“Okay. Look.” I push off from the sink and lean against the island across from him, pointedly ignoring a few drips of lemon garlic sauce. “Jake thinks he left his duffel bag here. And you came back from the senior trip with one of those shirts. And your girlfriend has missed nearly a week of school. So …” I shrug, feeling like an ass.

“You should jump to conclusions in the Olympics, Beckett. Do you really think Daniela and I are the parents of a dead baby abandoned on the floor of the locker room?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just …” Another shrug. “Is there any chance you mistook Jake’s bag for yours? Did you maybe carry it by accident? Leave your shirt in it? Would Daniela have had access to it?”

Penn blinks at me, stunned. “I can’t believe you! No, I didn’t use Jake’s bag. Not that I know of, anyway. And I don’t know where my shirt is. I ripped it beneath the armpit a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t exactly been looking for it since then, because until I learn how to sew, I can’t wear it anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—”

“And Daniela has the flu. Like I told you this morning. She’s never been pregnant. She’s on the pill, and we’re very fucking careful, Beck. Because West Point won’t even consider applicants with children, and I am not going to get stuck here slinging tires for the rest of my life. I have plans. Big ones. People who go to West Point become federal judges. Four-star generals. President. So there’s no way in hell that’s my baby. It’s not Daniela’s either. Fuck you, if you don’t believe me.”

With that, Penn storms out of the kitchen with my entire last box of Pop-Tarts, flipping me off with his free hand, just for good measure.

I kick the dishwasher shut.

When my mother hasn’t come home by midnight, I sneak into the kitchen and eat her leftovers, standing over the sink. She probably grabbed cheap tacos at work anyway.

As I swirl zucchini noodles onto my fork—they warm up surprisingly well—my phone beeps with an alert that the Crimson Cryer account has posted something new.

Yes, I’ve set up alerts.

Though I’m just now getting the notice, when I tap to open it, I discover that the tweet was posted several hours ago. It’s a link to the GoFundMe that the Key Club started, along with an appeal to the public to donate. It already has more than twelve hundred likes, a thousand retweets, and nearly four hundred comments.

And the Crimson Cryer account itself has several thousand new followers since I last checked. Including half a dozen reporters from national news networks, according to their two-line bios.