.

I have a problem.

Not astral projection. Not even the fact that I’ve implicitly agreed to a monogamous relationship with CJ Borsen, when the only person I can think about is Marshall Holt.

Never mind that Autumn Pickerel is turning out to be an engine of destruction, like I wound her up and set her loose, and now I kind of want to stand by while she wrecks the known world. Never mind that I have a regional meet and a trig test and last night was the first full night’s sleep I’ve gotten in months.

I have a giant, colossal hickey on the side of my neck.

It’s plum-red and shaped vaguely like Spain. It is large enough to have its own congressman. When the carotid artery throbs in my neck, it seems to be breathing.

I stare into the mirror above my dresser. There’s no full-coverage makeup heavy enough for this. It’s a battlefield of broken capillaries. It is a disaster.

I’ve always been more conceptual than not. It’s completely normal for my nights to seem realer than my days.

I close my eyes, trying to find the thread. One night, just over a week ago, I lit a candle, lay back. Woke covered in dead leaves. Since that night, there have been moments—usually when I’m heavily caffeinated, or starting to feel trapped in my own body—when I pull away from the whole situation. Ask myself, How is this possible? How is this sane?

The hickey’s real, though, tender to the touch. Not some bizarrely vivid dream. Not a plastic lighter handed to me by a stranger. No, I unabashedly made out with Marshall Holt like my life depended on it. And it was exceptional.

I stand at my dresser, staring down my reflection like with the very force of my gaze, I could make her neat and orderly again. Or at least make the hickey go away.

No luck. The skin stays vividly contused.

At the bottom of my jewelry box, there’s a glittery choker my grandma bought me for eighth-grade graduation. It didn’t suit my sharp corners or my general aesthetic, but now, the rhinestones twinkle up from the box as if to say, Take us out and put us on. This is what we’re here for.

The choker is relentlessly ornate, covered in neo-Victorian filigree. When I fasten it around my throat, the girl looking back at me is suddenly earnest. She’s fragile and innocent—subtle, like Autumn said. I look less like I’m hiding something than I ever have in my life.

—

The parade of passing periods is interminable.

I spend every ten-minute block dawdling at my locker, waiting for some kind of sign, but Marshall keeps his back to me.

If I could see his face, I’m almost sure I’d be able to tell what he’s thinking. I’d have a sense of whether he was avoiding my eyes because he knows exactly what happened between us, or if the reason he’s looking away is that he’s a total stranger and there is no us.

But even at my most pragmatic, I know that’s not the truth. Under the choker, the mark on my neck is dark like a brand.

And so I stare across the locker bay, waiting for the bell. And the whole time, Marshall keeps his face turned away, deep in conversation with Ollie Poe, ignoring me on a level that is close to extravagant.

Maribeth has, by all outward appearances, forgiven me for last night. She’s graciously put aside the Autumn debacle, or at least decided to bottle up her displeasure and let it age for a later date. At my locker before trig, she gives me a quick once-over but doesn’t mention the choker.

Instead, she hands me half of her Luna bar and spends the next five minutes regaling me with the hilarity of Palmer’s insistence on finding the perfect pair of platform heels, coupled with her conviction that such a thing exists. We discuss the joys of colored tinsel, and even when my voice sounds shrill, I know that from a distance, I look remarkably carefree.

For lunch, we walk over to Little Szechuan, home of the seven-dollar combo meal. The board on the back wall boasts thirty-seven choices, all of which come in Styrofoam clamshells and outrageous portions.

Maribeth would normally veto Chinese, but when I suggested it, she just nodded gravely, like she was concerned about me. The day seems very bright, and I’m ravenous for something greasy and full of sodium. She doesn’t say anything disparaging, even when her order arrives looking like it’s been bathed in WD-40.

We’re on our way back to school, clutching our coats against the wind, when she says, “Hey, you’re still coming to the mall when you’re done with your meet, right?” She slows down, then stops completely. “I was thinking Autumn could come too.”

The sentence hangs in the air for one fleeting second before slipping away, getting lost. I don’t know how to respond.

Maribeth’s shrug is diffident and she looks away. “If she wants, I mean.”

I nod, trying to look thoughtful, but privately, I’m impressed. When Autumn said Maribeth wouldn’t take a victory by forfeit, she knew what she was talking about.

We’re halfway across the east lawn now. The wind picks up, sending a flurry of cigarette butts and candy wrappers tumbling across the parking lot. The sky is a hard, uniform gray.

