I’m worried Danielle is going to turn him into Party Andrew forever, that she’ll take the parts of him that make him unique and interesting and wonderful and ruin them, that she’ll flatten him under her power. But I have to accept it. I have to let them be together if that’s what he wants. It’s just going to take a little while to get used to.

•  •  •  •  •  •

“Did you and Andrew get in a fight?” Hannah asks me later on the way to lunch. “You guys have been acting so weird.”

Andrew is behind us at the end of the hallway with Chase, and he hasn’t called out to say hello to us, hasn’t even acknowledged he’s seen us. I feel guilty I haven’t told Hannah I went through with the Plan, but I try to push it aside.

“We’re fine.”

“Is this about the Danielle thing?”

“It’s just weird now,” I say. “You won’t tell her, will you? That he loves her?”

“Of course not!” Hannah says. “That’s his situation.” She peers back over her shoulder to where Andrew and Chase are laughing about something. “If Andrew’s in love with Danielle, I don’t know why he’d be friends with Chase.”

It didn’t occur to me until now that Andrew might have been upset at his party when Chase got with Danielle. He was so flustered when Danielle apologized to him at school. I guess Cecilia was his second choice that night. Someone else got the girl he wanted and then he got in trouble. But people don’t just stop being friends with Chase Brosner, not even over a girl.

Well, he has the girl now. Or, almost. He just has to tell her.

Danielle and Ava are already at the lunch table, matching green cups of coca-kale-a in their hands.

“That was so fun Saturday night,” Danielle says when Hannah and I sit down. “James Dean is très chic.”

“You guys hung out on Saturday?” Ava asks. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“It was a double date,” Danielle answers. “You would have been an odd number.”

“I could have found a date. I’m not a leper.”

“Hey, lepers can still find love,” I say.

“Lepers in Love,” Hannah says. “I would so watch that reality show.”

“Sure, Ava. I’m sure you could have found ten dates,” Danielle says. “That’s your specialty.” She rummages through her bag for her phone. “But not everything revolves around you. Maybe Collins and I wanted to hang out together.”

A small mewl escapes from Ava’s mouth, like she’s an injured kitten, and she leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

“It was last minute,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “We kind of just bumped into each other.”

“But Dean got us wine,” Danielle says, her eyes twinkling. “We went to Giovanni’s.”