For a second I am frozen. Though I’d quite like to hop aboard a spaceship and ditch both worlds entirely, it’s been exhausting keeping the two separate. Something about this collision feels inevitable, maybe even destined to be by the powers of the universe. I’m a strong girl and all, but I’m no match for the sun, moon, stars, and space debris.

“Uh, I’ll be right back,” I tell my parents. I head to the Gill School tent quickly, feeling nervous and exposed, like I don’t have anything on, not even this stupid orange T-shirt. Speakers are blasting pop music. Josie and Danika brought face paint, and it’s pretty much a party, the iPad in Brendan’s hand working like a bouncer to check everyone in.

“Hey, Cham,” Brendan says curiously. “I didn’t think you were coming to this.”

“Uh, yeah, my mom didn’t give me much of a choice.”

Helga and Gene come through the gate by the concession stand. Behind them a pack of seniors march in. Jared and Marquis are wearing gratuitously large backpacks and holding big shopping bags full of snacks. “Why are there so many people from school here?”

He cocks his head. “Didn’t you get the e-mail? We changed our volunteer event to this one.”

Between my mom looking back over her shoulder at me, and Helga and Gene looking into each other’s eyes with no regard for me, I can’t really process what Brendan’s saying to me. “Wait, why did it get moved?”

“Someone suggested it’d be more… supportive… so we changed it,” Brendan says. “I mean, Student Council did.” He avoids my eyes by bringing his face very close to the iPad in his hand. I feel like I’m on a carnival ride with none of the fun and all of the nausea.

“What? Why?”

“Well,” he starts, “someone came forward and asked—”

“Was it you?” I ask, shielding my eyes to look at him. Ahead of me Danika is painting a butterfly on Josie’s cheek; behind me, my parents are talking to one of the Donnas. The world just isn’t big enough for all these worlds.

“No, it wasn’t me,” he says. “And if I knew you were going to be here, I would have told you. I swear,” he adds quickly, and his voice sounds nervous, as if he’s lying.

“This doesn’t mean anything to them.” My voice quavers. “It’s just something to check off to soothe their guilt and graduate and move on.”

“I know, Cham, I’m sorry—”

“So it was you?” There’s a fire building in my throat. “After all the things I told you about wanting to keep this stuff private, why would you do this? And not like warn me?” My spit tastes like acid and the putrid stuff left over after vomiting. “I put so much trust in you. How could you just go against me like that and get the school to change the event?”

“Cham, I didn’t—” His voice is strained. I back up, wishing I could draw a heavy cloak around myself to keep everything out.