David was still standing a few feet from the car, one hand at his waist, the other rubbing his mouth as he watched the traffic. Then, after a moment, I saw his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, and he walked back to the car.

When he slid back in the driver’s side, he didn’t even look at me, starting the car and staring straight ahead.

I took a deep breath, wishing it hadn’t sounded so shuddery. So that was that. We were done. Less than six months as a couple, and now it was over.

Maybe David was right and it was for the best.

We didn’t say anything else until David pulled up in front of my house.

“Both your parents are home,” he said, the car still idling.

“Probably because the school called them, and I’m about to be grounded for the rest of my life, if not imprisoned.”

“Right,” David said on a sigh, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Do you want me to go in with you, try to explain?”

I was going to cry. I could feel it in my throat, which suddenly seemed so swollen and painful I was surprised I could breathe. And the last person I wanted to see me cry right now was the boy sitting next to me.

“No,” I said. “I need to deal with this on my own.”

“Pres,” he said softly. In the dim light of the car, I could make out the freckles across the bridge of his nose, see the slight wobble of his chin, and I fumbled with the door handle as tears filled my vision.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said, getting out of the car as quickly as I could and slamming the door behind me.

I didn’t look back.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“WOULD IT HELP if I apologized again?”

I was sitting between my parents in Headmaster Dunn’s office on Monday morning, the leather of the chair sticking to my thighs underneath the white linen skirt I was wearing. I was all in white today, down to the thin ribbon headband in my hair, hoping to project an air of innocence, but so far, it didn’t seem to be working.

Headmaster Dunn still had an angry purple bruise on his right cheek, and the top of his bald head was red with anger, a vein pulsing steadily there. I’d never seen Headmaster Dunn angry before. God knows I’d never given him any reason to be before today, and for the first time, I got that—as a principal—he was pretty scary.

“Martin, you know this was very unusual behavior for Harper,” my dad said, resting his ankle on his knee. “And we don’t understand it any more than you do.”

“I panicked!” I insisted, wondering if going all wide-eyed would be taking the innocence thing too far. “There was a fire alarm, and—”