When the last of our neighbors sets off the last grand finale, I fall into bed and text Megan:

Miss you so much it hurts.

Seconds later, she texts back, The feeling is mushrooms, followed by a second text reading, Yes, autocorrect, I meant to say mushrooms, not mutual. Good catch.

Life without you does feel a little bit like fungus, I reply. But definitely less tasty.

I mean, both mushrooms and my tears taste a little bit salty?

Megan says.

How do you have fluid left for tears with all the soccer sexting you’re doing? I answer, Btw I tried to type soccer sweating, but my phone simply wasn’t having it.

Your phone’s right, she replies. Soccer sexting. Fave competitive sport. Considering trying out for Olympic team.

You’re a shut-in, I say. *Shoe-in*. SHOO-IN**.

You’re a beautiful and wonderful and sensual and strong golden fawn, she says, followed by, That was supposed to say “my best friend,” but my phone . . .

The feeling is mushrooms, I tell her. I fall asleep feeling a happy kind of sad.

Beau never shows up. When I call him, his phone goes straight to voice mail. I call a handful of times and leave one message, but soon it’s noon and it’s clear he’s not coming.

Dad decided to take a half-day, so he gets home around one, drops his bag in the kitchen, and starts digging through the refrigerator for a beer. “Where’s your friend?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Something came up,” I lie. “He couldn’t come.” Dad glances back at me suspiciously. I am, after all, sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the day like I’ve been waiting, but he doesn’t call me out. I’ve never been sure if it’s more annoying when Mom tries to help me process my emotions aloud or when Dad looks at me with X-ray, horse-whisperer eyes but keeps what he sees to himself.

He looks down at the bottle in his hands and gives it an apologetic sigh before stuffing it back in the fridge and clearing his throat. “Well, your mom’s right. We probably oughta get a second opinion on it before shellin’ out a few thousand bucks on something new, and I’d feel better if we took it in to a professional anyway. Don’t want my baby girl in a car some kid duct-taped together.”

My first inclination is to defend Beau, but then, with disappointment sinking in my stomach, I remember that Beau’s supposed to be here, and he isn’t. I don’t really know who he is; maybe he is just some kid. “If you really loved me, you’d forget the car and buy me an airplane,” I say, steering the conversation away from the absence of Beau.

“Kiddo, if you really loved me, you’d get a bike.” Dad swipes his phone off the counter and shoots the refrigerator one last mournful glance. “Come on. Let’s get that sucker towed in.”

“What about this one?” Coco spritzes another purple bottle identical to the last hundred into the air beside my nose. We’ve been in Bath & Body Works for thirty minutes, and by now I’ve entirely lost my sense of smell.

“It’s nice,” I lie, scrambling to check my phone when I feel it buzz in my pocket. My mounting nerves skyrocket when instead of the apology from Beau I’d been hoping for, I see a mass text from Derek Dillhorn, alerting us to a party he’s throwing while his parents are out of town. I haven’t tried calling Beau since yesterday afternoon, and he hasn’t called me either. Four days have passed since we talked about him coming to look at the car, four weeks since Grandmother gave me her three months’ warning, and this shopping trip isn’t proving to be the distraction from either situation I had hoped it would be.

“That’s what you said about the last six,” Coco complains.

“They were all nice.”

“Then why are you making that face?”

“Because my brain is full of fumes, and I’m about to pass out,” I say. “It’s unrelated to all that toxic gas you keep spraying into my eyes.”

Coco groans. “Why did you even come?”

“Because I wanted to hang out with you.” And because Mom was too tired when she got home from work and asked me to. And because while the Jeep’s in the shop, my only opportunities to get out of the neighborhood are going to come in the form of running errands in Mom’s car. And because I needed to do something that required me to stop staring at my impossibly silent phone.

Coco sighs and clasps her hands together. “Can’t you, like, wait outside or something? You’re making me anxious.”

“Are you serious?”

She widens her eyes and nods sharply.

“Can’t you just get Abby a gift card? She’s turning fifteen, not getting a Nobel Prize.”

“I need to show her we’re going to stay friends after I transfer,” Coco shoots back. “Her love language is gifts! This needs to be perfect.”

“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about right now?”

“You’re only making this take longer.”

“Fine,” I say, “I’ll be in the food court with my face buried inside a pizza until my nose stops stinging.”

“Great,” Coco says, spraying the air with a pale green bottle for emphasis.

I fight a sneeze as I leave the store and make my way over to the food court. I spot Rachel sitting across the room at a table in front of Sbarro, her hair freshly dyed an unnatural shade of blond as opposed to her usual unnatural dark brown, and my stomach sinks. I still wouldn’t say I’m mad at her, but I had resolved not to see her or Matt again until our ten-year high school reunion.

The sinking sensation goes from bad to worse when I see who’s sitting across from her.

Beau. Slumped back in his chair, hands resting on his legs, and Rachel has her foot hooked around his calf under the table. At the exact moment I register all of this, his eyes shift up to me. I look away as fast as I can and turn sharply toward the bathroom hallway, picking up my speed and praying he didn’t see me. I know he did.

God, I’m so tired of avoiding everyone and everything.

Maybe I should just be grateful. It’s going to be so easy to leave here after all. Maybe I needed my hometown to turn on me so I could let it go.

“Natalie,” Beau calls after me.

I don’t turn around. I’m in the hallway now, virtually running to the women’s restroom.

“Natalie, wait,” he calls again.