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“We’re definitely going to that,” Layla says. “Those junior jokesters sound like some funny fillies.”

“Punny preteens,” I add.

“Clever cu—Ow!” Brandy yells as I throw a pencil at her. “You could’ve put my eye out.”

“She’s just trying to even you up. You’re top heavy with two eyes and one foot,” Layla says, and my phone vibrates again.

From Isaac

That wierd girl said you’re doing better? Why don’t you answer me?

I try to ignore the fact that he must have misspelled weird enough times that autocorrect gave up on him.

“Be right back,” I tell the girls, unfolding myself off Layla’s couch. “And I think the Scrabble thing could be cool.”

Brandy makes a face. “For you, maybe.”

I cross the hall to my room, shut the door behind me, and call Isaac. He picks up on the first ring.

“Hey.” He’s guarded, fences up in his voice that I’ve never heard there before. That’s on me, ignoring his texts while I sort out Sasha from Shanna. But I can’t explain, not right now, so I’ll pretend I don’t notice.

“Hey. So . . . you talked to Brooke?”

“The blond one?”

“Yeah.” There’s a hot spark of jealousy in my gut that he would even notice her hair color. What else did he notice? Her scarless face? No wires coming out of her torso?

“She told me at school you had some kind of attack but you’re okay now, or something?”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement. I’ve been running a fever, and they can’t pin down the source.” I take a deep breath, steadying myself to tell a lie. “They took my phone away because I’m supposed to be resting a lot. I just got it back but I didn’t text you because I’m not supposed to”—I pitch my voice low and sexy—“get overly excited.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second, and I think either I really screwed up the vocals or we got cut off.

“Wouldn’t want that,” he finally says, sounding pacified. “Smart move.”

“I am smart,” I agree.

Smart enough to have taken apart Amanda’s crappy do-it-yourself psychology project to find only one mirror when she left to talk to my parents after my supposed breakthrough. Smart enough to know it wasn’t an inverted image because Shanna’s scar was on the same side of her face as mine. Smart enough to pretend like I fell for it. Smart enough to say what Sasha Stone was expected to say.

“Smart, but a little effed too, you know?” Isaac goes on. “And I kinda like it.”

“A little effed?”

“Yeah, you know. With a shaved head and scars, the wild part of you is on the outside now too. We match.”

“Yeah, match,” I say, pulling a hangnail.

“So I been meaning to tell you . . .” His voice fades out like he’s about to admit something heinous and my breath catches in my throat. Isaac Harver defaced petroglyphs without blinking so what he’s about to say must be pretty awful.

“I read The Divine Comedy.”

It’s so unexpected that I burst out laughing, the sound so unfamiliar to my throat that it catches there, a jagged thing.

“What did you think of it?” I ask.

“It’s not very funny,” he says, which sends me into another bout of laughter. I consider explaining to him about how the ancient Greeks use the word comedy differently than we do, but since my life is currently measured by an unknown increment of time I decide not to bother breaking it down for him.

“So listen,” I say. “If I called you suddenly and said I needed you here right away, would you come?”