She snickers. “Meghan came to fifth period with crumbs on her lips.”

“I still have her thank-you card,” I say mournfully. “Tacked up on my bulletin board, in case I ever get another urge to bend my no-dating rule.”

“Oh, Alice,” she says, her voice warm and amused. “It’s just like you to keep the card.” Her gaze falls back on the butterfly, and her smile falters. “Too bad my secret admirer isn’t anything like you.”

Something in her tone makes me swallow uneasily. Lalana doesn’t get creeped out. We could be staying over at her house, alone, and hear a strange noise. I would dive to the bottom of the sheets, squealing, while she’d just shrug and say that’s what old houses do. They settle.

Now she wiggles free the square of paper underneath the butterfly and raises her perfectly tweezed eyebrows. “Read it together?”

I nod, tucking my chin into her shoulder. Together, we scan the paper.

I love you, Lalana. But you don’t see me. Instead, you waste your time with other people who will never be worthy of your mind and soul. But hope must be strongest when hope appears lost. I believe in us, Lalana. So please. Open your eyes. See me. Before it’s too late for us both.

I read the letter again and then a third time, my stomach sinking. Because the secret admirer can only be one person.

“It’s Bandit,” I blurt. “I saw him in front of your locker this morning.”

There’s a hollowness in my chest, a churning to my insides. Is that…disappointment? It can’t be. So what if I was beginning to think Bandit was more than a cocky jock? I don’t like the guy. I barely know him. A few text messages and a single conversation don’t change that.

Lalana barks out a laugh. “No way. I saw him at the Wat Thai last weekend, and he traded me the bua loi his mom made for my psych notes. You know I have a weakness for warm coconut milk. I told him to put the notes in my locker when he finished copying them.”

“He could’ve returned the notes and left the butterfly,” I insist.

She squints, probably wondering why I’m pressing the issue. I’m not sure myself. Except the Voice targeted Bandit for a reason. She threw me in his path in the most embarrassing way possible. Why? Could he—or this “love” letter—have something to do with the mission?

“Look.” I point at the note. “He says you never notice him, even though he’s around. It fits. You two have been friends forever, but you don’t see him in a romantic light, the way he wants.”

She purses her lips. “I don’t know. It could be anybody. Like your brother’s friend, Zeke. He’s always staring at me in history class.”