Lulu doesn’t. She wants to be nice so badly it feels like it’s eating her up sometimes.

But underneath that, inconvenient and irrepressible, she has felt things that were wild and impulsive and impossible to ignore, things that sang under her skin until she had to find a way to let them out.

I feel a lot of dumb things, Lulu says.

I wish I didn’t, Kiley says.

Lulu says, Me too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LULU IS FOUR episodes deep into Ross and Rachel’s breakup when Cass messages her, Have you ever seen the Connie Wilmott Bluebeard?

No, Lulu sends back. I keep meaning to watch it.

My brother is doing a backyard screening thing here tonight, Cass says. If you want to come over for it.

Here? Lulu asks.

My house, she says.

Lulu has never been to Cass’s house before. It’s on the other side of town; there’s been no reason to drive all the way east when they’ve got The Hotel to themselves.

Last night, Lulu found out Cass had never kissed a girl before, but that she thinks she wants to. Cass found out that Lulu has kissed a girl and told the entire internet about it.

Now she’s inviting Lulu over.

Don’t freak out, she commands herself. It may just as well be an elaborate no-homo-even-though-we’re-both-kind-of-homos gesture. She should act like it is. That’s the safest move, for her pride and her sanity.

Sounds dope

Dope, really, Lulu?

Dope AFFFFF

You’re a dweeb

Lulu sends back a picture of herself sitting in bed. She showered last night after her conversation with Bea, trying to wash the discomfort off her body, and then fell asleep while her hair was still wet. Usually this would mean waking up to some kind of rat’s nest nightmare, but instead for once it just looks tousled, like magazine bedhead and not the actual messy thing. She wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out at the camera.

Exactly, Cass says. She sends Lulu her address. Movie starts around 8, she says. But if you want to come over earlier we can get dinner or something.

Cool, Lulu says. I’m in.

Cass’s older brother, Dylan, looks so much like Cass that Lulu sort of can’t figure out whether it’s weirder to be into him or not. They have the same angular faces and slightly suspicious gazes, the same slender, lanky limbs and flame-red hair. He lets Lulu in, and then balks when Cass appears wearing his plaid flannel, the same one she had on at the beach a few weeks ago.

“Oh come on,” he says.

“What, this old thing?” Cass plucks at a sleeve.

“You could at least pretend to respect me.”

“What would be the point of that?”

Dylan shakes his head and turns to Lulu. “I’m Dylan,” he says. “By the way.”

“Lulu,” Lulu says.