“Fuck you. Fuck you, Ryan.”

“I’m done now. Get out of here. I want you to leave.”

Lulu tosses the drive back at Ryan. “Keep it.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“I don’t give a fuck about what you’d do.”

“Still. That’s the only copy. You really want to let me have it? You trust me with that power?”

“I don’t believe you.”

Ryan shrugs. “Good news for me: I don’t have to care.”

He might be lying, but why take the chance? If there are more copies, it doesn’t matter what she does. If there aren’t—she should do this. She should just take the stupid thing.

Mutely, Lulu reaches out a hand. The weight of giving in settles on her shoulders. She’s done lots of things that people told her were dirty, but she’s never felt stained by anything until right now. Making any kind of deal with Ryan feels like a bargain with the devil himself.

“Cass will forgive me eventually,” Ryan says.

“I don’t think she will.”

“Oh please.” Ryan says. “You think you love her or something? That she loves you? You barely know her. You give yourself away for nothing, Lulu. I went ahead and made something, at least. God, it’s so sad. I know so many girls like you.”

“Girls like me.”

“Empty,” Ryan says.

Lulu stands still and feels her beating heart, the pressure of air in her lungs and blood in her veins. She’s purple-bruised and incandescent with rage.

He doesn’t deserve a response, so Lulu doesn’t give him one. “Thanks for this,” she says, and then she leaves.

When she gets home, she texts Cass. I’m sorry about everything.

Cass doesn’t write back.

Lulu remembers this. She remembers how to be this person, scared and blank and numb. She knows how to hold still until it’s safe to feel something again. It’s like slipping into a second skin to crawl into bed, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

NAOMI WOULD HAVE questions about Lulu’s disappearing act, but luckily for Lulu, Naomi has to leave on the second. Once she’s gone, their mom leaves Lulu alone, letting her drowse away the days with Netflix on autoplay in the background.

On Saturday night, Lulu sees her mother standing tentatively in the doorway of her bedroom. “I was going to make some dinner. I was wondering if you wanted some,” she says.

Lulu’s been surviving on Postmates and misery for like thirty-six hours, which is the only reason she says yes. Probably she should eat a vegetable before she has to go back to school with sodium bloat testifying to just how badly she’s been handling this.