“Wait. I thought the ramp was the hard part.”

“Getting off the line will make or break you in a race. But even if you don’t stall, you’ve still gotta shift from first gear to sixth as fast as possible.” She taps on the plastic in front of the speedometer and gas gauge. “The tachometer will let you know when it’s time to shift into the next gear.”

Don’t stall on the line. Watch the street and the tachometer. Get to sixth gear fast. That’s not complicated or anything.

“Frankie? You ready?” Cruz watches me expectantly.

Will she kill me if I say no? “Yeah.”

“I’m gonna count to three.”

I position my feet on the pedals and shift into first. A little gas, and the six-cylinder engine roars to life.

“One.”

The tachometer reads five thousand RPMs. Exactly where I want it.

“Two.”

“Three.”

I dump the clutch too fast, and the car jerks to a stop. “Shit.”

Cruz taps on the dashboard. “Back up and try again.”

I stall two more times before I start listening—not to Cruz but to the engine.

On my fourth attempt, I hold the GT-R at five thousand RPMs as Cruz counts down.

The engine revs.…

I hear it and my feet synchronize. I hit the gas, let off the clutch, and with tires squealing, the car flies off the line.

My eyes dart between the street and the tachometer. The arrow shoots up. When it hits a little over nine thousand, I feel the pull that tells me to shift to the next gear. I repeat the process, trying to watch the tachometer and the road at the same time, until I hit fourth gear and realize I don’t need to check the RPMs anymore.

When the engine reaches the magic number, it revs at exactly the same pitch and intensity. All I have to do is listen.

“Check your tach!” Cruz barks from the passenger seat. “If you push her too hard, the engine will blow.”

Tuning out Cruz’s voice, I listen for the ramping sound that means the car has hit nine thousand. Relying on my ears instead of my eyes makes sliding into fifth and sixth gears faster and smoother.

The GT-R crosses the mock finish line, and I circle around to where we started. “How was it? Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“Slow.” Cruz doesn’t sound annoyed. “You have to check the tach. If you lose the race, it’s one thing. Frying my engine is something else. I’d owe Kong more than a cut of my winnings.”

“I don’t need to look at the gauge. Listening to the engine is easier. I figured it out when I hit fourth gear.”

Cruz shakes her head like she’s trying to wrap her mind around what I told her. “Hold on. Are you saying you can already hear when it’s time to shift?”

“Yeah. The engine makes this whirring noise like it’s winding up, and the pitch spikes.”

“Uh-huh.” She stares at me like I just told her I could read minds. “Do it again.”

It takes three more runs before Cruz believes me. Who knew perfect pitch was good for more than singing and playing an instrument?

I fall into bed that night with my shoulders aching, proof that every minute was real. Another feeling eclipses the pain pounding my body.

Pride.

The old Frankie finally brought something valuable to the table.

CHAPTER 19

BFFS

I make it to English just before the bell the next morning. Cruz is already sitting in the back of the classroom, her silver-studded black-leather high-tops propped on the chair in front of her. I take a seat next to her.

“So what’s going on between you and Marco?” she asks the moment I sit down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Marco doesn’t stand in the hall and stare at girls or beg them to talk to him.”

As usual, I search through my backpack for a pen. “There was no begging involved.”

“That’s not what I heard from my sources in Lot B this morning.”

“Please take out your journals.” Mrs. Hellstrom waves a composition notebook in the air. “Hopefully, everyone spent some time writing, because your first assignment is due today. Of course, I would never ask my students to engage in an activity without doing it myself. So I’ll start by reading from my journal.”

We’re screwed. She’s one of those teachers who thinks we’ll be inspired if she participates in this experiment along with us. Mrs. Hellstrom dives into a painful selection about what a loser she was in high school, pausing at the more dramatic moments.

Cruz kicks my chair and holds out her hands in a what the hell? gesture.

I tear off a piece of paper and scribble the words across it. I’m not about to risk someone overhearing me say them out loud.

We kissed.

Folding the scrap in half, I pass it to her.

“No shit?” Cruz blurts out when she reads it.

“Miss Vera Cruz,” Mrs. Hellstrom snaps, her arm extended with the open journal balanced on her palm. “You may not use that kind of language in my class.”

“Sorry,” Cruz says. “Your writing is just so … deep. You know?”

A few people turn around and look at Cruz like she’s crazy. Not Mrs. Hellstrom. She raises her chin proudly. “Thank you, Miss Vera Cruz. Please watch your language in the future.”

When Mrs. Hellstrom finishes, she closes the notebook and waits as if she expects applause. “Who else would like to read? Don’t be shy.” No one volunteers. “A show of hands. How many of you completed the journal assignment?”

Two hands go up.

A guy in the back fake-coughs. “Liars.”

I’m not the only person who doesn’t want to bare my soul.

Instead of admitting defeat, Mrs. Hellstrom gives us the rest of the class period to catch up. The minute she turns away, Cruz kicks my chair again.

“Let’s get back to Marco kissing you.”

I’m not sure if telling her was a good idea, but it’s too late.

I lean closer. “Actually, I kissed him. He basically dared me to do it.”

Cruz raises her eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious.”

“So you just kissed him?” The hint of a smile plays on her lips. “At least that explains why he was following you in the hallway like a puppy.”