“Write an essay on The Cellist of Sarajevo,” Mr. Herbert said at the end of English class on Monday. “I’ve given you five themes to choose from in the handout.” Clearly he’d given up on thinking outside the box. The bell rang. “Your marks from the previous assignment are now posted online.”

We left class. Jacob pulled out his phone to look up our mark. Rachel came out after us. “What did you guys get?” she asked.

Jacob’s expression darkened. “B minus.”

“That’s ridiculous. You deserved an A.” Then she headed up the stairs with her newer, shinier friends. Honestly, these brief encounters we were having just left me anxious and confused.

Jacob and I continued down the hall. “Herbert’s a dick,” he said.

“He is.” I liked that we were united in our indignation.

“Our video is better than a lot of the crap on YouTube.”

“Definitely.” That’s when it hit me. “Jacob, we should enter our video in this contest.”

“What contest?”

“I saw it on YouTube yesterday. Purrfect Pet Food is running a contest for best cat video.”

“No.”

“Even if we didn’t win, the video would get a lot of exposure.”

“I don’t want it posted on YouTube.”

“Herbert would have conniptions if we got a ton of hits—”

Jacob grabbed my arm with his real hand. “I don’t want it posted online, Petula. Okay?”

His grip hurt. “Okay,” I said. “And, ow.”

Jacob let go. “Sorry. It’s just how I want it.”

“But why?”

He struggled to explain. “I don’t want every single thing I make put out there for the world to see. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of. I guess.” But not really.

His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

Then he leaned in and kissed me.

On the lips.

In the middle of the hall.

Whatever was going on between us, he’d just made it public.

It only lasted a few seconds, but it was long enough for Koula to walk past and shout, “Get a room!”