He stands and is only inches from me. “I’m going to get some water. Do you want something to drink?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll come with you.” I turn to go, but he pulls me back by my arm.

“Don’t best friends hug before they go anywhere?”

I smile. He thinks he’s being funny, but I can play this game. “As a matter of fact, they do.” I slide my hands past his ribs and under his arms.

He wraps his arms around me, and I relax into him with a happy sigh. But then he starts rubbing my back, and tingles spread down my spine. “Best friends don’t rub each other’s backs,” I tell him.

His hands stop moving, but then they press me closer to him. I can’t decide which is worse, because my whole body is on fire now.

“Will you let me read the handbook so I know all the rules?”

“Yes. I will.”

He bends down and rests his forehead on my shoulder, his breath warming my skin. Why haven’t I pushed him away yet? “Does the handbook cover this?” he says.

I nod.

His lips tickle my neck as they move along it. Is he trying to drive me crazy? “It says definitely no.”

His lips come to rest against the soft spot below my ear. I can no longer think straight. It’s then I realize I have a fistful of the back of his shirt. I clutch it tighter. He must consider this encouragement because he takes my face in his hands and presses his lips to mine. They move over mine softly, his breath seeping into my mouth. My heart feels close to bursting. I want to rip up the fake handbook and throw it in his overflowing trash can. Holy crap, Trevor the nice guy is an amazing kisser.

He pulls back slightly and meets my eyes. “So when can I get a copy of this friendship handbook?”

“Friends? Who said anything about friends?”

He looks back and forth between my eyes. “Are you okay with that?”

With my fist still full of his T-shirt, I tighten my grip and pull him back to me.

CHAPTER 29

PARA-noia: n. extreme distrust of others

I want to trust Duke, but when he’s away, suspicions start to enter my mind. What if he lied to me the other day? What if he really is still using me because he hasn’t gotten what he wants out of me? What if all he wants to know is the future? A future I can’t tell him.

“Earth to Addie,” Laila says, waving her hand in front of my face. “What’s up?”

I stare out at the sea of grass and the students surrounding the stage where we sit. My thumb rubs at the plastic paper around the water bottle in my hand, causing it to wrinkle. “Do you think Duke really likes me?”

Her brows lower. “Is that a real question? Because I thought he had made that pretty clear.”

I tell her about the list of students and their abilities I found in his room the other day and his explanation for it. “That’s adorable,” she says, when I’m done. “That’s a story you can tell your grandchildren.”

“Jeez, Laila, not even I think that far in the future. Let us get through high school first.” I set my water bottle next to me and face her. “So you don’t think I should be worried?”

“I’m starting to wonder if you really like him. Is this why you didn’t want to go off-campus with him for lunch today?”

“I just wanted some space to think. When I’m around him, everything seems perfect.”

“I swear, you’re the only person I know who would complain about something being perfect.” She sighs. “You know what your problem is, Addie?”

“What?” I ask, as if what she’s about to tell me will solve all my doubts about Duke.

“You like to assign roles to the people in your life. And when they don’t play their parts right, you have a hard time accepting that. You assigned Duke the title of egocentric jerk a long time ago, and even though he’s proven it’s not the right part for him, you’re quick to believe anything that will restore him his title.”

I look down at my lap. Maybe she’s right. It sounds like me. There’s a dull ache behind my eyes, and I rub at my temples and attempt to ease the pain with a memorized mind pattern. I just need to stop thinking so much.

The bell rings. I stand and put my empty water bottle onto the plate with the crust of pizza and drop it in the trash. “What’s today?”

“The thirteenth.”

We start walking toward our next class. “No, I mean day of the week. Is it Thursday?”

“Yeah, why?”

It bothers me that I’m having this much trouble focusing on my schedule. I used to know it backward and forward. “I feel like I’m forgetting something. Did we have plans tonight?”

“Aren’t you still grounded?”

“Yeah, I guess. My mom’s been so weird about that. It’s like she wants to be strict, but every time Duke asks her if I can go somewhere with him, she caves.”

“I say take advantage.” She squares her shoulders. “Check out the eye candy.”

I follow her stare and see Duke heading up the sidewalk from the parking lot. I smack her arm. “That’s my boyfriend you’re lusting after.”

She laughs. “I know. He’s hot.”

He stops to talk to someone. “Who is that?” I ask, only able to see the back of the guy’s head.

“It looks like Bobby.”

Stringy hair, frayed jeans, hunched shoulders. “Yeah, you’re right, it is.”

“You’re not going to say hi to him?” Laila asks, when I keep walking.