I step over a soggy french-fry sleeve and pain zings along the bottom of my foot. If the way my arches seem to be peeling themselves off the bone doesn’t get better, I’ll have to see one of the school trainers—but only as a last resort. Ever since she started collecting articles about how overexertion is ruining high school athletes, Molly Bruin, Sports Medicine Specialist, loves to bench people for recuperation purposes. There’s no way it would end well.

Maribeth leans closer and gives me a conspiratorial smile. “So, how are things with CJ?”

“Good,” I say, trying to sound bright and giddy. To sound like I think of him at all. “Really good.”

I only mean to satisfy her curiosity, but as soon as I say it aloud, the exhilaration is real. The warm splash of adrenaline that hits my face is real. And I am back in the dark with Marshall Holt.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was a different girl. I didn’t think about sex or boys or naked bodies, but now the proposition is inviting—a topic worthy of inquiry. I keep revisiting the way I kissed him, how reckless it felt. How I would do it again in a heartbeat. How I want to rip off his clothes with my teeth.

Maribeth’s gaze is fixed intently on my face. “Oh my God, Waverly! You have a see-cret.” She sings it like a jump-rope rhyme, eyes open wide, and even though I’m still wearing the choker, I cover my neck with my hand.

Out on the football field, the majorettes are practicing for regionals. They chant in unison and Maribeth chants with them to the tune of rampant school spirit. “Waverly’s got a see-cret, yes-yes she does!”

“No, I don’t.”

She reaches over and slips her hand into mine. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me right this second, but come on, did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

The way she always wants to hold on makes me feel breathless, like we’ve fallen overboard and she’s got me in a death grip, pulling me down to the ocean floor. I feel bad about lying, though, so I link my fingers with hers and squeeze back.

She leans into me, tipping her head to the cloudy sky. “Oh, my God! Are you completely freaking out right now?”

For a second, I can think of absolutely nothing to say. On the field, the majorettes are marching in their warm-ups and their mismatched winter hats. They look like windup toys.

“Waverly—Waverly, what is wrong with you? I mean, are you? Are you so excited you could die? Why don’t you seem excited?”

The majorettes twirl in grim formation and I shake my head.

Can you please repeat the question?

—

We’re out of seventh period early for the meet. In the locker room, Autumn ambles over like sharing my immediate space is the most natural thing in the world. Her sweater is possibly the pinkest thing I’ve ever witnessed, and I’m minorly relieved to see she hasn’t gone back to wild hair and Cleopatra eye makeup. She’s still dressing the part of the helpful committee member. I can’t tell if her outfit is supposed to be ironic, or if this is really just what she thinks of Maribeth. What she thinks of me.

“You’re high-class today,” I tell her, nodding to her wide houndstooth headband.

She throws down her bag and her sketchbook, prying off her wedges and dropping them on the floor. “Same, times ninety-nine. You should wear more jewelry. It looks good.”

Around us, everyone is hectic, racing back and forth with athletic tape and hairbrushes. Over in the corner, Palmer is doing yoga stretches with her eyes closed, reaching for the ceiling.

I run my fingers over the choker, picturing the bitten skin underneath. We aren’t allowed to wear jewelry when we compete. The hickey is going to show eventually, ready or not.

When I take off the necklace, I don’t make a production of it. Autumn doesn’t say a word, but I can almost sense her working out how to approach the subject of my contused neck. I smile because smiling makes me look harmless and any second now, she’s going to ask.

“Waverly.”

The way she says it makes something prickle down my back. I press my fingers to the place above my collarbone. Take them away again.

“Waverly.”

“What?” I sound tentative—confused—almost like I’ve been sleeping.

And Autumn hugs me hard, shaking me back and forth, then letting go to laugh and spin away from me.

“Waverly,” she says. “You look happy. God help me, I think you’re thawing out.”

On the bus out to the Dove Creek course, we sit together, sharing her headphones while everyone around us shrieks and laughs.

The songs are unfamiliar but catchy, and we lean into each other, bobbing our heads in time to the music. It’s the kind of thing I used to do with Maribeth when we were younger, but for some reason, the experience stopped being satisfying. This is satisfying.

Autumn gazes out at the passing cars. She’s not pumping me for details or gossip, not demanding to know how I wound up with a continent-sized hickey.

It’s not until halfway across town that I understand why. She isn’t avoiding the subject to be nice or polite. She comes from a remote region of the social world where making out like a wildebeest in heat is considered normal.