I TIE MY TIE—THE PERFECT SHADE OF BLUE, reminding me too much of Darien’s Carmindor uniform—at my throat in the car mirror. My hands are shaking. The night is cool but I am sweating so badly I keep tugging at my collar to make sure it’s not sticking. “I don’t even know if she’s going to be there. What if she doesn’t come?”

“She’ll be there,” Imogen replies, and resituates herself in the car. “It’s us who might not get there,” she adds under her breath, and slams on the horn again. We’re stuck in traffic a mile from the gymnasium, at least per Google, and it doesn’t seem to be moving at all. We’re sitting, at a standstill, in the middle of town, to the point where people are beginning to park and walk to Homecoming from here. In the back seat, her boyfriend, Ethan, is lying down over the seats, tapping his phone mercilessly because the gas station beside us is a Pokémon gym and he is relentless, if not predictable.

I give her a sidelong look. “But how do you know?”

“That we won’t get there? Well, the traffic—”

“No, Rosie.”

“I have it on good faith.”

“Good faith?” I frown. “Is this the same good faith that told you where I lived?”

“No, that was TMZ,” she replies, and mutters something heated under her breath. She lays on the horn again. “C’mon! What’s the holdup?”

I would rather wait in this traffic for eternity, but I know that’s only an option for cowards and Vance-of-a-month-ago, which in a Venn diagram is a circle. I smooth out the front of my tuxedo, trying to keep my patience.

Rosie won’t stay at the dance the whole night. She hates dances.

This feels like another choice in my dating sim app—

You are stuck on the main road in and out of town, and time is of the essence. The girl who has made you feel more human than anyone else you’ve ever met is waiting there, but she may be gone by the time you arrive. What do you do?

→ See what the traffic jam is.

→ Wait. Because if you miss her at Homecoming, then it was fate that you didn’t deserve her to begin with.

→ Get out of the car and run to her, you bloody prat!

“Maybe if I—Vance, where are you going?” Imogen asks as I open the door and get out. The autos aren’t moving, and I doubt they will for a while. I don’t have time to sit here in this traffic, on the only road in and out of town.

I loosen my tie. “I’ll get there from here,” I say, and lean back into the car to add, “Thanks—for everything.”

Ethan sits up in the back seat. “Did Vance just thank us?”

“Write that down, Ethan, it’s a miracle—”

I close the door before I can hear the rest of Imogen’s smart comment and begin to jog down the middle lane between the autos. But what if Rosie’s already there? What if she’s leaving? She asked me to Homecoming, and I never gave her an answer. I should have—

I shouldn’t have doubted her.

My feet begin to move faster.

I shouldn’t have thought the worst.

I trip, but I right myself. I start taking longer strides.

She deserves better than that.

She deserves better.

I don’t realize that I’m running until my lungs begin to burn and sweat prickles my forehead, but I don’t stop. I’ve run for the last month around this minuscule town. I always ran while she was there, I ran to get away, I ran so I wouldn’t have to deal with her.

I know the irony now that I’m running toward her.

I don’t want to miss her—I can’t. There are so many things I have done wrong in my life so far, and so many things I never bothered to apologize for, or fix. But I want to start.

At the next cross street, I find her school. When I think of American high schools, I imagine something along the lines of Riverdale or Gossip Girl or—I hate to admit it—Seaside Cove.

Rosie’s high school is nothing of the sort. It is a sprawling brick building with trailers out back for more classrooms, I suspect, and a breezeway that links to the local technology center. The gymnasium is near the back of the campus, towering like some blocky colossal god, the mural of a pouncing wildcat painted on its front, but tonight there is a banner blocking most of the mural, fluttering above the entrance to the gym, that reads GARDEN OF MEMORIES, which, I suppose, is this year’s theme.

How bloody kitschy.

The parking lot is packed with autos. Students make their way to the front of the gymnasium in everything from chinos to boat shorts to tuxes, and I feel as though I have been slightly punked, since I am wearing none of those. All of these people should make my skin itch, but I barely notice them.

I barely care that they stare at me as I race up the steps to the front of the gymnasium, my hair sticking to my sweaty neck. After I catch my breath, I right myself and adjust my jacket. It’s the first time I’ve worn anything other than shorts and a hoodie in a month and a half, and I feel weirdly exposed in a formfitting tux.

This feels like a scene from one of Rosie’s books, except—despite Imogen’s insistence—I’m not sure if Amara is waiting inside.