“Ahem,” I say, feeling awkward, not only because we’re interrupting their heated moment, but also because I’m all too aware of Ollie next to me, and the fact he never got a chance to tell me about his feelings. There’s no way he’s watching these two and not thinking about…whatever it was he was planning to say to me last night, at the dance.

The couple doesn’t budge or make any sign that they’ve heard me. They continue kissing, getting more enmeshed in each other. I raise an eyebrow at Ollie.

“We could go around the back way?” he whispers.

Before I can answer, the girl whisks her shirt off and throws it into the bushes. The boy pushes the girl up against a tree trunk, and I catch a glimpse of her coppery hair and realize who she is: Tessa Leroy. How did I not realize it before? That’s her purple bomber jacket on the ground, next to her patent leather booties.

She’s in only her bra now—a lacy purple one that’s a shade darker than her jacket. She and the boy are going at it, all arms and legs and touching in all the places, and I wonder where this is coming from. Maybe she’s been feeling a lot of pent-up sexual frustration or something, since she’s been at Creekside all this time.

“Somehow I imagined the treatment facility would make her really zen,” I whisper to Ollie. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Isn’t that Henry Blackstone?” Ollie’s nudging me in the side, indicating the boy. I hear moaning, and I cringe, turning away from them. We have got to get out of here.

“Wait.” I stop in my tracks. “You mean the kid who asked Theodora out like five times last year?” I rack my brain to remember.

“I guess. I wasn’t here for that. But in our second year, Henry was pretty vocal about wanting to date Tessa. She repeatedly turned him down,” Ollie remarks.

That sounds right. I vaguely recall Tessa telling Madison and Jake she’d rather eat nails than go out with Henry. What changed? Why would she suddenly want to hook up with Henry, of all people? Did he get hot over the summer? It’s possible…

“Let’s go.” I grab Ollie’s hand. We’ll have to take the long route.

We turn and leave, right when it seems these two are about to get even more into each other. I think I hear them collapsing on the ground in a sweaty, hormone-fueled heap. I can’t get out of there fast enough.

I try to make small talk with Ollie the rest of the way to the dorms, hoping I can get his mind off of what we both just saw, but it’s a struggle. Before, we would have just laughed off a scene like that. Now, it feels loaded.