“Why are you telling me?” Kiley asks. There’s no malice in her question.

“I don’t know.” Lulu scrubs a hand across her cheeks to make sure her eyes aren’t leaking traitor tears.

“We’re never gonna be friends, are we,” Kiley says.

“No,” Lulu agrees. “Probably not.” They’ve wandered themselves near the parking garage entrance; she has to leave soon if she doesn’t want to have to pay for her spot. “I should go,” she says. “Thank you for talking to me.” And, after a pause, “Thanks for listening. Thanks for saving me from Molly. I owe you one.”

Kiley nods. “Sure,” she says. “I’ll remember that.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and glances at it. “Oh,” she says. “Bea just got out of a movie, if you want to say hi to her before you go.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

BEA GREETS LULU like nothing is wrong, like the last time they saw each other it wasn’t midnight on New Year’s Eve and Lulu wasn’t in the middle of a minor mental breakdown. “Hey,” she says, slinging an arm around Lulu’s shoulders before resuming the story she was telling Molly. “—Anyway, it was like, the nastiest on-screen kiss I’ve ever seen,” she says with a shuddering flourish.

“Ugh.” Molly shudders. “I’m so glad we decided not to go. Wanna see what we got at Madewell while you were suffering?”

“I would, but I’m, like, starving,” Bea says. “Lulu, you hungry?”

“I was thinking about eating,” Lulu says, and it isn’t even a lie.

“Wear it all on Monday!” Bea advises Molly. She blows kisses at Kiley and the rest of the group, and hustles herself and Lulu out of there so neatly that even Lulu, who’s watched Bea work for years now, is impressed.

“God,” Bea says when they’re clear. “That was already too much. I’m so not ready for school tomorrow.”

“That makes two of us,” Lulu says.

“What should we eat?”

“I really don’t care.”

“Hmmmm.” Bea contemplates their options. “Maybe let’s go to Eataly, and get a lot of snacks?”

“You know I love a snack tray.” This is a tradition they developed when Lulu first started sleeping over at Bea’s house: going to the grocery store and plundering the aisles for Doritos and Ruffles and Sour Patch Kids to eat while they streamed movies onto Bea’s parents’ flat-screen.

Eataly is way fancier than the Gelson’s they used to go to, though: Lulu accidentally picks out a twenty-five-dollar hunk of cheese before Bea notices, and makes her trade it out for something less outrageous. “Unless you want to put it on your credit card, princess,” she says.

Cass flashes in front of Lulu—Cass arguing with her about whether she was a JAP. Cass saying, I could be anything. “I don’t,” Lulu says.