“You’re up early.” Pops stirs his coffee. He always takes it black. “Are the girls up to something?”

I swallow, sliding past him and the kitchen island. I can tell Pops anything, but the line blurs when it comes to things that are happening to my friends. If Lydia doesn’t want her parents to know where we’re going, I doubt she’d want my parents to know.

“We have to run an errand,” I say instead, reaching for a mug in the cupboard. “And we can’t go after school, because I have play rehearsal.”

“You all need to go together to run this errand?”

I shrug, stealing the coffeepot and pouring a liberal amount into my cup. There’s sleep in my eyes, but I can still see his De La Soul shirt clearly—which he wears all the time even though the only students who understand the reference are black, like us. Sometimes I wish I went to the public school where he works, but it’s thirty minutes away. Sacred Heart is closer, not as conservative as my old school, and doesn’t require uniforms. Even better, no one knows me at Sacred Heart, not the way they did at my old school.

Our Lady of Lourdes had only a hundred girls, and we all lived in the same dorm. It meant we were closer than normal classmates. I never minded—until they found out I was positive.

“Simone,” Pops says, placing his coffee on the counter. “If something were going on, you’d tell me. Right?”

I sigh. “It’s something Lydia doesn’t want to tell her parents about. Not now, anyway. We just have to make a stop.”

He stares at me for an extra beat.

“I swear,” I say, resting my hand on his. “If she were in trouble, I’d tell you.”

He grunts into his cup. I turn toward our medicine cabinet, satisfied. In order to keep my viral load down, I have to take a gigantic pill every morning. The alarm on my phone is probably going off, but I don’t need it most days. Taking my meds is like clockwork at this point.

I feel Pops’s eyes on me as I toss back the pill. He and Dad used to give me stickers for every day I remembered to take it all by myself. If I went a month without missing, they’d get me a prize. I guess my prize is my health now. Definitely not as fun as going to Chuck E. Cheese’s.

The doorbell rings, and I jump, almost spilling my coffee. Lydia’s on the porch, dark hair tucked behind her ears and face clear of makeup.

“Hey,” she says as I open the door. “You ready to go? Claudia’s waiting in the car.”

“Right.” I pause, looking her up and down. She looks paler than usual. “She made you come get me?”

“No, no. I wanted to.”