Laurel rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“And now I’m one of them,” Chelsea said with a groan.

“Except that you have a personality.” Chelsea had more personality than almost anyone Laurel knew.

“I hope so. But, seriously, he’s become such a big part of my life.” She lifted her head to look at Laurel again. “Did you know that the two races he’s come to this year have both been personal bests for me? I run faster when he’s around. And I thought I was running as fast as I could before. I’m a scoring runner on our team now. He did that to me!” She put her hand to her forehead and mocked fainting back against the swing. “He’s wonderful.”

“I am so glad, Chelsea. You deserve a great guy, and Ryan seems to really like you.”

“Yeah, he does. Weird, huh?”

Laurel just snorted.

“Do you think we’re moving too fast?” Chelsea asked seriously.

Laurel raised an eyebrow. “Well, that depends. How fast are you moving?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” Chelsea said, waving away her concern. “I mean more like maybe I’m getting in too deep too quickly.”

“How so?”

“I was registering for the November SAT the other day—”

“November?” Laurel interrupted. “How come November? David and I aren’t taking it till spring.”

“Chronic overachiever,” Chelsea said dismissively. “Anyway, it asked which schools I wanted my scores sent to. And I said…?” She looked at Laurel.

“Harvard. You’ve always wanted to go to Harvard,” Laurel said without even having to think about it.

“I know, exactly,” Chelsea said, sitting all the way up now and crossing her legs beneath her. “But I went to write Harvard and I was like, Well, wait. Ryan’s going to UCLA; Boston’s really far away from UCLA. Do I want to go that far away from him? And I totally didn’t write it down.”

“You had your scores sent somewhere else?” Laurel sat up straight. “Where? Stanford? You hate Stanford.”

“No, I just left it blank. I haven’t finished it yet.” She paused. “Do you feel this way? About David?”

“Yep,” Laurel said. “I would totally not go to Harvard for David.”

“Sure,” Chelsea drawled. “That’s because you want to go to Berkeley, like your parents, right?”

The question took Laurel completely off guard. She nodded, vaguely, but her thoughts were in Avalon. There was a place for her at the Academy—tuition-free, room and board, no SATs required, and even though Jamison wanted her to help watch for trolls now, she assumed the faeries would expect her at the Academy full-time pretty soon. But how could she tell Chelsea that?

“Let’s say David goes back East. Would you throw away your plans and follow him there?”

That’s two years away, Laurel told herself, attempting to quell her rising discomfort. She gave a little shrug.

“But you’d think about it, right?”

“Maybe,” Laurel said automatically. But it was so much more than just a question of following David a thousand miles. Following David would mean leaving behind Avalon, the Academy, everything. Would going to the Academy mean not choosing David? It was a new thought, and not one Laurel liked.

“So do you think you and David will be together forever? Because some people do that,” Chelsea added in a rush, speaking more to herself than to Laurel. “They meet in high school and it’s just like—click!—soul mates.”

“I don’t know,” Laurel said honestly. “I can’t picture myself ever not loving David. I just don’t see us breaking up.” But torn apart? Suddenly that seemed like a distinct possibility.

“You said the L-word,” Chelsea said with a grin, pulling Laurel away from her dreary thoughts.

“Why, yes—yes, I did.” Laurel laughed.

“You’re in love with David?”

Just thinking about it made Laurel’s whole body feel warm. “Yeah. I am.”

“So do you guys…you know?”

There went that fuzzy moment. “Not…exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means not exactly,” Laurel insisted stubbornly.

Chelsea was silent for a while. Laurel hoped she wasn’t dwelling too hard on the precise state of Laurel and David’s physical relationship. “I think I might love Ryan,” Chelsea finally said, relieving Laurel’s tension. “That’s why this whole Harvard thing is throwing me. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was, like, ten. Go to Harvard, major in journalism, be a reporter. But now, I can hardly bear the thought of being away from Ryan.”

“Maybe he should follow you to Harvard.”

“Don’t think I haven’t considered that,” Chelsea retorted. “He wants to be a doctor like his dad, and Harvard’s got a great med program.”

“So send your scores to Harvard,” Laurel said, doing her best to focus on Chelsea’s problems instead of her own. “You have almost two years before you have to decide. A lot can happen in that time. And, seriously, if you have to give up a dream to be with a guy, maybe you’ve chosen the wrong guy.”

Chelsea’s brow furrowed and she fiddled with her fingers. “And what if the time comes and the dream doesn’t seem worth it?”