She tilted her head. She’d never really thought about whether he was attractive or not because … gross. She noticed now there was something disarming in his eyes, like he cared too much. More than was appropriate. But she was probably projecting that. Or maybe that was his trick? The one he’d used to get into this mess with her mother? How many other women out there was he like that with? Or was it just her mom? How was she ever reliably going to be able to tell the difference between the Julians and Marwans of the world if her mother couldn’t?

“My mother,” Eden said slowly, “has her own garbage to deal with.”

He tried to read her more closely now, focused his eyes differently, then he said, “She’d want to know what you’re going through.”

“Yeah? You think?”

“Of course,” he said. “And, I mean, if it’s stuff you want to talk about with, like, well—not me and not your mom—reach out to someone, okay?”

“Yeah,” Eden said, “I’ll do that.”

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he said.

“Wasn’t feeling so hot.” She held up her bag. “Just popped out for a bagel.”

“Okay, well, feel better,” he said.

“I will,” she said, and she had the light so she crossed under the train.

“Eden!” he called out after her.

She felt obligated to turn.

“We cool?” he called out, turning his head so that he was still holding her gaze but with one ear forward, looking for a yes.

A train passed overhead—ripping a border of sound between them—and she took another easy out. She pointed at her ears, shook her head, and mimed, “I can’t hear you!” then waved and walked off.

Back at the house, she heard a ding from her mother’s laptop. She followed the next ding upstairs and found her mother’s laptop open on the desk in the den. It was the messaging app, and it showed a conversation with NH: Just bumped into Eden. She seemed off. Everything okay?

Her mother texted back: She knows about us.

Oh.

Stop texting me.

Okay. I will.

When her phone vibrated, she gasped, feeling caught. But her mother couldn’t know she was following along.

It was a text from Marwan: I couldn’t face school today.

Me neither.

She held her phone in her hand for a minute, and her finger brushed the emoji button. She looked at the “Frequently Used” gallery—a unicorn, a thumbs-up, and crying tears of joy.

He wrote, I’m at the library. Googling drones.

Can’t you do that at home? Or on your phone?

He wrote, I guess.

Then, I don’t know why but I’m like … paranoid? Also running out of data.

She sent him a thumbs-up, then asked, What branch?

It would be going against direct orders from her mother but whatever.