“I can’t believe you didn’t make it through The Giver, but you can read and memorize this script in a week,” I say, stacking the black binders up against the wall once we get to the dance room.

“The Giver is so boring,” he whines.

“The Giver is about doing your own thing when everyone else tells you it’s wrong. It’s basically about you, for heaven’s sake!”

He stops stacking binders and starts fixing his hair in the mirror. “You want to write my essay for me, then?”

“No, I do not. And that was the late bell. Come on. I may live with him, and he may like me for helping him with his crossword puzzles, but at school, Dan will definitely give me demerits.”

“Fine. Then after I fail the essay, do you want to come over to my house with Geneva and the guys tomorrow night? We’re dressing up and watching Hocus Pocus for Halloween.”

“Okay. Yeah. Just come on.” I have no idea what Hocus Pocus is, and in all this time Well and I have spent together, we’ve never been to his house, but I see Andrea in the hallway and I will do and say anything to get away.

I’ve gotten really good at avoiding her. I come in the back entrance to school in the morning and make a wide sweep of the front offices if I’m ever on the first floor. I know she knows I’m dodging her. I know she wants to bring up the sensory stuff again. But obviously there’s nothing to talk about, because I’m fine, I’m managing it all on my own, so why talk at all?

Dan drops me off at Well’s place at seven p.m. sharp. I haven’t been nervous until now, because I’ve spent the last month getting used to Well, and he’s about as close as anyone can be to making me feel comfortable. But now that I’m standing with my feet on the flagstone driveway leading up to the enormous wooden doors of his ginormous house that is all stone and wood and copper rain gutters, I can’t move. Well lives in a palace. The front doors have actual antlers for handles. I count the garage doors—one, two, three, four—in a separate miniature version of the main house. An entire home for your cars. Imagine that. Well told me there’s a pool, too. Of course there is.