All at once it comes to me; I know what I have to do.

“When we get back to campus, can I borrow your car?”

I know she’s considering whether maybe she’s going to add to Chaz’s sins, but to my relief, she says yes. She is doing what she does best: taking care of me, taking care of Chaz, trying to do the right thing as much as she can. Tonight, I see it so clearly, even though I’m pretty used to taking it for granted at home. Someday, I’ll thank her for all of it.

I am sitting in Ma Elena’s parked car, engine off, on the lawn where recreation is held. The baseball diamond lights aren’t on, so the field is just a dark expanse stretching all the way to where the school’s property ends. The field is far enough from the dorms and other buildings that they cast no light my way. If you were to walk up this hill now, as Chaz is about to do, you might not even notice the car. I have borrowed Leeza’s mixtape, without telling her why. I changed into my best outfit (thanks Chess King!), and now I am waiting for his appearance.

Ma Elena has cooked up a little lie: she told Chaz to go to the field because she saw me on the bleachers, and I looked upset. She said he’s such a total Care Bear, he’d never question why she was asking him to go instead of just checking on me herself. I hope she’s right because it occurs to me now that if Buckman or Frohmeyer show up, my cover story is weak. I had planned to say that Ma Elena needed something from her car but, duh, she has already taken all the decorations we bought inside.

Listening to a symphony of crickets, I seek out my constellations in the velvet sky. I look to the Big Dipper, its stars twinkling. The stars all look especially brilliant, and I swear there are more of them than ever. If you flung diamonds into the air and they never came down, it would look like this. If I were home, I’d text Nix a photo, and they’d get it immediately.

Finally, Chaz appears over the hill. He is heading for the bleachers, puzzled at my absence, and I let him get to the bottom step, where he stops, completely baffled before I turn on the headlights—two beams of white sluice across the grass, ribbons of illumination on the shadowed field. He faces the light but hesitates. “Weese?”

Tentatively, he takes a step toward the car, and I turn on the song “Drive.”

The question of who is going to drive him home tonight floats on the air, closing the distance between us.