“I can assure you that our staff is committed to Simone’s health and safety,” Principal Decker says. “We are going to find Jesse Harris and get to the bottom of this. Mr. and Mrs. Austin, thank you for coming in.”

His parents are already getting up, but Miles lingers behind. Part of me wishes he would stay. The other part wants to scream at him. I stood up for him. I made sure everyone in this room knew he didn’t write the notes. But he didn’t stand up for me, not in the end. I stare at the edge of the table, watching as his jeans shuffle out the door.

“So,” Principal Decker says, pad and pen before her. “Simone, why don’t you tell me the whole story? From the beginning?”

I take a deep breath.

CHAPTER 32

When I get home, all I can think about is how my room hasn’t changed since I started talking to Miles. It’s been maybe two months and I still haven’t cleaned it. If we weren’t dealing with so much shit, Pops would’ve come in here and lectured me about it a long time ago.

Honestly, I’m surprised I’m not grounded. Keeping something this big from my parents usually leads to some sort of punishment. But I started crying when we got in the car, and I’m sure that helped. That and the fact that the whole family is still in town.

Dave and Dad seem to be talking again, and Abuela is frying plátanos with Tía Camila. I can hear them laughing tipsily all the way up here. I’ll miss them when they leave after the show. Still, I can’t bring myself to join them downstairs. The mood will shift, everyone will get quiet, unsure of how to act around me.

Staying up in my room feels like the best option.

I scroll through the group chat with the girls. They offered to come over, but it wouldn’t be fair for them to miss their after-school clubs because of me.

I send a text: Are you guys still coming to the show on Friday?

Claudia texts me back right away: The question is, are YOU?

I tap my fingers on the screen. If I lie, she’ll be able to tell. It’s the reason I’ve been avoiding their Google Hangouts. I turned off notifications on all my apps, mostly because Miles keeps texting me stupid apologies. I don’t want to think about him. And yet here I am, doing exactly that.

I don’t know how this works. I’m not sure if we’re broken up, if I can just keep ignoring him, or if we actually have to talk about this. Maybe I’ll just switch schools and won’t have to deal with it at all.