I keep my head down but can still feel Neil’s gaze on me.

After it’s sorted out, tonight Dad and I can have a good laugh during Chinese Food and Classic Movie Monday. Obviously he was onto something when he said I’d let this get to me. Applying to colleges has caused me to lose my mind.

“My weekend was good,” Neil replies to Dana.

“Oh?” Dana says, her voice sounding strained. “I figured you were swamped since you didn’t return my texts.”

“Yeah …” I quickly glance up and see Neil rubbing the back of his head. “It was really busy.”

I bite the inside of my cheeks to stop from smiling. Neil was ignoring Dana. He wouldn’t be doing that if he was asking her out, right? RIGHT?

It’s not like I have anything against Dana, per se. Her quest to topple my top ranking in class honestly helps. It motivates me. I probably wouldn’t be close to a 4.0 grade point average if she weren’t so aggressive about, well, everything. It’s the way she approaches things—like everybody has to know about each little achievement she gets. Her online profiles (all in her real name because why post something if she can’t get the credit?) are a stream of her daily accomplishments. The only reason the entire school knows about my GPA is because Dana is constantly talking about her score and how close she is to beating me.

At the end of the day, it’s probably not only about being number one. She wants to get up on that stage and give the valedictorian speech at graduation. Honestly, she can have that. My goal has always been about the scholarship money.

But now there’s this Neil factor. Dana usually gets what she wants. And I don’t want her to get Neil.

“I heard about Lee’s party,” Dana says with a hint of envy.

Who didn’t hear about the party? It’s not uncommon for people to show up to one of the Gleasons’ many parties uninvited. It happens often, and that person is greeted with open arms. What’s one more person when there are so many of them?

But there’s no way I’m going to share that piece of information with Dana.

“Well,” Dana continues, “I spent Saturday in De Pere, where our debate team took first place.”

She pauses so Neil and I can congratulate her. We both oblige, albeit unenthusiastically.

“Thanks. We’re undefeated this year.”

Another pause from Dana, but Neil and I both remain silent this time. “Yes. Then yesterday morning I volunteered at the nursing home.”

Pause.

Good Lord. Don’t people volunteer to do something good for other people instead of waiting to be congratulated? Although I doubt Dana would even wake up in the morning without praise or a filtered selfie.