That made me think about Jake and Paul. I’d violated their truly fragile egos by not laughing at their stupid jokes, and it had led to a pretty awful sort of retribution. Jude—who’d walked with me on this particularly cold fall evening because I asked him to, who’d tried to make me feel better after I said a rude thing—was altogether different.

“I think your ego is just fine.”

“You do?” He leaned a little closer, like we were sharing secrets.

I had a flashback to all the girls swooning when he sang “Maria” at auditions. “Yeah,” I said dryly.

During the lull that followed, I checked my phone again: 6:17. He obviously wasn’t the type to care that he was late to movies, which made sense. I pictured him waltzing into the movie theater, asking everyone what he missed, and they’d all be glad to tell him, because he was Jude Jeppson, singer of songs, jumper on trampolines, enjoyer of life.

But I stopped myself from falling back into that easy picture of him, the one I’d drawn up over the last few days. It wasn’t that I thought his whole peppy vibe was fake now that I knew about his dad leaving. I just knew that he’d worked for it. That somehow he’d trudged through the weight of sadness and come out on the other side.

“So,” he finally said. “Would a horror movie about a zombie clown make you happy? Because that’s what I’m going to see.”

“That shouldn’t make anyone happy.”

He smiled. And I realized that, even though I’d only known of Jude Jeppson’s existence for five days, I could honestly say he had one of the best smiles I’d ever seen. I gave a quick wave and started walking toward my house, but I was still picturing his grin. It was happy and goofy and sweet and sincere. So sincere it drew me in and made me want to back away at the same time.

“Have a good weekend, Alina,” he called after me.

“You too.” I turned and watched Jude walk to the SUV, his steps light and elegant, as always.

CHAPTER SIX

MY PARENTS LEFT ME ALONE over the weekend, just like I’d planned. But Monday morning, as I tried to eat breakfast in peace, Mom started badgering me to “invite your musical friends Margot and Jude over to hang!”

I pretended I’d left something in my room and headed to the stairs. Josie blocked me halfway up.

“Will you pick me up from dance later? Dad’s playing at a jazz night thing and Mom has some talk she has to go to. I really don’t want to get a ride with Fiona’s mom. She keeps trying to sell me crystals.”

“So buy one to shut her up.”