“Those are going well?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she says, brightening a bit. “It’s sort of getting people to—I don’t know. Band together. Us against them, instead of us against each other, you know?”

I do and I don’t. “But—aren’t we?” I feel stupid for asking, but it doesn’t change the fact of college admissions. “Against each other?”

Pooja’s lips crease. “See, I hate that. And I think it’s making us all a little dumber, in the end. What’s the point of learning if you’re just doing it to beat someone, you know?”

I blink at her. Because that’s the thing—that’s kind of always been the point. At least, it has been since I moved here.

“I actually remember stuff we learn when we all meet up to study. So I think it’s good. For grades, and for the long run.” She opens her mouth and hovers for a moment, hesitating. “You know—Ethan was supposed to lead the calc study group on Tuesday, but he can’t make it. And I know that’s one of your best subjects, if you wanted to maybe … I mean, if you have time.”

I open my mouth to dismiss the idea, but then I surprise us both. “Yeah. I’ll check it out.”

Pooja’s smile is bright enough to compete with all of the fluorescent lights in the girls’ locker room combined, and for an absurd moment, I almost want to tell her everything. The stupid Twitter war. The chats on Weazel. The way I haven’t slept through a full night in so long that every now and then, I feel like I’m about to crack. It’s stuff I can’t talk about with Paige because it would just make her angry with Mom—and stuff I can’t talk about with anyone else, because it feels like giving too much of myself away.

But Pooja just gave me a piece of her, whether she meant to or not. Maybe it really is that easy. Maybe I really can just talk to her, and not just to some faceless boy in an app.

“Pooja, your brother’s waiting for you!”

I let the breath I was holding go, and Pooja waves and heads out of the locker room, taking my urge to spill everything with her.

Pepper

The dinner is nothing short of a disaster.

First off, Landon is a no-show. A bit after six o’clock, my mom ushers his father into the dining room, where I’m already waiting in my blue sweater set and a pair of khakis like a Stepford child. She raises an eyebrow at me. The displeased eyebrow. More specifically, the I thought you told me your friend would be here eyebrow.

I don’t know what’s worse—my mom’s disappointment or the crush of embarrassment that immediately follows it. It’s so quick and so searing, it feels like he stood me up on an actual date.

“Where’s Landon tonight?” my mom asks, taking Mr. Rhodes’s coat.

“Oh, you know. Homework. Swim team stuff,” his father says.

I bite my tongue before I give in to the reflex to say I’m on the swim team too. My mom offers me the subtlest of nods as a thank-you. The last thing she wants to do is make him uncomfortable.

And maybe that would have been the end of the awkwardness, if my mom could just relax. She’s saying all the right things—hyping up the universality of Big League Burger, citing comparable successes from companies that expanded overseas, talking about emerging markets in countries that haven’t had a lot of chain expansions in them yet—but she cannot for the life of her stop checking her phone.

“Is something wrong?” Mr. Rhodes asks.

“Hmm? Sorry,” says my mom, putting the phone down with a smile that’s all teeth. “We’re having a slight issue with the company’s Twitter page.”

“Oh?”

“We had a security breach. Our team is still trying to figure out how.” My mom stabs at a piece of her parmesan roasted broccoli with more gusto than necessary.

I’ve been doing my best all night not to make eye contact with anyone and say the bare minimum required of me, so I can enjoy this fancy meal and start outlining my French essay in my head in peace. But even I’m not immune to the sudden shift in the room, to the way Mr. Rhodes’s lips press into each other and his eyes briefly go to his plate.

“That’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about—the Twitter account.” He straightens up a bit, firm but apologetic at the same time. “You talk a lot about this being a family company, and I just don’t see those values reflected in the company’s social media presence.”

The air in the room seems to come to a complete standstill. For some reason, my mom’s eyes sweep over to me—like she needs me to toss her some kind of lifeline.

I look down at the table and refuse to look back up.

“Well—of course, of course, I understand your concerns.” I can hear the slight edge in her voice. That nervous lilt I used to hear growing up when she had to talk to the landlord about rent being late that month, or prep herself in the mirror to talk to someone at the bank about business loans for Big League Burger with my dad. “But you know how it is with social media these days. The more of an impression you can make, the better for business.”

“You aren’t afraid the impression you’re giving might alienate some of your customer base?”

As pissed as I am at Landon right now, I could hug the life out of his father for this.