We are off to the side of the PCH, and Levi pulls into a parking spot in one of those lots right up against the beach. He takes my hand and holds it properly in his.

“Your turn,” he says. Our fingers lock into place, and my mind goes blank. I turn to face him, and I look into his eyes, which are brown like mine, but a more interesting brown. With depth and flecks of gold and a burning black center. Curious eyes.

“I don’t know,” I say, and before I need to be clever and come up with my own list, which if I was going to be honest—and despite my full-disclosure tendencies, I wasn’t going to be—would be topped with I like you too much, Levi leans across the seat and kisses me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Now

My new lawyer, Mr. Lowe, shakes my hand and insists I call him Kenny, which is a kid’s name on a cartoon, not a professional’s. He comes armed with a legal pad but nothing else—no laptops like the legal team my parents have assembled—and asks to borrow a pen, since he left his in the car. I think of Linda, my SAT tutor, and how she complimented me on always remembering my pencils.

This is not a reassuring start.

We’re meeting in my dad’s office—and I’ve told Kenny nothing more than my birthday—when shouting erupts in the living room.

“Are you kidding me? No. Just no!” my mom screams, hysteria in her voice, and so Kenny flips over his pad and we both get up to see what’s happening. My mom’s lawyers are assembled in a row on the couch, and despite their suits, they look like seventh graders waiting to get yelled at by the high school principal. Paloma stands near the fireplace, and for once the buds are out of her ears. She hugs a clipboard, and something about the way she holds it like a shield reminds me of the FBI’s bulletproof vests. I feel a deep unsettling in my bones.

My father runs into the room at the same moment we do, though he comes from the kitchen and he’s double-fisting pastries. Apparently, we’re all turning to carbs in this time of crisis. Isla claimed she saw my mother eating a bagel with cream cheese yesterday, and not the Tofutti stuff, but strawberry flavored. An actual bagel with what my mom would call, with disgust, “sugar-cheese.” But I won’t believe that until I see it with my own eyes.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” my dad asks me, and then looks over at Kenny. “Who’s he?”

“My lawyer,” I say, and my dad nods at me, like this is completely reasonable, the fact that I have my own legal counsel. “Isla’s idea.”

“Smart,” he says.