“How long?” I asked, and Bee’s brown eyes slid away from mine. My stomach was still rolling, and I tried to tell myself it was the smell of the rec center, all furniture polish and industrial carpet cleaner, making me feel sick.

“The night at the fair,” she told me, and I remembered now that Ryan had dropped Bee off last.

“We were both kind of freaked out by everything that went down that night, and it...” Tears spilled over Bee’s lower lashes, and she scrubbed at them with the back of her hand. “It just happened. I didn’t mean for it to, and I swear to God, I never looked at Ryan like that while y’all were dating.”

The thing was, I believed her. Bee had always been loyal, the best best friend a girl could have. It wasn’t jealousy that was making me want to cry. Ryan and I were more than done, and while things with me and David were not all that simple right now, there was still no one else I’d rather be with. So it wasn’t the actual kissing bugging me, it was the secrecy of it all. Bee had always told me everything, but she’d been keeping this a secret from me. I got it, but I didn’t like it.

“If you want us not to see each other anymore, I’d totally understand,” Bee said, and then Ryan came up behind her, laying one hand on her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, looking at me, but I was still staring at his fingers curled over her shoulder. Since the night of the fair, she’d said, but that had been just a week ago.

There was a lot of intimacy in the way Ryan’s hand lay there at the crook of her neck.

“Ryan,” Bee said, but he shook his head, a muscle working in his jaw.

“I was okay with Harper and David,” he said, “so Harper can be okay with me and you.”

“I am okay with you. Both of you,” I replied, but the words came out too fast. I thought of me asking David if we were okay, how quickly he’d answered me and how fake his answer had sounded. I guess I sounded every bit as fake, if the matching frowns on Bee’s and Ryan’s faces were anything to go by.

But for now, I didn’t care; I needed to get out of here.

“Seriously,” I told them as I turned to hurry back down the hall. “It’s fine. So super fine.”

Luckily, neither of them followed, and I managed to get to the dressing room, shucking off my leotard like it was on fire. I threw my clothes back on, and hurried out the back door of the rec center before anyone could see me. I’d e-mail Sara and tell her I’d gotten sick or something.