Lex follows my gaze. “I knew it!” he hisses, and he gives me a scolding look. “You’ve been keeping secrets.” His eyes are a hopeful shade of blue, and I can tell he wants this for me. Wants me to have something. Someone. Like he has now. With Jude. The two of them suddenly have inside jokes. And their bodies seem drawn together by some kind of invisible magnet. Knee touching knee in the cafeteria. Shoulder brushing shoulder on the sea porch steps. It hadn’t surprised me a bit when I caught them holding hands for the first time last night, outside the barn during a rehearsal break.

“Potential,” Lex tells me. “Remember, Av? You just have to be open to the possibilities.”

I reach into my pocket and feel the smooth bits of sea glass. But I have no idea how I feel about Cole Culver right now, except I’m starting to have this feeling that we wouldn’t be good for each other.

At lunchtime, Willa appears in the cafeteria doorway. She motions for me to come with her, so I grab a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup and follow her to the sea porch.

“How’d you feel about the first rehearsal?” she asks me as I ease my tray onto the picnic table directly across from her. She’s looking at me with those intense eyes of hers, so I pretend to be focused on not spilling my soup. I’m afraid if she sees my face, she’ll know somehow. About what happened last night. After the theatre.

On the beach.

In the sound.

“It was great,” I say. “It felt really good.” And that part’s not a lie.

It was later when everything went wrong.

Willa looks relieved. “You were a dream to work with,” she tells me. “Just like your mother. It’s almost like having Nicole onstage again.” She looks at me for a few seconds. “You don’t know what a gift that is for me, Avril.”

“Is that why you gave me the lead?” It’s something that’s been nagging at me since she called my name and Jude handed me my script. I’ve seen the way some of the other girls stare. The way they whisper, and how their heads swivel in my direction when I walk into the room. Almost like I pulled off some kind of trick. That’s why I’d planned to keep my secret until after auditions were over. Until after the cast was announced. I didn’t want there to be any doubts about whether or not I earned my part, fair and square.