“You think this isn’t hard for me?” she snaps. “Do you think I’m some kind of robot? That I don’t have feelings? I’ve been watching you leave me behind this year, and . . . fuck. You’re winning, Shay. You’re the potions genius. You’re the one with the ridiculous magic level. You didn’t even need to be Mr. B’s favorite to get the scholarship, but you got that too.”

Her brown eyes are screwed up with pain and frustration. My heart is breaking. How long has she felt this way?

She exhales, and all the fight goes out of her. Now she just looks sad. “Sometimes I feel like, if you didn’t exist, I would have the scholarship in the bag,” she says quietly.

My shoulders slump. “I feel like that too sometimes.”

“It sucks. Makes me feel like a bad person.”

“Yeah.”

We hang there in a defeated stillness. Her face has mostly reverted to her usual mask of composure, but there’s something tired in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

“I’m sorry for trying to ghost you,” I say. “That was a shitty thing to do.”

She doesn’t say anything, which seems about right. She deserves better than a half-assed apology.

“I should have talked to you about what I was thinking. I got really stressed about the stuff with Mr. B and took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

Still nothing. I am literally sweating at this point.

“Okay, I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that would make this better, but I care about you a lot, and I would be really upset if I fucked this up.” I swallow hard. “I’ve been focused on one thing for, like, as long as I can remember. My whole life has been about trying to be the perfect witch and get this scholarship. And sort of because of the scholarship I spent a really long time thinking that we were enemies. And then we weren’t enemies, and I was super into you, and that was confusing, and now I’m kind of feeling like I’m letting the scholarship get in the way of my actual life. So I’m sorry.”

Ana’s eyes have gone very wide. “Did you just . . . ? Do you like me?”

I replay the word vomit that just came out of my mouth and realize what I’ve said. Oh no. No no no. “I, um—what? Yes?” I choke out.

Excuse me while I leap into the nearest volcano.

“This was the moment you picked to tell me?” she says, giving me a hard stare.

“No. I’m sorry. This was bad.” I close my eyes and bury my face in my hands, praying for imminent death. I thought this interaction was potentially salvageable before, but I’ve ruined everything.

“Your hands are invisible.”