“All you said was—” Cora pauses to pull out her phone. I glower at her for keeping receipts. “‘Nvm, everything’s fine. Ace is just being a weirdo.’ What does that mean, Karina? Define weirdo.”

“I mean he’s a weirdo,” I say, slipping out from underneath their arms. “He says he sees a spark in me or whatever.”

“Karina Myra Ahmed, what did you just say?”

I wince. I shouldn’t have dropped that casually into a sentence. “Nothing. I said nothing.”

Cora looks at Nandini incredulously. “Do you hear her? I’m going to kill her. I really am. Will you bail me out?”

“Absolutely,” Nandini says, holding her pinky up. Cora hooks their pinkies together and they shake on it.

I roll my eyes. “Good. Please do. At least then I won’t have to become a doctor.”

“You can’t just say things like that and then pretend it never happened,” Cora says, linking her arm with mine. Nandini does the same on my other side and we exit the cafeteria together, heading for Nandini’s locker since it’s the closest. “What do you mean he sees a spark in you? What did he actually say?”

I sigh and relay the conversation in a hushed tone as we settle in front of Nandini’s locker. By the end, they’re both staring at me wide-eyed.

“What?” I ask self-consciously.

“I’m not even going to say it,” Cora says, turning away and pressing her face against the side of a locker. “You’re not going to hear a peep from me.”

I squint at her, trying to make sense of those words or catch a glimpse of her expression behind her blond hair, to no avail.

“What is she talking about?” I ask Nandini.

“You’ll see, dude,” Nandini says, patting my head. “You’ll see.”

It really doesn’t get any more cryptic than that. I sigh again and resign myself to the fact that my friends are chaotic neutrals.

Ace sits next to me in English again. This time, I don’t do anything aside from pointedly slide him a piece of paper and a pencil. “Bring your book bag next time.”

“You’re no fun.” Ace takes the paper and pencil, but not before he pokes me in the side using the eraser. “Also I need to talk to you after class.”

I give him a sidelong look. “About what?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he says, turning his gaze on the whiteboard. Now he wants to pay attention?

The urge to grumble is hard to resist, but I make it through class without a single muttered insult. I consider patting myself on the back for that. I deserve it.

When Nandini and Cora wait for me expectantly at the door, I wave them off. Nandini raises her eyebrows, her gaze flickering toward Ace before she nods.