“I saw your pictures on Facebook,” I say. Then I remember…

“Did you go out with Grayson?” I ask.

“Gray?” Sean says, surprised. “No, no. We’re just friends. We’ve lived across the street from each other since middle school.”

I nod, then look down at the field; a few cheerleaders are already returning to our spot. I feel my twenty-minute date slipping away, and with it, all hope of having anything with Sean.

“It’s almost over,” I say sadly.

Sean looks at me, concerned. He can hear it in my voice. Maybe he does know me after all.

“What do you—”

“Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me.”

He looks surprised, but I stand strong instead of shrinking. I might be imagining it, but I think I feel Ella and Betsey supporting me. Pushing me forward. For the first time, I feel entitled—I’ve gone along with Mom’s plan for seven years without stepping out of line. Now, if she tells me I can’t date Sean—if this is really my one chance—I’m damn well taking it.

Sean doesn’t say anything else. He takes a step toward me and puts one palm on my jawbone. He rubs my cheek with his thumb, then bends slightly and presses his warm lips to mine. We stay like that a moment, barely touching, barely breathing. Then he tilts his head and wraps his other hand around my back and our mouths open in unison and we kiss like a perfect first kiss should be. When he pulls away just a few inches and looks into my eyes, I grab a fistful of his sweatshirt so he won’t go yet. I realize that his left hand is still clutching my low back. He doesn’t want me to move, either.

Standing there under the brilliant sky, just out of reach of the field’s floodlights, I am afraid that I’ll never have anything like this again. I feel tears fill my eyes. Sean doesn’t ask what’s wrong; he doesn’t even look surprised. He just wipes away what falls and kisses my tear tracks.

“We should go back,” I whisper.

He nods. “Can I call you tonight after the game?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. Mom shouldn’t be home, but sometimes she does the unexpected.

I can feel the questions radiating from him, but he doesn’t ask anything. He just takes my hand and leads me back toward the entrance. But before we step out of the darkness, he turns quickly and kisses me again. Our lips are closed, but he presses into me so hard I have to put a hand on the wall to steady myself. He steps back and holds my gaze.

“I feel like…” I begin, trailing off because I’m not sure what I want to say. Instead, I plant my hand on his chest, right over his heart. He lets it stay there a moment, then pries it away and kisses my palm.

“Me, too,” he says, turning to go.

“Sean?”

“Yeah?” He looks at me expectantly, and it makes me feel equal parts elated and crushed. Right now, I’m not sure whether having just a taste of him was worth it. And yet, even if it’s a bad idea, I give him just a little bit more.

“You can call me Lizzie.”

nine

It’s eleven.

It’s midnight.

It’s two in the morning.

My chest is caving in on itself, folding in half and half again. Part of me—the part that keeps replaying the feel of Sean’s lips on mine—is boiling over with happiness. That part is busying my wakeful brain with a movie montage of romantic times to come. That part is picking out prom dresses a season too early and whispering our names together to see whether it sounds better with his first or mine and wishing that he would’ve called even though I was so weird when he asked if he could.

But the other part of my brain is butting in, callously reminding me of how much Sean and I aren’t really together. How, unless things change, we won’t ever be. Elizabeth Best is dating David Chancellor, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no Sean and Lizzie, or Lizzie and Sean: There’s only David and Elizabeth. That’s the part that keeps me up until three, tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position in bed.

But my heart hurts no matter which side I’m on.

When the sound of the vacuum wakes me up at seven, I roar out of bed from the wrong side. “Seriously?” I shout at Ella over the noise. “It’s way too early for this!”

“Mom’s in one of her cleaning frenzies,” she shouts back. “We’ve all got lists of chores. I wanted to get mine done early.”

“Agh!” I shout at her, even though it’s not her fault. Every once in a while, when Mom’s stressed about something, she turns into a Clean Bot. She assigns us things to do around the house, which really sucks, but I guess tidying up is how she deals. I’d wonder what set her off this time if I weren’t so preoccupied by my own misery and tired from only a few hours of sleep. I stomp downstairs, thinking of nothing but Sean and how unfair everything is. I can’t even be happy about my first kiss—about the fact that it was awesome—because my mom won’t let me pursue it.

“I can see that you’re in a good mood today,” Mom says sarcastically the moment I walk into the kitchen. I almost gag from the smell of bleach.

“I’m fine,” I mutter.

“Is this still about the boy?” Mom asks, wiping her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. The fact that she seems to think I should already be over it tells me that she doesn’t believe my feelings are true.

“Whatever,” I say, leaving the room, because I’d rather starve than be around her right now. This must really annoy her, because she follows me, sponge in hand.

“Lizzie,” she says, “wait.” I keep walking. “Elizabeth!” she says forcefully. “Stop.” I don’t. “Stop walking right this second!” Rattled by the rage in her voice, I freeze, then turn around. My mom takes a deep breath.

“We need to talk about this.”

“Will it change anything?” I ask. “Will talking make it so I can hang out with the guy I like instead of the one Ella does?” The vacuum’s off now; I hear the floor creak upstairs. I know they’re listening.

Mom looks down and away, then back at me. “Lizzie,” she says, “you wanted to date. You knew it’d be possible that you’d have to go along with dating David. You accepted those terms.”

I roll my eyes at her formal language. “Yeah, great, I accepted those terms,” I say. “Fine, Mom. Whatever. Just let me go upstairs and Cinderella the day away. Just leave me alone.”

My mom looks stunned at first, then there’s a fire in her eyes like I’ve never seen, not even when Betsey got a three-hundred-dollar speeding ticket. I wonder: Is this the first time we’ve ever had a real fight?

“Elizabeth Best, cut the attitude right now. In life, we make choices, and then we live with them. You said you’re growing up, now start acting like it. Live with the choice you made.”

Something snaps inside me, and suddenly, my mom’s feelings and future are not my priority. Maybe for the first time, I only care about me.

“The choice I made?” I shout, fuming. “Was it my choice to be stolen from some lab? Was it my choice to run? Was it my choice to live as a third of a person? No! All of those were your choices, not mine!”