I find Dylan’s address in the Windsor Achiever app. I’m surprised they haven’t already deleted him from the record. I bang on the door until someone answers. I assume it’s his mother. She looks just like him. Same wide-set brown eyes. Same dark hair. Same slender face.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to talk to Dylan,” I say, not even bothering with pleasantries. I’m pissed. He had no right. No right to do this. This was my consequence. My punishment. My choice.
“He’s upstairs in his room,” his mother says, “but—”
I don’t bother letting her finish. I mutter a thank-you and charge up the stairs. It’s not hard to tell which room is Dylan’s. I just follow the sound of the grungy rock music blasting. When I enter, he’s standing by his dresser, holding a pile of jeans. I notice a suitcase open on his bed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shout over the music.
He grabs a remote and lowers the volume. “I’m packing,” he replies nonchalantly, placing the pile in the suitcase.
This catches me off guard. “For where?”
“Minnesota!” He grins, and gives me two sarcastic thumbs up.
“Why?”
“My father is sending me there to live with his brother and his wife. As punishment for my crime.”
I feel my face flare with angry heat. “But it’s not your crime!” I yell. “It’s mine. You can’t do this. I can’t watch any more lives being destroyed because of my choices.”
“Hey,” he argues, opening another drawer. “Don’t take all the credit. I had a say in this. It was my choice, too. I’m the one who confessed, remember?”
“To something you didn’t even do! And you never would have even confessed if it weren’t for me!”
He purses his lips. “That might be true. But I would have found another way out eventually. I told you, I’ve been trying to leave that school for months. Sequoia just stumbled upon the answer before I did. I’ll have to send her a thank-you card when I get to Minnesota.” He reaches into the drawer and pulls out a stack of T-shirts.
“I’ll find a way,” I vow. “I’ll make them believe me somehow.”
Dylan drops the shirts into the bag. “They’ll never believe you.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “And why not?”
“They have their culprit.” He flashes me a winning smile. “I make sense to them. I’m the slacker who’s been trying to get himself expelled for years. You don’t make sense to them. You’re the straight-A student with too much to lose. You’re the very best puppet in their puppet show!”
“I’m not a puppet,” I seethe through clenched teeth.
“No,” he says quietly, rearranging the clothes in his suitcase, “you’re not.”
“I dropped out, you know.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Dean Lewis wouldn’t believe I had anything to do with it. So I expelled myself.”
He cracks up. “Well, I guess there are two more spaces open now. It’s a double miracle.”
I have to laugh at that, despite my still-simmering anger. I remember when one spot opening up felt like a miracle.
“So, where will you go?” he asks.
I sit down on his bed. “Southwest High.”
He closes his suitcase and zips it up. “You’re better off there.”
“And you?” I throw the question back at him. “Are you better off in Minnesota?”
He sighs. “Only time will tell, I guess.”
“It’s far,” I say flatly.
He looks at me for a moment, then sits down and places his hand atop mine, sending those delicious shivers up my arm again.
“I’m still mad at you,” I tell him.
“I know.”
We stay like that for a long time. Hands touching. Hearts beating. Eyes asking questions we’ll never be able to answer.
“Before I leave,” he says, his voice breaking ever so slightly. “There’s something I have to know.”
I nod.
“Why did you stop answering my texts after that first date?” he asks.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
I exhale. “It was Sequoia. We became friends and she convinced me to give up boys altogether. Something about how if I want to succeed in this place, I need to be one-hundred-percent laser-focused on school.”
He chuckles. “Well, it worked.”
I smile, thinking about everything Other Me gave up to reach that coveted number-one spot. “Yeah. I guess it did.”
He sighs. “I have to say, I’m relieved. I always secretly thought it was me. That something was wrong with me. That you just weren’t interested.”
I shake my head. “No. That definitely wasn’t it. She was interested.”
He cocks his head in confusion.
“I mean, me,” I correct. “I was definitely interested.”
Then he kisses me.
And it’s like we both know. We both understand. We weren’t meant to be. Not in this universe anyway. Maybe in another one. A distant one where I made different decisions.
Frankie says there’s a universe for every decision. For every possible road. Every possible outcome.
Maybe there’s one where Dylan and I end up together.
But this isn’t it.