“Well, what do you think it was?” he said. “Some kind of crazy trick Lily planned? Because you can tell her it worked. She officially sent me into full-on paranoia. How could she even get up there to reach that chandelier?”

Maria looked up and down the hall again, her face blank.

She wasn’t even listening. This conversation was getting him nowhere.

“Who did you come up here to see?” he said.

The whole high school lived in this dorm, with the classes separated by floor. The first floor was for the freshmen, the fourth floor was for the seniors, and the juniors and sophomores were in between. All the seniors lived on the fourth floor except Maria and Lily.

(Acheron liked to advertise that it had a “progressive” attitude toward housing, meaning boys and girls were “trusted” to live on the same floor and not get up to anything. Which was only one of the biggest pieces of bullshit used to advertise their school.)

Maria used to visit her friends’ rooms all the time, but that had been the pre-Lily version of Maria. Now it was rare to see her up here more than every other week or so. When she did come, she usually went straight to Brandon’s room and straight back down the stairs when she left.

“What? Oh. No one.” Maria finally met his eyes. Then she looked away just as fast. “Delilah.”

“Delilah?” Brandon raised his eyebrows. Maria avoided Delilah the way he used to avoid his piano teacher when he hadn’t practiced that week. “What for?”

“Nothing.” Maria shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re going out. It’s nothing.”

“You’re going out with Delilah?” Now Brandon really was worried. “What’s going on? It’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t tell Lily.”

Maria looked tired. “It’s seriously nothing. Oh, by the way, don’t tell anyone we’re going out. I can’t get in trouble again, not with the championship game coming up.”

Brandon frowned. Something was definitely wrong here, but he didn’t know how to help if Maria wouldn’t tell him what it was. “Look, can we talk seriously for a second?”

Maria didn’t even blink. “Brandon, promise you won’t tell anyone we’re going out?”

“Of course. But, Ree, are you sure you’re all right? Because —”

“Let’s talk tomorrow, okay? I’m already late.”

She brushed past him toward Delilah’s room without waiting for him to answer. Brandon stared after her.

This wasn’t the Maria he knew. This Maria scared him.

She disappeared into Delilah’s room before he could say anything more. A minute later he heard laughter coming from behind the door.

Maria and Delilah? Laughing together? This was even worse than he’d thought.

Brandon was knocking on Mateo’s door before he even knew why. Mateo grinned when he opened it.

“What’s up?”

“Girls are weird,” Brandon told him.