As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I had no idea what I was doing. Giving advice from my computer was one thing. I could choose my words precisely, and I could always consult one of my books or YouTube coaches if something took me by surprise. Face-to-face? Different ball game. What if I stumbled or couldn’t be sure of myself? Or I misremembered a piece of advice and made the wrong call? Or, most likely of all, what if I let Brougham’s grating personality blind me from approaching things systematically and logically?

Stop it, I scolded myself. You’ve given advice hundreds of times. You know this stuff inside out. Don’t let a stupid, presumptuous guy intimidate you. You’re the expert here.

Still, my heart jumped and tumbled when the last bell rang.

I gathered up my stuff and headed to the library to get a start on my homework. I could’ve used Mom’s classroom, but the thing is, she couldn’t help but chat at me about her day when I sat in there, even if I told her I needed to concentrate.

The minutes trundled by like time itself was coated in molasses, until finally, the clock ticked over to three twenty-five, and it was time for me to pack up, head to the pool, and get this the hell over with.

I got to locker eighty-nine a few minutes before Brougham was due to meet me, and I took the opportunity to check for witnesses and collect that day’s haul. Three letters. Not bad. Prom was coming up in a few months, so this time of year always saw an influx of pleas for help from senior students. At the start, it’d given me a giddy thrill to give advice to students so much older than me, who’d never look twice at me in the hallway, let alone treat me with any measure of respect or deference. Now the thrill was long gone, and it was replaced by a new level of empathy.

There was nowhere to sit in the hallway, and honestly, I’d never been overly fussy about getting a little dirty, so I plopped right on the linoleum floor with my back against the lockers and settled in to scroll through my phone while I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Three lifetimes later, I was perfectly done with waiting, thank you very much. Fucking Alexander Brougham. Meet me at three forty-five, he’d said. Well, here I was. And he was where, exactly?

Muttering a few choice insults under my breath, I got to my feet and stomped down the hall, through the double doors, and into the aquatic center. I didn’t love it in there; the air always felt sticky and humid, thick with chlorine, and sound echoed in a way that didn’t feel quite right. Like it weighed more, somehow.