“Why did he take it? Why not just leave it there, like in case you went back for it?”

“I don’t know, Anjali. I can’t read his mind.”

“I thought you liked Julian Stokes,” Thea said.

A mini-meatball clogged Eden’s throat. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Anjali.”

“You told her?” Eden said after swallowing.

“Didn’t know it was a secret!”

Eden was about to grill her about anyone else she might have told when she spotted Ilanka over Thea’s shoulder. She left her spoon to float in her soup and got up. “I’ll be right back.”

She crossed the crowded room and stopped at the table where Ilanka was sitting. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Eden said.

“I guess?” Ilanka made a funny face at her friends, then stood and turned to Eden.

“We need to meet Eli under Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria Park after school. Something to do with the thing from yesterday.”

“No thanks,” Ilanka said.

“But you have to,” Eden said, feeling it to be true. Had there really been or had she only imagined a sort of panic in Eli’s texts about meeting up?

“No, I don’t,” Ilanka said.

Eden had never really liked Ilanka—for no good reason, really—but now felt her opinion had been confirmed.

Julian was one table away. She could turn his way and casually say hi. If she could only find the nerve. Was he watching her? She hoped so and hoped not.

“Ilanka,” Eden said. “I know we’re not friends or anything, but you were there so you’re part of this.”

“You guys actually took it?” Ilanka shook her head. “You should have left it there.”

“You have to come,” Eden said firmly.

“I don’t take orders from a little black cube, and I don’t take them from you either.”

Ilanka went to sit back down, and Eden’s anger rose from her toes to the roots of her hair. How did you get to be like that? How did you get to be the kind of person who just didn’t worry or care? When she turned to say hi to Julian—or even just smile?—he was looking the other way.

She met eyes with Marwan across the room; he’d been watching. She shook her head no.

They’d go anyway.

Or at least she would.

She was the only one she could control.

Didn’t her therapist say that again and again?

“I’m onto you,” Anjali said when Eden got back to the table. “Something funny’s going on.”

“If you say so,” Eden said brightly, and closed her thermos lid tight.

Marwan

MARWAN