Annalisa scoffs. “Clearly not. He had time to come to Luke’s apartment, figure out which one was his, get a brick, attach a note to it—”

“We get it, we get it.” I cut her off. “But how—?”

“Um, it might be my fault.”

We all look at Chase. He’s got a french fry half raised to his mouth, his face growing red as we stare at him.

“What do you mean? How could it possibly be your fault he’s crazy?” Annalisa asks.

“No, not the crazy part, but the how he knew you were here part.” He finishes the fry and awkwardly dusts off his hands.

Everyone turns their full attention to him. Julian, Noah, and Aiden pause, too, holding the plywood in midair.

Chase takes a breath. “I ran into him at the gym earlier. And you know him, running his mouth, being annoying, and talking about how I hang around with white trash, etcetera, etcetera.”

Julian raises an eyebrow at us at the white trash part, as if to say See? He’s manifesting.

When Chase doesn’t continue, Annalisa prompts him. “And?”

He looks sheepish. “And I may have told him that you girls were here at Luke’s to prove his innocence.”

The room explodes with disbelief and exhausted choruses of “Chase!” and “Why?!” and “Seriously?!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He defends himself. “Ryan just gets under your skin, you know?”

“And you guys thought I was the one who’s bad at keeping secrets,” Noah mumbles.

“You still are,” Mason replies.

“Nuh—”

Mason cuts off Noah’s denial. “How about the time you told our freshman homeroom class that I asked out Tammy Klied but she told me she’d rather eat dirt than go out with me.”

Whoa. Tammy Klied’s rude.

Noah tilts his head as if thinking. “Okay, that’s fair. But to this day, I’ve never told anyone that you believed in Santa Claus until you were, like, fourteen. I’m taking that to my grave.”

“Noah!” Mason exclaims.

“What? I didn’t . . . ohhhh.” Realization dawns on Noah, and he starts laughing. “Okay, but come on. That’s hilarious.”

Mason mutters some insults and throws a crumpled-up take-out menu at Noah, who’s still laughing.

“Anyway,” Annalisa draws the conversation back. “What are we doing about Ryan?”

“I thought we were done starting wars with Ryan and friends?” I jump in quickly.

We cannot keep escalating things. We cannot give him more fuel to look into us, into me. We cannot let him keep ruining the time I have left with my friends.

Annalisa folds her arms across her chest. “We’re not the ones starting a war! We’re just gonna be the ones finishing it.”

I look helplessly at Aiden, who’s already looking at me, as everyone throws out suggestions.

“Why don’t we finish it by focusing our energy on getting Luke out of jail?” he proposes.

The room quiets down as it sinks in that Aiden’s right.

“Did you guys find anything?” Julian asks, walking around the tool bag to stand next to Annalisa.