“We’ll go out for lunch,” he says. He points a finger at me. “I meant what I said to you when I first started training you. There’s a champion in there, I know it.”

I mope around the house the rest of Sunday. My mom’s out getting groceries, so it’s just me and Claire. Honestly, I wish she weren’t there, and I know it’s not her fault, but every time I look at her, she just reminds me of Heather. All that privilege, wealth, and entitlement, the fact that she can order anything—a car, a home, a mom.

I used to think debate was a way out from all that, but now I’m not so sure.

My Messenger dings.

Hey, you busy?

It’s Zach.

No. Where are you? I text back.

I’m at the library.

I look around my room and grab my keys.

Be right there.

I grab a granola bar from my desk and head out. I stop for a second in front of Claire’s room, debating whether to tell her I’m leaving. She’s studying. I will say, that girl studies a lot. I head out without disturbing her.

Zach’s sitting on the curb by the entrance of the library when I get there. His notes and papers from class are sprawled before him.

“I forgot the library closes early on Sundays,” he says, frowning at his notes. “I’m in deep shit in bio, and we have a test.”

I sit down next to him.

“What are you guys doing in bio?” I ask. I’m in AP, and he’s in regular.

He tells me they’re on cell cycles. Bio’s probably my least favorite subject, but on a day like this, I welcome any and all distractions. I grab his notes and flip through them. He’s gotten some of the terms mixed up, and I pull out a blank piece of paper from his notebook to draw out the difference between the interphase and the mitotic phase so he’ll remember.

“And this”—I point to the line in the middle of an animal cell—“is how they split.”

“And what’s that line called?” Zach asks.

I tell him it’s called the cleavage furrow. His left eyebrow tilts slightly as he looks at me.

“The what furrow?” he asks.

“The cleavage furrow,” I say, blushing.

As I say this, his eyes wander down my neck. I tell myself it’s nothing, just a biological reflex; boys are biologically incapable of talking about breasts or cleavage without checking it out. And, really, there’s not that much to check out.

“Cleavage furrow, got it. Won’t forget that,” he says, blushing.

“Or Golgi vesicles,” I add.

He smiles. He turns his head to one side. The rays of the sun hit his blond hair. “You’re, like, the smartest girl I know,” he says.