“You’re exhausting, that’s what you are.”

“And you’re obnoxious.”

“And you’re childish.”

“You think I’m childish?” I looked at him pleadingly, feigning hurt.

He looked crushed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Ellie, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“You’re mean,” I said through a small laugh disguised as a sob. I couldn’t keep a straight face to save my life.

He blinked at me. His lips made a slight curve. “Faker.”

“Am not. I’m really devastated. I’m shocked you would say such things.”

“You know I’d never say anything to hurt your feelings on purpose.”

I sat back and winked. “Of course.”

We pulled into my driveway and Will shut off the car. “Are you making me go to that party Saturday, too?” he asked.

I noticed the change in subject, and my mood took a sudden turn as well. “I want you to be there, and not just keeping a lookout. I want you really there. With me.” We were supposed to be broken up, according to my friends and family, but we still had to pretend to be just friends, even though we weren’t and would never be just friends. Even if the world ended and the reapers took every last mortal soul, I would still be madly in love with him. Nothing would change that.

He turned to look at me again, but his gaze held mine a little longer than before, and this time with softness. Maybe a little sadness, too. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

I tried to hide my frown, but I knew I had failed by the look on his face. “I miss you. I mean, I miss you.”

His body sagged a little, and he looked away from me to the floor at his feet. His hand tightened on the console and his thumb tapped it, but I wasn’t sure if that was from impatience or indecision. His eyes were dark, and his expression turned to stone. I hated when he froze up like that, impenetrable and distant. When he opened up to me, things were their best, like only a minute ago when we’d been laughing and teasing each other. Some things needed to be said, though. We couldn’t keep living each day pretending everything was fine. Every day, another tiny shard of my heart broke away. If we kept going on like this, I’d never be able to piece it all together again. Will had my heart, and it would never belong to anyone else, but if he didn’t take care of every little piece of it that broke away, then it might be lost to us both forever. I couldn’t let him forget that. If I forgot it, if we both did, then my heart would never be whole again.

“I know,” he said, and left my car without another word.

My friends noticed how quiet I was the next day. Kate especially. She’d been my best friend since elementary school, so she knew if anything was on my mind. In third-period civics, I felt the vibration of my cell and slipped it out. Kate had sent a text from her desk in the row next to mine.

Why are u moping?

Instinctively I touched the winged pendant around my neck for support. I frowned and stared at the sentence for a moment before I typed one word in response.

Will.

I watched the teacher, Mr. Johansson, until he turned his back to scrawl more definitions on the dry-erase board. The whiny squeaking of his markers was utterly maddening. In my peripheral vision, I watched Kate chew on her lip as she held her cell underneath her desk and texted back to me.

Cant be friends?

Well, that wasn’t the problem, of course. What would I write back? What should I write? The truth? Maybe a little of it.

Still in love with him.

No chance of getting back together?

This was where I’d have to lie.

Different places in our lives. College keeps him busy and he doesnt think itll work out.

LAME.

I know. Tell u more at lu—

My phone was snatched out of my hand so fast, I bounced in my seat and my heart stopped. I jerked around and saw Mr. Johansson had come out of nowhere and now held my phone in his clammy hand. When had he started doing rounds through the aisles? I should have been paying attention. Getting detention was not going to look good to my mom when I was already on thin ice. My pulse pounded in my head, and I exchanged looks with Kate. Her face was completely calm, as if she had nothing to do with it and feared no consequences.

Mr. Johansson tsked as his watery eyes and index finger scrolled through my text conversation. He smelled like a moldy old sweater in one of those antique shops my nana dragged me to on rainy Saturdays when I stayed with her. His hands were stained from the dry-erase markers he used all day, and I could just imagine the kind of grubby fingerprints he was leaving on my phone’s touch screen. “Sounds scandalous, ladies. Still in love with him, huh, Miss Monroe?”

Mortified, I turned away from him and stared at my notebook in front of me. I heard my classmates’ laughter and whispers, and I felt all their eyes on me. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I thought teachers only read notes to the whole class in stupid teen movies. This was not happening. Not happening.

“Detention, for both of you, after school today,” Johansson barked, his voice lilting proudly like he thought he was awesome for catching two girls texting each other. “You’ll have plenty of time then to copy down my notes from class instead of sending your own. You can have your phones back after that.”

He grabbed Kate’s phone from her hand and sauntered up to the front of the room. I made a deliberate attempt not to hear another word he said for the rest of the hour.