“Okay, I know you said it’s not a Brougham thing, but if it were, I would die.”

“Die?” Of … jealousy? The stirring perked back up, hopefully.

“Yes. It’s been forever since you liked someone”—false, but I guessed she didn’t know that—“I feel like we never get to gush over you.”

The stirring returned to hibernation.

“I didn’t really see you with a guy,” Brooke went on, “but I guess a het relationship would have its pros. Not that I know why you’d opt for a guy when there are perfectly good women around, but I’m biased.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a het relationship, would it?” I asked. “Because I’m not straight.”

“No, obviously. That’s not what I meant. I just mean you wouldn’t have to deal with homophobic bullshit.”

“Yeah, I know what you meant.” But it still didn’t sit right.

By the lockers, Marie Leider, a girl from my history class, stood clutching her books to her chest and grinning, red-cheeked and wide-eyed, while Elijah Gekhtman waved his hands around in excitement. “… know there was someone else at school who’d even heard of it,” he was saying. “What episode are you up to? I got to seventy-something last year, but then…”

“Anyway, do you need a lift home?” Brooke asked, and I dragged my eyes away from Marie as a warmth simmered around my heart. Seemed like Marie had found common ground with someone.

“Nah I’m good, I’ll just wait for Mom.”

Brooke widened her eyes at me with a knowing smile. “Okaaaay.”

“What? What was that?”

“Nothing.” She grinned and walked off, clasping her hands together behind her back. “Have so much fun hanging around here talking to only your mom for the next hour.”

“You’re reading into it,” I called out after her, and her laugh echoed in the emptying halls.

I rolled my eyes and headed through the hallways to Mom’s classroom. It was empty, which either meant that today’s last class had been exceptionally tidy, or, more likely, that she’d gotten annoyed with them and forced them to stay back for a few minutes and clean it up at the end of class as punishment.

So I wandered upstairs, through the teacher’s lounge—where I paused to greet Sandy (Ms. Brouderie), Bill (Mr. Tennyson), and a teacher whose name I couldn’t remember (but who clearly knew me)—to reach Mom’s office.

She was surrounded by messy stacks of papers and typing away at her laptop on a long bench-desk that accommodated three other teachers. None of them were here, though.