The next day, Scarlett got superpowers. Her brain bounced quickly along, remembering details of articles read long before in International Politics, and an obscure verb she didn’t even remember learning in French. It allowed her to make a comment so intelligent in English that it concluded a fifteen-minute discussion. For a few hours, she wondered if she just might be a genius.

That there was a possibility that she might be seeing Eric, that he might call at any point, well, perhaps that had something to do with the pulse and the charge. It didn’t slow as the day went on, and by Biology, with no call or message, it was so high and frantic that she couldn’t even listen or concentrate enough to be annoyed by Max or take any notes. Her brain was burning.

When she emerged at the end of the day, the air was sticky and the sky had a greenish tint. There was an inescapable promise of a storm, something ugly and massive that would wash out the streets and flood the subways. She hurried in the direction of Mrs. Amberson’s to walk Murray, her brain giving her the vague warning that this was not something she wanted to be caught in. Dakota, however, was positively glowing. She had done her job so well the night before that Scarlett was left waiting at the theater for almost a half hour. She accompanied Scarlett on her walk across Central Park to Mrs. Amberson’s, detailing everything she and Spencer had talked about. She wasn’t even making her usual effort to sound unexcited.

“Didn’t he…didn’t you say there was some girl he liked all summer, someone from the show?”

“Stephanie,” Scarlett said absently. She was clotheslined at ankle level by a dog leash because she was busy looking at her phone. And she could only get away with this behavior because Dakota was so consumed in her awkward questions about Spencer. They were mutually guilty.

“Oh right, yeah. Whatever happened with her?”

“Nothing,” Scarlett replied.

“Stop looking at that phone,” Dakota said. “Stop looking at that phone or I’ll eat it.”

Scarlett sighed, and shoved it in her pocket.

“He thinks I’m pressuring him,” she heard herself say. “I shouldn’t have given him the ticket. But he looked like he wanted to go. He was laughing.”

Dakota stepped ahead and stretched out her arm to prevent Scarlett from going any farther.

“I say this as someone who loves you. It’s going to keep happening. So either you stop dealing with him, or you stop talking about it. But this has to be done. You’re making me crazy.”

“I just felt like something was going to happen today,” Scarlett said. “Something huge. I can’t explain it.”