I throw myself at them, hugging hard, and then they can’t talk fast enough. About how Katherine couldn’t stand anymore not telling Nevaeh how she felt. How she had never felt that way before about anyone, ever, didn’t even recognize it. Or know what to do with it, for the longest time. But she was so overwhelmed by it tonight, by this incredible person on the stage with the brilliant, beautiful smile. She was so afraid she was ruining their friendship. And then Nevaeh kissed her, and they lost track of time.

They make fun of me for crying, but they’re crying too.

“It was Nevaeh,” I say to Katherine. Her crush, I mean.

“It was always Nevaeh,” Katherine says to me with a sweet smile.

When I confess what happened with Jack, they laugh at me because I’m still a little dazed, and my heart is still kind of fluttering. But we can’t talk about it more; we have to go, we know we do. It is getting so late and being here is dangerous, but it feels like we’re in a glittering, twinkling bubble, so we take just one selfie, heads close together, our eyes shining, and then we slip back to the dorm through the dark with our hearts as bright and full as the moon behind the trees.

19

“Get up, get up, get up!” Nevaeh is singing. She’s peering over my bunk, shaking me awake, and I groan, cling to Rachel the tiger, try to burrow into my pillow. She crawls up into bed and bounces. I squint up at her. Her face is above me, framed by a lightning-and-thundercloud of hair, smile as bright as my heart.

“How could you still be sleeping?” she demands.

I sit up, drag my fingers through my hair. “Did that really happen?”

“I told you we’d do it.”

We did, didn’t we? We threw an amazing performance, and we were gorgeous and people bought tickets and they cheered and laughed, and right, we were gorgeous, and it worked. And Nevaeh and Katherine! And—yes, I kissed Jack. I am pretty sure that isn’t something I dreamed.

“We did it!” I grab her and hug her. “We did it. I never doubted that we’d do it.”

She snorts at that. “And,” she says, “guess who’s going to Milan this summer?”

She hands me her phone. I blink at the number in our cash app. We are almost halfway to our goal. Halfway to Angles. Burst of joy in my heart, and I hug Nevaeh again.

“Taylor got the next batch of invites out while you slept the morning away, because that boy just won’t listen and stay safe,” Nevaeh says, brushing my hair behind my ear. She grins. “I guess the rumors are spreading.”

“This is unbelievable,” I say.

“I believe it!” she says, bouncing down off the bed.