered to redo our curtains this summer.

She shuffles in behind me with her nose glued to her phone. “What are you looking at?” I ask as I pull her just out of the way seconds before meeting a pincushion display head-on.

She shakes her head and huffs. “Just waiting for the stupid results from the state dance competition.”

“Oh.” There’s that guilt again, sticking to the inside of my lungs like August humidity. “How are they doing?”

“I don’t know yet. This website is so damn slow.” Her voice changes as she takes in our surroundings.

One entire wall at the Crafty Corner is dedicated to yarn, while the main floor is rows and rows of every type of fabric you can imagine, and on the other side of the store is everything from raw wood dollhouse supplies to glitter paint to scrapbooking scissors.

“This place is a little intense,” she says.

I can’t hide my giddiness. “You know how in Beauty and the Beast when Belle sees the library for the first time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s how I feel walking into this place. Like the possibilities are endless.”

“Really?” she asks. “Because this place just makes me feel like the possibilities are really, really overwhelming.”

I click my tongue. “I’ll turn you into a crafter if it’s the last thing I do.”

She rolls her eyes. “Hey, speaking of you aggressively trying to manage my life for me, have you, uh, seen Mitch around? Like at the gym?”

I raise my eyebrows but keep my mouth shut, because oh my goodness, I think she actually, truly does have a crush on Mitch Lewis, and if that’s the case, my instincts could not have been more right.

Callie waves her finger in my face. “If you make a thing of this, I swear I’ll never talk to you about boys again. Or do whatever weird craft things you think you can get me to do!”

“Howdy!” calls Flora from the back of the store, where she cuts scraps of fabric for the clearance bin. Flora is sort of me and my mom’s crafting spiritual leader. She wears her same navy-blue smock every day with her name embroidered over the chest, and she is always armed with her red scissors and the mini ballpoint pen dangling from the long, thin gold chain around her neck. She taught me how to thread my first bobbin and is actually sort of a big deal on the West Texas craft-show circuit.

“Hiya, Flora!” I call back. “Just here for my mom’s special order.”

She snaps her fingers. “I’ll be right back!”

I turn back to Callie. “So Mitch. Okay. Mitch has been coming in early mornings before school starts.” I pause for a minute to wait for her response. “I could, of course, drop a hint that maybe he should come in one afternoon.”

“No,” she says defiantly. “Definitely not. No meddling. Promise me.”

I gasp. “What if me, you, Mitch, and Malik all went on a double date?”

Her eyes narrow. “No meddling.”

Since that’s a promise I can’t keep, I change the subject. “Any word on the dance competition?”

She pulls her phone out and waits a moment for it to update. Her whole demeanor changes in an instant as she slumps against the bolts of fabric. “They won,” she says flatly. “They’re going to Nationals.” She shakes her head. “Those lucky-ass bitches. How is it possible for me to be so happy and so disappointed at the same time?”

“Who’s going to Nationals?” Flora asks, her voice bubbling with anticipation, but by the looks of Callie you’d think she just asked who died.

“The Shamrocks,” I tell her. “The school dance team.”

Flora claps her hands together. “Oh, how wonderful! I’ll have to make some signs for the shop window!”

Callie sighs and slides her phone into her pocket. “Are we done here?”

“Just as soon as I pay.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.” Her voice cracks on that last word.

I feel so bad for her that she couldn’t be there with them.

After I pay, I spend the rest of the drive with a very silent, brooding Callie, as I try to dream up ways to cheer her up. Just as she’s getting out of the car, it hits me—the perfect remedy. “Your birthday!” I exclaim so loudly that I scare her, and she nearly trips getting out of the car.