That day—that first day of spring—no one else would go near the monkey bars what with the slimy puddles, but Katie’s skill had no match at Wesley Prep. She did her loop and then landed on the grass, smiling in that way of the humble when Jack Adams turned to smile at her, and damn if that wasn’t when she felt her feet slip across the unstable ground. Losing balance, she landed with splayed legs, her hair spread like seaweed in the mud.

“Shit.”

Sometimes kids say what they feel instead of what they’re told is proper, and this was one of those unfortunate times for Katie Vaughn. The word was out of her mouth before she even knew it. This was the first time she’d ever cursed, and the word felt like biting into a lemon with the quick stab of bitter juice. Until she looked up and saw the principal looking down at her and frowning.

“Young lady, did you curse on my school grounds?” Mr. Proctor asked.

Katie looked him directly in the eyes. She’d already done one bad thing, and wasn’t set to lie about it. “Yes, Sir,” she said.

“Follow me. We’ll call your mother,” he said, pronouncing the words as if a period existed behind each one. He walked away, obviously expecting her to follow.

Katie glanced at Jack and shrugged her muddy shoulders; she could have sworn he was laughing.

After she’d been sent home to “clean her clothes and her mouth,” Katie sat in the alcove of her bedroom window until evening. A small room with a single white-painted iron bed, this was Katie’s hideaway. Wallpaper made of climbing pink roses filled the room like a false and always blooming garden. The dark wood hand-me-down furniture had all been painted a shade of pale pink, meant to match the rose wall-paper but missing its mark completely. Which was maybe what had happened when she’d tried to impress Jack and fallen into the mud: an absolute miss.

She still sat at the window waiting, although she didn’t know what she was waiting for, until Jack threw acorns skyward to ping against the glass pane.

Katie opened the window. “Hey,” she called out, swinging the pane out on its rusty hinges.

“Come out,” he said, glancing around like a boy who is afraid he’ll get caught. “Or are you grounded?”

“I’m not grounded,” she said. “My mom knows that sometimes the right word is just the right word.”

He laughed and threw a pine cone toward the back yard. He was a boy accustomed to having something to throw at all times. “Well, come on out.”

Yes, this was what she’d been waiting for—to walk under the moon with Jack Adams.