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be the old me. It was the one place where everybody still showed up to hang out.
    I’d angled my table next to the water fountain in front of a Public poster that read PUBLIC WANTS you TO GO TO COLLEGE . The poster showed a blond girl with ripped jeans and bare feet sitting in front of a run-down house. A thought bubble over her head read: No student debt? And then Danny Beaton (who, apparently, could read thought bubbles) was superimposed onto the picture, saying, “That’s right! Just build the most innovative mobile application the world has ever seen!”
    When I finished teaching Rachel Levey about limits, she started telling me about her mom cheating on her dad. I’m not good at that many things, but I’m really good at secret-keeping. You learn a lot about other kids from tutoring, especially if they come once a week, like therapy. I kept secrets like how Charlotte Davis had panic attacks; how Xander’s teammate Barron Feldman had medical-grade IBS—which was becoming less of a secret due to his frequent bathroom emergencies; how Zack Marks hunted deer like a psycho killer but also took ballet lessons two towns over; and how Jolene Martin’s mind mixed up the order of the letters in a word. (Not that she came for tutoring anymore since my falling-out with Blake.)
    I told Rachel I was sorry to hear that. She shrugged. Then she switched gears and asked, “With whom are you going to Homecoming?” Rachel’s grammar was better than her math. I was about to say I wasn’t planning on going, when I saw him.
    Xander.
    His khaki-colored corduroys hung loose at his hips. He took his earbuds out, then stuffed his buyPlayer in his pocket.
    What was he doing? Was he looking at me?
    A janitor named Rosie pushed a yellow bucket along the cafeteria’s floor. Gray water sloshed over the sides and onto the linoleum. Rachel Levey was asking me something, but I couldn’t focus. “Audrey,” she finally said, loud enough to pull me from cognitive paralysis. “Are you all right?”
    I cleared my throat. “Low blood sugar. See you next week.”
    Rachel did a double take when she passed Xander, but he didn’t seem to register her. Because it was official.
    Xander Knight was staring at me.
    I was too nervous to stare back, so I focused on his tan, muscular forearms. When he stepped closer I saw the hair on those was blond and spiky, too. His hazel eyes were the color of almonds covered in gold dust. They sparkled even more than in his Public Party pics, even more than I remembered in Joanna’s basement.
    I slipped my rabbit’s foot into my bag from its spot by my canteen. I didn’t need to remind Xander of the Dumpster Incident.
    Our Hot Gym Coach Mr. Marley strode through my line of sight whistling the Harrison Victory March. The high-pitched melody zinged across the cafeteria as Xander Knight did the unthinkable. He spoke. To me.
    “I need help with something,” he said.
    It was the first thing he’d said to me since that night at Joanna’s when we stood together on the porch, minutes before the game of spin the bottle. I like your sweater, he’d said back then. And it made me happier than I’d ever been, even if the sweater was Blake’s. And then he’d taken a step closer. He’d put his hand on the porch railing, close to mine. Closer. Closer. Until our fingertips were touching.
    But then Jolene Martin had burst onto the porch and called us inside for the game. Xander pointed to a dark cloud swollen with rain. A storm is coming, he’d said. And then the storm came. And those were the last words he said to me.
    Until now.
    “Can I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the empty chair beside me. He didn’t wait for an answer. He sat and arranged his notebooks in a mini tower. The vending machines where Nigit got his lattes buzzed like a hive of bees. A pungent whiff of Xander’s cologne made me feel woozy, but it’d been so long since I’d been close enough to sniff him that I kept doing it. He was a spicy mix of