She refused Maddie’s offer to wash out her cuts, didn’t answer when Lucy asked if she was all right. She just walked to the desk and used Lucy’s computer to show them.

Lucy’s face paled.

Maddie’s eyes turned cold.

No one spoke, so, finally, Delia did. “What are we going to do? Demo Day’s in a week!”

No response.

“Should we report it? We should report it.”

“Because that worked so well last time,” Maddie said.

They both looked to Lucy. But she was staring at the floor. She mumbled something about needing air, covered her eyes with her butterfly-frame sunglasses, and headed for the door. Delia wanted to stop her, to keep her here, with them, so they could figure this out, together. But she was out the door before Delia could find the words to make her stay.

“How could this have happened?” she said to Maddie. To the Maddie who’d arrived on day one. Sullen and distant.

Without a word, Maddie lifted her bag off the top bunk and left.

Delia stood in the center of the room—alone.

She shut Lucy’s laptop. She couldn’t have the code—her code—staring at her. She spun around, not knowing if she should stay or go. Finally, she slumped onto her bed, her head sinking into the pillow that Lucy had insisted she keep. She pulled her eyes away from the Ada Lovelace quotation under her bunk and rested them instead on her mom’s suitcase. Each of its stickers soon blurred as she gave in to her tears. Her body began to tremble and her head started to swim and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in her bunk, in the room, not even the hall that she stumbled into.

She was suffocating, hot, burning up, spots blinking in front of her eyes. Her hearing dulled and her stomach rocked with nausea.

Disoriented, she whirled in place, searching for the right way to go, for which end of the hall led to the balcony . . . to air. On her last circle, she saw it. She staggered down the hallway, shoved the door open, and rummaged in her pockets until she found her phone. Dizzy, she gulped down air, but her heart still beat in her ears as she jammed her finger on the call button.

“Delia!” her mom crooned. “How’s everything? We want to know everything, every detail. Here, I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Mom, I—”

“Hanging ten yet?” her dad said.

Delia had no hope of giving him the laugh he wanted. She grappled for words, still light-headed and woozy.

“Dad, Mom, I’m not sure what’s happening—”

“Because we haven’t been keeping in touch,” her dad said. “We wanted to wait until things were final before—”