I gingerly take the paper out of a folder in my backpack, making sure to not crinkle the edges, and skim it for any last-minute typos. It’s not like I have time to reprint it if I find any mistakes, but I can’t stop myself. After that, all that’s left is to sign it.

I scrawl my signature at the bottom of my form. With a quick tug on the magic in the ink, my signature shifts to a brilliant gold. And then it’s official. Shayna Johnson is a Brockton Scholarship applicant.

I drop my form onto the pile, wondering idly if Ana has already turned in hers. She probably has. She wouldn’t leave something this important to the last minute. I bet she also got Ms. Mooney to do one of her recommendations. Ms. Mooney loves both of us, and it makes you look well-rounded if you have an arts or athletics teacher do one of your recommendations. It’s a mystery to me who her other recommendation could be from, though.

I guess, now that we’re friends, I could ask her. But, for some reason, that feels like I would be crossing a line. I don’t want to talk about scholarship stuff with her. We joke about it, sure. During AP Potions today, she told me—with comically fake smugness—that I shouldn’t be so nervous about turning in the intent form because “it’s obvious who the winner will be this year.” I rolled my eyes so hard that it hurt a little. Then I told her she needed to deflate her ego before she stopped being my favorite enemy and started being my least favorite enemy again.

When I get to rehearsal, she doesn’t ask where I’ve been, even though I hightailed it out of our last class together instead of walking to rehearsal with her. She’s bent over a notebook in the back of the auditorium. When I look closer at what she’s doing, I see that she’s doodling in the corner of our math homework. “Thought you were going to be late,” she says as I sit next to her.

“I’m never late.”

“Ninth-grade choir field trip,” Ana says immediately, raising a single finger in the air.

I stare at her in disbelief. She’s not wrong. I remember it vividly because our car broke down on the way to school. I was stuck on the side of the highway with my parents for almost an hour. “Okay, creeper, that was two years ago. Why do you even remember that?”

She just laughs and gestures at the homework in her notebook. “Have you finished this yet?”

“No, I’ve only done the first problem.” When I look at her paper, the doodle in the corner catches my eye. “What’s that?” I say, pointing at it.