She did stop and hesitated, looking like there was something more, something different she wanted to say. But she changed her mind and changed tactics.

“Sanji, you’re being ridiculous—”

“Why are you so insistent on this? Do you have some stupid plan that’s going humiliate me or get me expelled? I don’t fucking want the yogurt incident again!”

“No, I just—”

“Come on, C, look at me and tell me this is simply that you want me to be happy. Come on, tell me.” Sanjiv stared hard at her, blood boiling. He knew it. Knew there had to be something terrible behind this. She’d been annoying him about Addy for weeks, ramping it up the closer they got to his birthday.

Ching wasn’t really meeting his eye. She may have ruled a fleet of thirty pirate ships, but she didn’t like lying about things that matter.

Which meant she was, for sure, planning something stupid or cruel or ridiculous. And that meant Sanjiv was done, done for good with her antics and setting him up for failure.

“You know what? I only have one mandated day left with you. Let’s spend it not talking. Maybe that’ll be easier for both of us.”

If ghosts could go pale, if blood could drain from their faces, then Ching did that. Her lashes swept down, covering the confusion that had sprung to her eyes.

“Sanji . . .”

The hurt in her voice was so unfamiliar, so surprising, that he barely registered it for what it was. He’d actually upset her this time.

Well, she’d been upsetting him for years.

“I’m done, Ching. It’s over.”

She didn’t follow when he picked up his bag and went to English.

Seven hours . . .

Two hours later and Sanjiv was finally at the lake. It was getting colder going into October, but the sun was out, the summer refusing to give ground to fall. The club was dead, so his boss, Trish, let him take a boat out without too much hassle. Sanjiv had worked there the whole summer, handling two jobs’ worth of responsibilities. She knew he wouldn’t screw anything up.

Ching had disappeared after their fight in the cafeteria, vanishing into her mysterious ghost dimension—a refuge for whenever Sanjiv was sleeping or doing something equally uneventful. She didn’t return for the rest of the school day, leaving him to a rather boring last period and a strangely quiet car ride. But he was certain this ride would call her back.

As he pushed off the dock and the boat slid across the water, picking up speed, he could swear his blood pressure began to drop. And sure enough, a few moments later, he could sense another presence joining him. Ching was on the bow, her face tipped up to the sky, as though she could almost feel the sun, the breeze.