“I’ll see him later.”

When we’re almost to class, a tug on my backpack pulls me to a halt. “Hey, girlfriend,” Duke says, from behind me.

Laila waves and keeps walking. “See you later.”

“Bye.” I turn around.

He slides his legs out to the sides until we’re standing eye to eye and then pulls me against him. “You were just going to walk by without even saying hi?”

“You were busy with Bobby.”

“I’m never too busy for you.”

Our relationship feels different. Like someone has taken my favorite sweater and thrown it in the dryer and it doesn’t fit right anymore. I want to pull and tug on it until it feels comfortable again. He is my boyfriend, I tell myself. I didn’t have a problem giving people new roles when they earned them. He had earned it. Hadn’t he? I finger a button at the top of his jacket and then meet his eyes. “Do you want to hang out with me tonight? We can get a movie or something.” As I say it, I remember the text Duke had received in his room the other day when he had left his phone behind. Ray and the football players were getting together at Fat Jacks tonight. That’s why it felt like I was forgetting something, it was his appointment.

He looks up, biting his lip. “Tonight? I have something tonight, what is it?”

I start to remind him, but he continues. “Oh, yeah, I have to go to this work party with my parents. It’s going to be so boring. Believe me, I’d much rather hang out with you. Maybe you can come with me.” He smiles and then his smile falls. “Oh, that’s right”—he pulls on my blue strip of hair—“you’re still grounded. I guess I’ll have to suffer through it on my own.” The second bell rings, but I don’t move. He kisses my cheek and then my lips. “You’d better get to class. I’ll call you after the work thing, okay?”

“Okay.” He walks away, and I clench my fists. He lied to me. And over what? A date with Ray? Couldn’t he have just said he was going out with Ray? Guys night or something. Did that mean he was hiding something from me? What did they need to talk about that I couldn’t hear? I hate myself for turning into the untrusting girlfriend, for proving Laila right, but I have to go to Fat Jacks tonight and see what their meeting is about.

CHAPTER 30

au-to-NO[R]M-ic: adj. having no control over my spontaneous actions

Trevor lies on his stomach on the floor, his notebook open in front of him, penciling several characters I had already written for the comic. I sit next to him, gnawing on the end of a pen, trying to find the easiest way to explain the Compound in story form. It’s turning out to be a lot harder than I thought. I lean back against his bed and stare at the ceiling for a minute. Unlike my own ceiling, there are no words of inspiration there.

I set my pen and notebook aside and slide down next to him, resting my chin on his shoulder so I can watch him draw. The steadiness of his hand gliding across the paper, creating shapes where there were none, mesmerizes me for a moment. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?”

He flips the page of his sketchbook to a blank one, takes my hand, and places it on the page. Then he slowly traces around each finger. A shudder goes through me as the pencil grazes the side of my palm. I haven’t done this since I was five, but it certainly didn’t make me feel like this back then.

After circling my hand twice, he asks, “Writer’s block?”

It takes me a moment to remember I was trying to write the story. I roll onto my back and shake out the tingling sensation in my hand, hoping to regain my thoughts. “Yes.”

He turns on his side, propping himself up on one elbow and draping his other arm across my waist. “So we already have the characters.”

“Yes. The Amender who can tell the future.” I point to myself. “Lola, the Memory Eraser. Robert, evil villain number one who can walk through walls.”

“And myself, evil villain number two. Who can …”

I still haven’t figured out who to make Trevor in the story. At first I thought it was funny to make him the villain, but now that I’m mirroring real life as much as possible, I don’t want to assign him to be one of the “bad guys” in my life. When I look at him, I don’t see evil at all. I thought about making him Bobby but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I should’ve made him the hero, but it’s too late now. He’ll wonder why I’m making such a big deal about it. “Who can … kiss really well.”

He pulls me close. “I didn’t realize that was a superpower.”

My heart races. “Neither did I.”

He gives a breathy laugh and proves my point. After fully taking my breath and my thoughts away, he resumes his position and says, “Maybe we’re going out of order. Let’s figure out the rules of the Superpower Compound first.”

“Rules?”

“You know, things our characters can and can’t do. Kind of like my mom walking by a little while ago and reminding me that I’m not allowed to have the door shut when there’s a girl I like in my room.” He nods his head toward the wide open door. “Rules.”

“What? You like me? When did this happen?”

“It started with the zombie note. How could I resist that?”

I smile and use my finger to trace the line across his bicep made by the shadow of his T-shirt sleeve. “I started liking you when we got trapped in the principal’s car together.”

“Really? So the whole best-friend talk?”