“I could drive you back, you know,” they tell me.

“I’ve got to do this alone,” I tell them. “But it’ll be worth it.”

“And I can’t bribe you to tell me what you’re doing?”

“Give me a kiss and I’ll think about it.”

They do just that, a short kiss on my lips.

“Okay, bye!” I wave, climbing into the Uber.

“You said that you’d tell me!”

“I said I’d think about it, and I decided not to tell you.”

“Jerk!”

And with that, the Uber drives away.

I’ve had this plan for a few hours now, and I really think that it’ll be something special if I can pull it off. I fell through on my promise to take them to the Hollywood Sign, but I can still give them that first dance.

The Uber drops me off at school, and I have to go to the office to sign the form that I’m back on campus before I go to my room. It’s still the same as before, nothing different besides missing some clothes and things that we took to California.

I didn’t give Wyatt a time when I definitely should have.

I also should’ve asked their parents to make sure that Wyatt’s here tonight, but here we are. I only have a few hours to make this work, so I need to get started. I shower and get dressed in clothing that actually fits me before I go back out into the city. Well, I still pull on Wyatt’s hoodie. I like the way it feels.

My first stop is Michaels, where I load my cart with fairy lights and fake plants. It doesn’t even matter to me if they match—I just need the decoration. Then I go to Target, and I buy white sheets, except they don’t have a ton of plain ones, so I end up getting some with tiny dots and faded stripes. It doesn’t matter; it’ll all look good in my head. And on my way out of Target, I grab a wireless speaker and some thumbtacks, a very strange haul.

This should be easy, this will be fun, and Wyatt will love it.

They will.

They have to.

When I’m back at Steerfield, I get to work on transforming our room, using the thumbtacks to pin the sheets to the wall in various layers.

This will probably be what Wyatt is most angry about; they’ve always been adamant about not being charged for damages to the room.

But I can only hope it’ll be easier to ask for forgiveness than it will be for permission.

As I’m hanging up the last sheet to the wall, blocking off a good portion of the room, my phone vibrates in my pocket.

A text from Wyatt.

WYATT: Parents are bringing me down around seven

ME: Sounds good.