To be fair, I didn’t make it easy for him to apologize. Even though we’ve crossed paths at practice, I’ve spent the last week avoiding him, trying to convince myself he isn’t Wolf. I couldn’t let myself believe a person I’d shared so much of myself with would ditch me in real life. It would only confirm the worst fear—that the person who likes me as Bluebird wouldn’t like me half as much as the person I actually am.

But I haven’t stopped wondering, even if I stopped trying to connect the dots.

“And—and you want to go to Columbia for that?” I ask, because it’s subtler than, Are you the reason I’ve been having stellar mac and cheeses at every place within a five-block radius of my apartment the past few weeks?

Landon relaxes, assuming he’s been forgiven. “No. I’m just interviewing because he’s an alum.” He doesn’t even bother to keep his voice down—I wonder what it’s like, being that sure of yourself. Knowing what you want so definitively you don’t even care about keeping doors open. “Truth is, a few buddies and I are gonna launch a startup as soon as we’re out of here.”

I feel faint. “Sounds … risky.”

“Yeah, well. The internship’s been a real help. I think we’ve got a shot.” Landon rolls his eyes. “Either way, it’s better than all the money-pushing my dad does, that’s for sure.”

Wolf develops apps. Wolf talks about his parents trying to pressure him into the family business. Wolf never chats me during swim practice.

“Anyway—let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you dinner on Senior Skip Day.”

“Oh, uh—you don’t have to…”

Is this a date? Should I tell him I know who he is before I agree?

Do I know who he is?

“A bunch of people on the swim team are hanging,” says Landon. “You in?”

I’m expecting the air that blows out of me to be disappointment, but instead, it feels a little too close to relief.

“Yeah. Yeah, sounds fun. I’m in.”

Landon smiles, and the door opens, and I snap myself back into Studious, Goal-Oriented Pepper so fast, it’s like the encounter never even happened. I walk into the room so composed, the interviewer immediately smiles at me in that satisfactory way adults always smile when I put on my game face. I shake her hand, I make small talk, and I lie to her face—tell her I’m interested in studying world affairs, and basically parrot everything Paige has been telling me about her studies at UPenn. By the end of the interview, I can tell I have won her over the same way I’ve won over every teacher, every administrator, every object of my people-pleasing for the last four years.

I walk out, expecting to be buoyed by the same satisfaction I usually feel, but I’m completely spent. That, and a little terrified—it occurs to me as I walk down the long hallway back to the lobby that I have no idea how to get back home. The same bus that brought me here isn’t going to take me back.

I’m being ridiculous. I can easily walk. The city is a grid up here, numbers and columns and rows. Just because they’re not the rows and columns I’m used to walking on doesn’t make it mystifying.

My chest feels tight as I walk out, looking around like Jack is going to be standing there when I know nobody in their right mind would be. I pull out my phone in an effort to distract myself, remembering as I unlock the screen that Hub Seed’s tweets are probably up. I pull up their page, and sure enough, at the top of their feed is a tweet explaining the terms of the bet, and another tweet below it with a picture of Big League Burger’s grilled cheese styled on a plate, without any other context to explain whose it is.

I scroll down to the second picture, and all my anxiety is swiftly and brutally replaced with rage.

Because the photo that Hub Seed’s Twitter account ended up tweeting was decidedly not the one Jack sent me. The one Jack sent me fit the bill: high resolution, well-lit, a respectable shot of what was, admittedly, a delicious-looking grilled cheese. Crisped to perfection, cheese spilling out of the edges, a sliver of apple jam gleaming from the sides—

Anyway. It was appropriate, for the terms of what we were agreeing to. What is markedly less appropriate is the image the Hub ended up tweeting instead, which features Grandma’s Special all right—Grandma’s Special, with Ethan holding it up on the plate and beaming into the camera with his best “Vote for Me for Student Council and I’ll Get Back Pizza Wednesdays” smile.

Naturally, the Twittersphere is in love.

I don’t even have to click to know the comments on it are already flooded with heart-eye emojis, but I do anyway, and sure enough—that grilled cheese looks delicious but that boy’s the REAL snack, reads one tweet. uh tell me he’s on the menu, reads another. I full-on cringe at the last one: WOW looks delicious … grilled cheese looks pretty good too.;)

It’s dirty on two counts: one is that everyone and their mailman will know that’s Girl Cheesing’s grilled cheese. Ethan’s whole look screams hometown boy. And another is that people are definitely not retweeting that picture for the sandwich’s sake.

They’re going to slaughter us. And my mom, in turn, is going to slaughter me.

I’m fuming by the time I walk out of the front doors, and sure enough, as if the universe materialized him there for me to funnel the rage straight into, there’s Jack. His back is turned to me, and he’s on his phone, hunched over, talking faster than usual. I lift an arm to tap him on the shoulder, imagining the way the air will puncture right out of him when he turns around and sees the look on my face, but I’m thrown off by the tone of his voice.