“No,” I say, tapping my pencil nervously against my potions worksheet.

I want to tell her we shouldn’t be friends. Or anything more, if that was something she was interested in. It was never meant to work out between us, because there’s only room for one of us to succeed.

I’ve got to think realistically about this. The odds of us both being accepted to any of the licensing colleges we apply to are abysmally low. As much as I would argue that we’re very different people, the fact remains that we’re two brown girls from the same high school with similar extracurriculars, GPAs, and career goals. We won’t both be accepted to Willington. We can’t both win the scholarship. And I don’t know if I could watch her succeed while I failed, so I sure as hell can’t expect her to not hate me if I take all the opportunities she’s worked so hard for.

Ana is still staring at me. When I turn from my worksheet to face her, she meets my eyes boldly. “Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

“Nothing’s up,” I say, the guilt in my chest intensifying as I look into her brown eyes.

“That’s bullshit,” she says calmly. “But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Okay, let’s take a quick break, everyone!” Mr. B shouts, his voice echoing through the room. “When we come back, we’ll be working on ‘Bronxtown Broom Race,’ because we’ve got to get that one perfected for the award ceremony. And then we’ll run from the top up until ‘My Unfortunate Condition.’ ”

Ana unfolds her limbs and stands, looking unfairly graceful as she does so. She grabs both of our water bottles from the floor and walks away in the direction of the greenroom. God, she’s being so nice. I hate myself. I’m a selfish, ambitious asshole.

I stand so abruptly that I feel a little light-headed and go to the far left aisle to practice my stage slides. All this self-pity is giving me a headache.

In an extraordinary display of bad timing, Ed sidles up to me. He flashes that sheepish grin he’s worn around me ever since he poisoned me. “Hey, Shay.”

“What’s up, Ed?” I arch an eyebrow at him. At this point, I’m mostly over the energy potion disaster, but he still deserves to squirm a bit more for how abysmal his brewing was.

“First of all, I wanted to offer my most sincere apologies about that potion mishap.” He slaps his chest emphatically. It doesn’t make that loud of a sound, since he has the muscle mass of an overstretched twelve-year-old. “If you ever want any product on the house, just say the word.”

“I think I’m good,” I say dryly.