WINSTON: sigh. here we go … it was this flying contraption made by da vinci?

so caleb and i worked on this for months, making our own

brought it to school one day

and i guess that was the day a bunch of the other kids decided i was punchable

EVE: omg!

WINSTON: a loser

they broke the ornithopter and punched me a few times

a piece of my glasses actually sliced under my eye. you can still see the scar

wasnt that bad tho

EVE: it sounds bad!

WINSTON: Caleb stopped them. We grew up on the same block and all that ya know

EVE: that’s like me and Nessa

WINSTON: I guess. Except Nessa is still cool

EVE: she’s a huge nerd haha like me

WINSTON: I mean she’s still nice. Super nice. Caleb is … ya know …

brodys friend

EVE: I’m sorry. I can’t imagine Nessa changing like that. I mean, we’re really different and sometimes that’s hard, but still

WINSTON: now he just texts rose and watches stupid videos online all day

EVE: ugh I’m sorry

WINSTON: sorry this is probably boring

EVE: it’s not! Sometimes I think Nessa thinks I’m. I don’t know

WINSTON: what

EVE: too sensitive. She’s probably right

WINSTON: i think its good to be sensitive

EVE: maybe. And she can be too NOT sensitive sometimes

WINSTON: hey can I see some of your poems?

EVE: how’d you know I write my own???

WINSTON: I just figured

EVE: omg no I don’t show anyone

WINSTON: please!

EVE: maybe …

39

NESSA

Dress rehearsals had sneaked up on them.

December came to Glisgold with several feet of snow and lit-up Santas the size of grizzly bears adorning houses long before Christmas week. And with the constant repetition of Christmas songs in every store came the reality that opening night would soon arrive whether they were ready for it or not.

Nessa was prepared for the show, but not for final curtain call.

She’d gotten nothing from Brody. He never left his things out of his sight when she was around. It was easy to think this was because he knew she was Eve’s best friend, and he kept his guard up. But that was hard for Nessa to believe, because she’d always been invisible to him.

A part of her liked to imagine that Brody was secretly in love with her, but he knew his friends wouldn’t accept it, and so he hid his feelings. She knew this was just a fantasy, but there was something about the daydream of him confessing his love to her and her getting to turn him down that she couldn’t stop thinking about. During math class, when the teacher went on for too long, she dreamed of rejecting him in front of the whole school. “No, Brody. I just don’t feel that way about you!” she’d say, strutting off like they did in the novelas her grandma, a huge novelera, watched on Univision.

Sophie had turned down his kiss. Even Eve had gotten a chance to reject him. Some girls had all the luck. Other girls.