Maddie hadn’t meant to; it just came out. But if that was what it took to make Lucy see reason—

“Besides,” Lucy said, pushing her shoulders back and trying to grow taller. “I’m not cheating. A tip or two isn’t cheating. You’re just jealous that he’s giving them to me and not you.”

“Not in this lifetime,” Maddie sniped, immediately wishing she could take back the words that could have and did come out of her mother’s mouth. “Whatever. Do what you want, Lucy, but I’m not having any part of it.”

Maddie grabbed her bag, plucked her canvas sneakers from the pink basket, and left before Lucy could try to convince her to stay, to hear her out. But Maddie wasn’t Delia, easily convinced to straighten her hair or have a Demo Day prep session while on a three-mile run.

Shoving open the door to the dorms, Maddie stepped outside, where the warmth of the sun hit her face—again. Every damn day. She tossed her head back, glaring at the constant blue sky and cheery puffs of pure white clouds, wanting to scream.

Rain, one day. Just one day. One day where the sky swallowed all color, painting everything gunmetal gray with murky clouds that hung low enough to touch and humidity that clung to your arm hairs . . . and maybe then she wouldn’t feel the three thousand miles so much.

Aimlessly, Maddie passed by summer students lying on towels on the lawn in front of the student center, reading everything from War and Peace to the Gumberoo series. She trudged down the spoke leading to the ValleyStart headquarters but turned around when she heard two teams having a heated debate on Objective-C versus Swift. She kept going past the rounded gym and park at the far edge of campus. All the while, she had to keep unclenching her fists.

She hadn’t been this upset since her parents charged into the living room two years ago, shouting loud enough to wake Danny and scare away the only friend Maddie had dared to make since she was twelve. The girl was newly transferred and into art, and Maddie was lonely. But she’d have never tried, never invited her over, had her parents not sat in that same living room with her at the family meeting she’d called and promised they were going to do better, be better—better parents, better spouses, better people.

They’d lied. The yelling about infidelities started out marriage-related, transitioned into the agency, and back again, a loop Maddie didn’t care to figure out.

She’d walked her almost new friend out the back door and read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to Danny, all the while fighting the burn behind her eyes at the memory of her parents reading the book—her favorite at his age—to her.