All I can do is smile and nod. I don’t want to talk about him. Not with Cass. But I also want to know how he is, what he’s said about me, and what he thinks about everything I said and did. We take the elevator down to the main floor and walk to the cafeteria. The entire school is like a ghost town, and there are maybe four or five other students in here.

“Is everyone gone?” I ask, looking at all of the empty tables and chairs—so different from the last time I ate here.

“Yeah, pretty much. Most people were done two days ago, and they didn’t waste any time. Paige left already. Bitch.”

I laugh when she says that, and she smiles at me as we grab our trays and slide them along the counter. I pick out a sandwich and an apple and then fill a glass with milk. Nothing sounds appetizing, but I know I need to eat. My stomach is empty, and if I want to do remotely well on my exams, I need food.

Cass’s tray is loaded with junk food, and it makes me laugh at the contrast between our two dinners. “Hunkering down for winter?” I ask, raising my eyebrows as we walk to the table in the corner. Cass doesn’t even ask; she knows where I like to sit.

“Hey, I have been good all year. But my language final is stressful. I’m stress eating,” she says, dropping her tray and pushing the straw into her chocolate milk before tearing open the package of small donuts with her teeth.

“You took sign language,” I say, just blinking at her, and she stares back for a few seconds before finally huffing.

“Yeah, and guess what? Turns out, it’s hard. Like really hard. Like my fingers this way means something totally different from my fingers this way,” she says, contorting her hands into signs I don’t know, before pushing an entire mini-donut in her mouth, a few crumbs falling down her chin.

“What does this mean?” I say, holding up my middle finger and doing my best to hold my grin in. It slips out in seconds though.

“Yeah, f**k you too,” she says, throwing a donut on my plate. I pick it up and eat it; she laughs lightly.

We both finish our dinners quickly, eating silently, and then we make it back up to our room. I take a fast shower and change into my pajamas. I pause when I walk out of the shower room, lingering in the hallway and remembering the first time we met. I feel a small pang that I’m not wearing Nate’s shirt, and not sleeping with him in his room. Cass is already watching MTV when I come back, so I snuggle under my blankets and do my best to get lost in the show we’re watching. Some girl is yelling at a guy about dating someone else for most of the show, and it all seems ridiculous after too long, so I pull out my phone and send my parents a text goodnight. I also sweep down to the list of messages from Nate, and I go through every one of them.

“Have you talked to him yet?” Cass’s voice surprises me, and I flip my phone off quickly and hide it from her view.

“No,” I say, letting my eyes fall to the floor while I lay my head flatly along my hands. “I don’t know what to say. Everything is all…I don’t know…messy?” I look back up and stare at her, and we both just sit in our locked gaze, cheeks against our hands and eyes tired.

“Yeah. But—” she starts, but then pauses, pushing her lips tightly.

“But what?”

Cass rolls to her back and holds her arms and legs up in the air, then bends her knees and draws them into her body, hugging them tightly before rolling back to face me. “It’s not like he was trying to hurt you. I mean, I know, you probably feel a little betrayed.”

“Very betrayed,” I butt in.

“Right. I know,” she continues. “But he was sort of put in a really crappy position. And he’s been a wreck.”

I know I shouldn’t be happy about that. But I am. Not that he’s suffering, but happy that he’s feeling. I dreamt about him last night. I dreamt that he showed up in the middle of my final exam and pulled me from some strange office and lifted me into his arms. And when I woke up, I was sad that it wasn’t real. I want to forgive him. But I also want to yell at him. And I still see Josh’s face in the middle of it all, and it makes everything confusing.

“Hey, guess what?” Cass asks, her cheerful voice a change.

“I don’t know…what?” I respond, leaning more over the edge of the bed and letting my arm swing back and forth so my fingers graze the carpet.

“I’m going to tell Ty I love him,” she says. I freeze, then let the smile stretch my entire face. Hearing Cass say that, especially after going home with Ty and seeing new sides of him, makes me feel hopeful for a lot of reasons.