She turned back to Chloe, who had impressively replicated Vera’s cat eyes. “Awesome.”

Chloe beamed.

Laughter floated from the parking lot and Vera shifted her chin, straining to hear, though she needn’t bother. Their voices were loud enough.

Demonic Barbie.

Ghoul.

The words wrapped themselves around Vera’s chest and squeezed.

She closed her eyes. Demonic Barbie. Okay, that was a new one. Maybe it’s sort of a compliment. Barbies are pretty. Her brain tried to convince herself of this, but it didn’t stop her stomach from falling to the floorboards.

She opened her eyes and spied Maxwell grabbing the back of his friend’s shirt. He seemed to be pulling him away. Was Maxwell Oliver defending her? The corners of her mouth almost twitched up, then she heard Maxwell’s voice. “She’s nothing to me.”

The breath kicked out of her chest.

Her head hung.

Okay, he doesn’t know you any better than they do, she reasoned. You just started talking to him. Technically, you’re not friends. He just wants help. This is a business arrangement.

But, deep down, she didn’t want this to be a business arrangement, and for a moment, idiotically, she let herself believe that Maxwell saw her as something more than a green-faced ghoul with striped socks on a broomstick.

“Do you like my picture?” Chloe pointed to her blue cat with gigantic sad kitten eyes.

“Hmm-hmm.” Vera nodded, swallowing the insults.

She regained her composure as Maxwell sauntered up, his frayed surfer shoes stopping right beneath her line of sight. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t know they were coming.”

Vera nodded, pressing her lips together.

“They have a history of jackassery.”

At that, Vera lifted her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered again, lips downturned.

You weren’t sorry enough not to say it.

Maxwell peered at the drawings on the table, his sister happily scribbling, then he glanced at Vera with honey-brown eyes full of…what? Remorse? Good. He should feel bad.

“Will you still come tonight?” he asked, his voice croaking with fear that she’d change her mind, that she’d no longer be at his beck and call.

Demonic Barbie.

Ghoul.

Frog.

She owed him nothing. She owed no one in her school, in this town, a single thing.

But it wasn’t just about Maxwell, it was about Vera. She wasn’t the type of person who could ever say, “No, let your mother suffer!” It was also about his sister, a seven-year-old currently smiling with a gap where a front tooth should be. And it was about his mom, a woman who had already experienced enough trauma for a lifetime.

Besides, it was just a business arrangement.

“What time?” Vera asked.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Max

Max didn’t know if Vera would show. In fact, she had every reason not to. He scratched his buzzed head, regret coursing through him.

When he’d walked back to the table, her big eyes held the droopy gaze of a girl who heard too much. He’d called her nothing, and she was anything but. Only, he couldn’t explain that to his friends—he just wanted them out of there. Not because he was embarrassed of Vera, but because he didn’t have the energy to pretend to be the guy they wanted him to be, and he didn’t have the words to make sense of this for them.