“Aren’t you worried we’ll be caught on camera?” I ask.

“Nope!” He jumps and slaps the rim and lands, backing away, balanced on his feet. “Aren’t you worried you think vanilla cupcakes are better than fudge brownies?”

It’s eleven in the morning. The sun is out, the leaves sweeping the concrete in dramatic typhoons. Something about the chaos is romantic—maybe because it threatens to blow us away. Allister turns around and draws closer to me as we cross the court. We’re headed toward the residential roads, which wind murkily under and through deciduous trees. Elm and beech leaves bunch at the curb like wet laundry, in shades of bronze, cantaloupe, and blood.

Allister leaps over a root as we cross a patch of grass. “So, I heard Mr. Morrison and Ms. Kingston are always seen entering campus from this way together at around two thirty p.m., her with her hair messed up, him with his tie a little loose—is that true?”

“I don’t know. Kind of hard for me to follow the gossip around here.”

“You mind your own business,” he says. “I like that.”

We hit the strip mall first. All these cute burger joints and fro-yo huts tucked between the high-rise buildings, glass-walled apartment complexes, corporate skyscrapers, multi-floor grocery stores, and trendy fast-food chains.

Sunwood is the comfortable living paradise of my dreams, and I hate that it’s haunted by the whiteness of the place and my school. I hate that every four seconds I have to look behind me to see if Sawyer is sitting in the car, planning my demise.

Cake Bunny is a hut, painted green, where Allister opens the door for me.

“Thanks.” The heat of the store hits hard and then cools as we approach the girl at the cashier—her name tag says Shauna. She’s in a green bunny-ear beanie that starkly contrasts with her black bangs.

She squints at Allister and me and pops her gum with the lazy indifference of an overworked college student. “Y’all skipping school?”

“Nope,” Allister says with a mischievous smile. “We’re ordering two fudge brownie sundaes.”

She cracks a smile because his is contagious and then taps the screen. “Two brownie fudgies. Will that be all?”

“Yup!”

Is it really that easy? Why isn’t she calling the cops?

“You nervous?” he asks as we wait in the channel between the door and the tables.

“I don’t know . . . I just don’t want them to call my mom or anything. I feel like they’re always watching me anyway.”

“Who?”

“Teachers. Students.” Sawyer.

The door opens and a cold breeze comes through the store, but nobody walks in.

“Damn ghost door!” Shauna grumbles as she leaves two tubs on the counter.

“Thank you,” Allister and I say, nearly in unison, as the door taps on its frame.