But skipping—that wasn’t in her. She was programmed to obey. Scarlett staggered into the building. The computer screens in the hall seemed too bright, and had too much information on them—this activity was being moved to a new room, this class had completed such and such a project, the jazz band was performing at fourth period lunch if anyone wanted to go. The day went every bit as badly as Scarlett suspected, and she developed a massive headache in third period that never went away. But Biology brought the worst news of all. She blinked and stared in front of her, at the word EXAM written on the board.

“If you’ve had a good look at the syllabus,” Ms. Fitzweld said, “you’ll see that your grade is based on five exams over the course of the year, and the first of these will be next Monday.”

“I hope you study,” Max said, leaning close. “I always try to sit next to a winner. There’s no point in cheating otherwise.”

“Max,” Scarlett said calmly, “I swear to God, I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up right now. I will kill you dead.”

“You just violated the no-tolerance violence policy in a huge way.”

“It’ll be worse when I put my pen in your eye.”

Surprisingly, he backed off. But she could feel him watching her the whole period.

“Oh, Martin,” Dakota said, putting a hand on her shoulder after class. “You are structurally unsound right now. I have some of those big chocolate chip cookies from Fairway. Here.”

It was like she was six years old all of a sudden. But Dakota was right. This is what she needed. She took a big bite of the cookie, feeling the warm chocolate smudge around her mouth.

“Married,” she said, spitting crumbs by accident as she walked down the hall. “Married? What does that even mean?”

“Some people get married at eighteen,” Dakota offered. “I mean, no one I know, but people do. People used to do it all the time.”

“She doesn’t even like him that much! She broke up with him a few months ago. She’s just bored. You don’t get married when you’re eighteen because you’re bored.”

Scarlett ate the rest of the cookie in three angry bites.

“She can undo it,” Dakota said after a moment. “It’s not like it’s forever.”

“It’s kind of forever,” Scarlett replied. “She said she’s not going to, you know, get divorced.”

“She’s saying that now. She’s only been married for five minutes. Once they realize what they’ve done…”

“Once they realize what they’ve done, Lola will be rich. She probably already is.”

Scarlett said it without even meaning to. It just came out of her mouth, a total surprise, like a frog had just sprung forth.

“There is that,” Dakota said quietly. “Do you think that…that Lola…”