STEP INTO MY TORTURE CHAMBER

Tuesday, 7:28 A.M.

Less than twelve hours after being forced to stomach a deadly combination of seaweed salad and emotional anguish, I found myself in yet another dire position: curled up in Dr. Marvin Haussman, D.D.S.’s exam chair, waiting to have my braces tightened.

Frozen in the pleather lounger, I briefly considered making a run for it. It would only be a few steps to the WARNING SIGNS OF GINGIVITIS poster on the back of the office door, and I was wearing flats, so I’d be on the elevator before anyone knew I was gone. But after the sleepless night I’d just had, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to bolt—or to face Mom’s wrath when she figured out I’d ditched.

“So! Dr. H!” The sugary glaze on my voice was Splenda-fake. “How’s the wife? Kids? I need an update, like, immediately.” I crossed one blush patent oxford over the other and pressed my lips together in a closed-mouth smile. My braces were throbbing already, and he hadn’t even come at me with the dreaded pliers yet.

“Fine, fine, Kacey. And your mother?” Dr. Haussman squatted on the rolling stool next to my chair and put on his paper mask. Then he reviewed the silver tray of instruments next to the exam chair. Needle-sharp anticipatory pains shot through my gums.

“She’s… good.” I turned away from the tray and squinted at the door. “She had to get to the studio early this morning.” Actually, Mom had offered to come to my appointment. I’d told her that she’d have to be a pretty sick lady to watch me writhe in pain for two hours during her dinner date last night, then come back for more in the morning. Then I’d hightailed it out of the house before she could marry Stevie’s dad as my punishment for sassing her.

“Tell her I said hello.” The clink of metal on metal made my stomach heave. I definitely shouldn’t have had that second bowl of cereal.

“Mmmhmmm.” I screwed my eyes shut.

“Aaand if I could get you to turn toward me and open?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Kacey?” I felt his thick hand on my shoulder. “Turn and open?”

“Oh. Right.” I forced my eyes and jaws half-open, trying not to focus on the terrifying instruments he was using to prod my teeth. Was it too late to tell him I’d taken World History, that I knew all about the Geneva Conventions and could totally take him down on charges of inhumane treatment?

“MARGHHH,” I cried as Doctor Death shoved what looked like a wrench into my mouth. Seconds later, electrifying pain shot through my gums. I hooked my claws into the exam chair.

“Just another minute.”

I closed my eyes, blocking out my terrified reflection in his inch-thick lenses. Hadn’t last night been enough torture? I’d been forced to watch Mom and Gabe feed each other with chopsticks when they thought we weren’t looking. To listen to Ella sob about how she was positive she found Nemo in her spicy tuna roll. To ignore Stevie’s suspicious glare throughout dinner.

I knew exactly what she was trying to do with that look. She was trying to make me feel guilty enough to confess. But she was the one who was trying to push me out of the band. She was the one who had to be taught a lesson.

“OW!” I stiffened again as the doc tugged and twisted the ropy metal wire weaving my brackets together. Tears sprang to my eyes.

“I know, I know,” Dr. Haussman murmured sympathetically. “It hurts. But it’ll get better with time. I promise.”

Ugh. How could he possibly know things would get better? For one thing, he’d probably never had his mouth rearranged with a shiny new set of power tools. For another, he couldn’t possibly get how I was feeling. Like I was trapped. Like if I didn’t make exactly the right move at exactly the right time, I could lose my mother, my best guy friend, and my band, all at once.

And there was absolutely no way Dr. Marvin Haussman understood the nagging sensation ebbing and flowing in the pit of my stomach. The sensation that, if I was being honest, felt a little too much like… guilt. Which was ridiculous, because Stevie from Seattle was getting exactly what she deserved. You could call it justice; you could call it karma.

You could not call it my fault. Even though it was.

“Just a few more minutes, and then we’ll be done. You’re doing great.” Dr. Haussman ducked out of the hot exam light, and I let my shoulders sink a few inches. Relief. Blinking into the light, I forced my aching brain to think about anything other than Stevie or Shedd Aquarium. Anything at all. Something pleasant. Something amazing.

Something like my first kiss with Zander.

A smile played over my chapped lips as I replayed the memory for the millionth time. No matter what, I still had that perfect kiss. No one could take that away; no one could ruin the moment when I’d felt Zander lean close, when I’d felt his lips brush against mine.

Unless Stevie told Zander. Unless Molly found out about the kiss before I told her. Then she’d do everything in her power to ruin my relationship with Zander. And according to Girl Code, she’d be 100 percent justified.

The churning feeling in my stomach intensified to a mini tsunami. I’d just shared an incredible kiss with the boy I liked! The boy who was a zillion times cooler, nicer, and more talented than all other boys! My soul mate. I should have been floating on air. Humming cheesy nineties love ballads under my breath. Doodling Zander’s name in bubble letters in my Marine Bio notebook. Making all the single girls in my grade want to kick me, then be me.

Instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about how every second I didn’t tell Molly about my feelings for Zander was another second I was betraying her. I couldn’t stop wondering whether, even though Stevie was a terrible human being, she might not have deserved what we did to her.

And I couldn’t stop picturing my mother and her old-man hippie date, who, FINE! SEEMED LIKE A NICE ENOUGH GUY! BUT THAT DIDN’T MEAN I HAD TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HIM!

My phone buzzed in my messenger bag. I practically flung myself from the exam chair and dug through the bag.

“Kacey? We’re not exactly finished here.”

“Just a sec, Dr. H.”

PAIGE: WHERE R U??? QUINN WILDER IS RUINING MY LIFE. I NEED YOUR HELP. CALL ME.

But it was the next text that made me break into a cold sweat.

STEVIE: MEET ME AT SUGAR DADDY TODAY AFTER SCHOOL. 3:15. WE NEED TO TALK.

I stared at the screen until the pixels blurred in front of my eyes. My phone vibrated again.

STEVIE: P.S.: BAIL, AND I TELL FINNSTER—AND ZANDER—EVERYTHING.