Jaya didn’t remark on the obvious avoidance of her question because she was quite pleased with the direction the topic change had taken them. “I asked him, and he agreed. Although, I couldn’t help but wonder if he—if there’s something bothering him. He seemed… disconcerted. And then he left.”

Daphne Elizabeth shook her head. “Yeah, I love Grey, but man, he’s the tortured soul of our group.”

Jaya sat on the bench next to Daphne Elizabeth. “And why is that? He said he doesn’t date, but he made it sound like—like he can’t date, perhaps.”

“You’re telling me,” Daphne Elizabeth said. “We’ve all tried to get him to open up about that, but he won’t. It’s like he’s punishing himself for no reason.” She paused. “Or no reason that he trusts us enough to share with us, anyway.” Her gaze suddenly shifted to something behind Jaya’s back. She swung her feet around and sat up straight. “Um… I’ve got to go now.”

Jaya turned around just as someone stepped around the corner, out of sight. Someone with shiny black shoes, a very nicely cut black suit, and blond hair. She turned back to Daphne Elizabeth. “Alaric?”

Daphne Elizabeth put one finger to her lips. Her candy apple–red lip gloss shimmered under the recessed lighting overhead. “Don’t judge me.” She said the words lightly, but Jaya sensed a weightiness just under the surface.

“No judgment,” she said honestly.

“I have thought about what you said to me the other day in my room, you know, why I feel the need to be with Alaric?” Daphne Elizabeth said, playing with the tattered hem of her dress. “I can’t stop thinking about it, in fact.”

“And?” Jaya prompted her gently, sensing there was an “and” floating between them.

“And… I still don’t know why. Every time I think about how we’re doing this to Caterina, how I’m complicit in something so mean and heartless, I feel sick to my stomach. But then there’s this other part of me, and that DE? That DE really wants the attention Alaric throws her way, everyone else be damned.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid the other DE is getting louder. Sometimes I think I should just break it off with him. But then I think about being alone again, having Alaric look through me, being totally invisible to him just like when I go home…” She shivered a little. “I can’t keep away from him, Jaya.” She hung her head. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. Absolutely nothing. But, Daphne Elizabeth?”

Daphne Elizabeth looked at her. “Yeah?”