But when I got to my room, instead of cleaning it, I sank to the bed. My prom dress still hung over my desk chair, stirring up a longing I didn’t like to feel.

On a whim I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text: I was trying to be a better person today but the world isn’t cooperating.

Hayden texted back almost immediately: Uh-oh. What happened?

I sighed. I wanted to support my brother, who won an award, but my parents don’t want to go. And he doesn’t want us to come anyway.

Instead of the chime of a text I was expecting, my phone started ringing. I jumped then smiled when I saw Hayden’s number on the screen.

“Hello.”

“What kind of award?” he asked as if we had been talking all along.

“I guess he did some sort of short film. He takes a couple of filmmaking classes.”

“You should go anyway,” he said.

“That’s what I said, but my parents didn’t agree. My mom has to work and my dad was quick to use that as an excuse.”

“You don’t need them.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I do. I don’t have a car. It was like pulling teeth whenever I wanted to borrow it to visit Bradley. And since my mom has to work, that’s not happening.”

“I can take you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I owe you and I’m working on being a better person.”

I laughed. “You do not owe me. We’re even now. If you did this, I would owe you.”

“Bec would probably come too. She loves that artsy film stuff,” he said as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “It would be fun. An adventure.”

I pulled at a loose string on the bottom of my jeans. “I don’t know. My brother was pretty insistent about us not coming.”

“He probably just didn’t want to pressure you. I know that I hate to have people go out of their way for me.”

“You’re right. He’d probably be happy we came. Maybe he even wanted my parents to insist on coming.”

“He probably did. You said you two aren’t very close, right?”

“Right.”

“This is like you showing him that he’s important to you. That you support him.”

It felt weird making Hayden drive me three hours, but he was right, this would be a good show of support. I remembered the conversation I had walked into the middle of between Hayden and Spencer. How Spencer implied that Hayden was too nice, did things without thinking about himself. I hoped this wasn’t one of those times. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll give you gas money.”

“If you want to.”

“Thank you, Hayden.”

“You’re welcome, Gia.”

CHAPTER 20

“Don’t get any ideas.” It was the first thing Bec said to me when I sat down in Government the next morning.

“About what?”

“About you and my brother. He’s too good for you.”

“I have no ideas.” Well . . . maybe I was getting a few ideas, but I was trying not to let them linger. If Hayden was in my life for real, I had a lot of explaining to do to my friends. I had a lot of explaining to do anyway. I needed to come clean. Especially since Jules seemed be unwilling to drop her suspicions.

Bec blinked once, lowering her brow like she’d heard my thoughts, then said, “I’m going with you on Saturday to keep an eye on you. Not because I want to help you or anything.”

“I thought maybe we were friends now,” I said.

“I’m not friends with anyone who won’t acknowledge my existence in public.”

“You didn’t acknowledge me at the beach either.”

She laughed. “Not with the pleading stares you were giving me to keep my mouth shut.”

“That’s more about prom than anything. They can’t know it was you at prom.”

“Right. Keep telling yourself that.”

It’s true, I wanted to insist. If my friends knew it was her that Hayden had fought with at prom, the whole story would’ve blown up right there on the beach. In front of everyone. I wasn’t sure why I needed her to believe this. She really wasn’t my friend. I should’ve been able to brush it off and move on.

But I couldn’t. “Hey, I helped you out yesterday. They wouldn’t have left you alone.”

She let out a single bark of a laugh. “Are you for real? You really thought you did some sort of good deed, didn’t you? Saving us from the snobs you hang out with. You’re practically a saint.” With that she turned back around.

I couldn’t shake off the conversation with Bec all day, so when Claire and I were walking to the parking lot for lunch and I saw her, I said, “Hi, Bec.”

She did a double take then just shook her head with a smile. “Touché.”

“What was that about?” Claire asked after we passed. “Who was that?”

“That was Bec. She’s the one I was telling you about the other day who set me up with her brother.”

“Her?” she asked, obviously shocked.

“Yes.”

“She’s . . .”

“Really cool,” I said before she could fill in an adjective I didn’t want to hear.

“So are you two friends now?”

“I don’t think she wants to be my friend.”

Claire grunted. “Don’t you have that reversed?”