Oh, dear.

They drop the card and look deadass at the camera. “Aren’t you tired of voting for the same old boring dudes? Sure, I get it, I like a nice snack too, but wouldn’t you want someone with a little more substance?”

“Yeah, like me,” the next participant interrupts.

My heart drops like a lead balloon into my toes. I know that voice. Before Quinn can finish their speech, the camera pans to Garrett Taylor.

He grins and jabs a thumb over to Quinn. “Yeah, you can vote for them,” Garrett says with a little too much emphasis, “or you vote for me and help me fulfill my dream of taking the most gorgeous girl in school to the Homecoming Dance. I had a good friend tell me the other day that the way to someone’s heart is through getting to know them, so what do you say, Rosie Thorne? Would you want to go to Homecoming together and get to know me?”

Oh God.

He took what I said and he twisted it—again. I slide lower in my seat as half of the class turns to look at me. I angle a hand over my face, trying to pretend that no one can see me in my supreme moment of embarrassment. But people are looking at me, anyway.

I want to disappear.

“Vote for me, and let’s make our dreams come true!”

Never mind that I wouldn’t go with him even if he was the last person on earth, and certainly not now, but try telling that to the entire school.

Soon after the announcements end and the bell rings to dismiss us for the day, a girl from my English class comes up to me as I’m packing up and asks, “Why don’t you just go with him?”

I glance over at her, surprised. She’s never spoken to me once in our entire high school career. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s messed up that you’re playing with him like this,” she replies as she leaves.

* * *

—

  QUINN AND ANNIE ARE WAITING FOR ME beside my locker. Quinn looks more than a little pissed, and I don’t blame them. They’re ranting to Annie as I come up and spin the dial on my lock. “And he just butted in! I had an entire thing I wanted to say!” they raged. “I want to win now more than ever. We’re not letting you go to Homecoming with him, no matter what.”

I put Twilight into my locker, beside Dracula—poor Dracula, discarded after three chapters because I found SparkNotes more helpful—and give them a surprised look. “I’m not actually going to go with that idiot—” From over Quinn’s shoulder, I see a flash of a red Spider-Man cap, and I slam my locker closed. “Hold that thought. I have someone to kill.”

I push away from my locker and head straight for Garrett Taylor.

“I hope she doesn’t actually kill him,” I hear Annie say to Quinn.

“I’d be okay if she did,” they say. “Thinning the competition.”

Garrett’s hanging back with a group of friends by one of their lockers near the science wing, high-fiving and relishing in his pretty sweet PSA. It was not sweet. It was not even charming.

He doesn’t see me before I grab him by the arm. “We need to talk—now,” I hiss, and before his posse can stop me from kidnapping their ringleader, I haul him into the open janitor’s closet and slam the door behind me. I feel for the light switch and flick it on.

Interrogation time.

He winces at the bright light. “Whoa, Rosie—it’s nice to see you, too—”

“Stop trying to ask me out.”

He gives a laugh. “Where did this come from?”

“Just stop it!”

“But I thought you said that the best way to like someone is to get to know them! You have no one else to go with. We’ve known each other for years. C’mon, Rosie, just give me a chance. You never know until you try.”

“What part of no don’t you understand?”

“Then what else do I need to do to prove to you that you deserve me?”

“What?”

“What else do I need to do?” he repeats. “Do I need to grovel at your feet? Write a song? Win a Homecoming vote?” That he laughs at, because he thinks he already has it in the bag. “C’mon, Rosie. Give me something here. Let me try.”

For a long moment, I stare at him, wide-eyed and wondering how in the hell anyone likes this guy. He’s getting something out of all this, if not my unwilling participation…then what?

I’m not sure, but I definitely do not like it.

I steel myself to say, “The answer is going to be no, Garrett. The answer is always going to be no.”

Then I reach up for the light switch and turn it off, leaving him in the janitor’s closet. He emerges a few moments later, but I duck into the girls’ bathroom before he can figure out where I went.

I breathe out a long sigh, locking myself in the farthest stall, and sit up on the toilet. I just have to survive until Homecoming. That’s it. Then after that, this entire nightmare will be over.

I just hope I can last until then.

* * *

—

  THE DAYS GO BY QUICKLY, and the further Vance and I distance ourselves from that rainstorm and the pool shed, the more I can’t forget about it. And neither can he. We tend to orbit around each other like binary stars, trying so hard to avoid each other and yet somehow always finding ourselves in the same vicinity.

He’ll be in the kitchen when I get a glass of water, or he’ll come down the stairs as I walk in the front door, and every time he’ll turn on his heel and leave as quickly and silently as he came in. I never even have the chance to tell him hello.

After a week, it gets irritating trying to avoid each other, and he doesn’t turn on his heel every time I come within eyesight again. But he doesn’t really pay attention to me, either, even though it feels like I’m hyperaware of wherever he is while I’m in the castle-house—like a flesh-and-blood ghost that just won’t go haunt someone else.

Then, on Friday after a particularly bad world history test that I know I failed, I come to the castle-house and retreat into my haven—only to find him sitting crossways in one of the wingback chairs in the library. His long legs are stretched over the armrest, his hair tucked up into a dark blue beanie. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and frayed jeans and looks much more like the kind of guy I’d find at my local Starbucks than any sort of moody starlet—neither greasy nor sparkling.

Just…sort of there.

It surprises me that I find it endearing.

He looks over at where I came to a full stop in the doorway. “I know you’re there.”

I open my mouth, close it, open it again. Think of something clever! “Yeah, I’m here.”

Noice.

Giving up trying to look cool or composed or the least bit non-awkward, I pull my bookbag higher on my shoulder and quickly make for my desk, where I boot up the iPad and click into the Excel sheet. There is a counter on the bottom, telling me how far I’ve come and how many I have to go. Yesterday I just reached the halfway point—half of the shelves are full and orderly—and I thought that if I could survive another few weeks, then I would be done.

Just a few more.

“So, um, what are you doing here?” I ask. I don’t see a book anywhere near him.

He slides his long legs off the armchair and sits properly. “I figure I should help you, since that was the deal in the first place.”

“I’ve been doing fine alone, thanks.”

“I know, but I got some more books off the top shelf for you,” he adds—proudly, I might add—and waves over to the stack of books in the other wingback chair. They are books that I couldn’t reach alone, but also…

“I don’t need those for a while.”

He seems to wilt a little. “Oh.”

I give him a curious look. “Why are you helping me all of a sudden?”

He gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I guess I got tired of acting petulant.”

“Mm-hmm…you know this isn’t going to make me say yes to dating you, right?” I venture, and he gives me a surprised look.

“Of course not. That’s not why I’m here. I mean, I don’t make it a habit of wasting my time—not that you’d ever be a waste of time,” he quickly corrects, and rubs the back of his neck, because yeah buddy, you are digging that hole real deep right now. “I just mean that’s not the reason I’m here. I don’t expect you to change your mind.”

As much as I hate to admit it, I believe him.

“Well,” I say, “at least I’ve found one guy who takes no for an answer.”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing. Just some school drama.”

He tilts his head, and the hair tucked behind his ears comes undone and falls into his face. It’s back to its normal color now, a washy white-blond, but I sort of miss the orange-ish that it was. “You know, I’ve never been to school.”

I look up from the iPad, surprised. “What, seriously?”

“Seriously. I was homeschooled. Did most of my studying on film sets between takes. I think the only time I’ve actually set foot in a school was for that indie film I did a few years ago—An Inevitable Thing?”

“Do you think you missed out?”