A wave of anxiety spikes over me, stinging like nettles. How can I possibly get out of this? Lucy already told everyone I’d help. I’ll look like a total jerk if I turn up empty-handed now.

I don’t have a choice.

“Fine,” I say bitterly. “I’ll grab something.”

“I will make it up to you, I swear.” Someone shouts nearby, and for a moment Lucy is distracted with laughter. And I guess she’s said all she needs to say, because the call ends abruptly.

So much for my grand plans of hiding out undetected near the guacamole and bean dip until Finn arrived.

I glance at my wrist, watching the screen go black. Lucy has been my friend for a long time, but she’s also not been my friend for a long time. I’m not even sure when things started to change.

Sometimes I think we grew up and became different people and stayed friends only because we didn’t know how to break the habit.

I let out a strained exhale. “Ophelia, have I ever told you how much I appreciate our friendship? You’re a good listener, for one, and even though you know what emotional blackmail means, you’ve never tried to use it on me. That’s hard to come by these days.”

“Thank you. I am quite fond of you, too,” the pleasant voice replies.

I know Ophelia doesn’t mean it. She’s an AI, after all. But it still makes me grin.

Most people don’t talk to their O-Techs the way I do, but I’m the kind of person who sobbed their eyes out when the Mars rover’s battery died. And for all the times Ophelia has kept track of my homework assignments and given me pep talks when I’ve been feeling down, of course I was going to end up treating her more like a friend than a program.

I pull into the first gas station I see, with a racing heart and heat burning my cheeks. I’m not used to getting in trouble—ever. I practically embrace rules, and I’ve never done anything that would genuinely upset my parents before. I have a fake ID, but it’s only because I didn’t want to miss out on Dad’s big panel for Tokyo Circus—the graphic novel he practically wrote for me—just because Hero Con has a ridiculous “All under-eighteens must be accompanied by an adult” rule.

But buying alcohol for a bunch of underage drinkers? I don’t think my parents would react well to that.

Cursing under my breath, I pin my eyes to the glass doorway and see that it’s mostly empty inside. If I show up to the cabin without any alcohol, I will literally be ending high school as the person who ruined our graduation party.

I don’t know if I can forgive Lucy for this amount of pressure.