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“I’m fine. Really, guys.” I look at Lilly, but she only nods. Apparently I’m going to have to dig for this admission of wrongdoing the way I fish for compliments from Heath.

“So did you know?”

Lilly doesn’t feign innocence or pretend she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll give her that.

“Yeah.” She drops her eyes, and Brooke pops the rest of her dinner into her mouth.

“And you didn’t tell me Charity was going to challenge?”

“Sasha . . .”

I’m so tired of hearing an ellipsis after my name, as if everyone is trying to be delicate with me. Isaac certainly isn’t, and I’m so distracted by the idea of him being here soon that I have to mentally review what Lilly says next before I realize she’s not following the script for making up with me.

“Charity’s trying to get into Ashland. Her GPA isn’t that great but if she takes first chair it might help.”

“You mean usurps,” I correct her. “Usurps first chair.”

“It’s not yours,” Lilly shoots back. “She beat you in the challenge, fair and square. You couldn’t have landed a spot in a church choir with that performance.”

My heart clenches in surprise, a surge of rage is injected into my veins along with blood. “And you can’t land Cole,” I tell her.

“Hey, whoa, ladies,” Brooke says, the conversation clearly taking a turn from what she expected as well.

“Screw you, Sasha,” Lilly yells, tears sending her makeup into a discolored flood. “Why do you have to be so damn mean?”

Next to the laptop, my phone lights up with a text from Isaac.

here

He’s early. It’s barely dark enough for us to slip out into the trees without being seen, and if he thinks he’s coming inside to meet my parents he has grossly misjudged the situation.

“Lilly, where did you learn those words? Certainly not from me,” Brooke says, trying hard to alleviate a situation that has gone all the way off the rails.

“Screw you too, Brooke,” Lilly says, tears that match her skin now dripping onto her shirt. “If you won’t tell Sasha what you really think of her, then you’re a shitty friend too.”

“Dude,” Brooke’s eyebrows have shot up to her wet hairline, mouth that typically has a retort ready to fire stuck in an open O.

here

Isaac’s second text doesn’t sit well with me, the inference that I’m supposed to leap at his call combined with Lilly’s suggestion that perhaps Brooke has said some not-so-perfect things about me behind my back makes me take a pic of my middle finger as a reply.

THERE, I type.

“Who are you texting?” Brooke asks.

“Not your business.” I put my phone in my lap so she can’t see it. “But anything you said about me to Lilly is mine.”

“You think everything is yours,” Lilly says, before Brooke can even open her mouth.

“Were backbones on sale at Walmart or something?” I ask.

“Fuck you, Sasha.” Lilly’s face is melting along with her clean vocabulary, streams of concealer now slipping into the sides of her mouth and coating her tongue when she speaks.

“Guys, I think we should—”

“No,” I cut Brooke off. “I think you should tell me exactly what you think of me. Right now. To my face. Anything you can say to Lilly you can say to me.”

Kinda what I had in mind but need you down here for that . . .