Jayla uncaps her pen, shaking her head. “I’m sure. Just like Dakota had a good reason for hooking up with another girl while you were at your cello lesson.”

“That’s not fair. This isn’t the same thing at all.”

“You stayed with him for another month after that happened, Jubi!” she says just as the bell rings. Mr. Lillis is, thankfully, late as usual.

“She has a point,” Nikki adds, biting her eraser, and I shoot her an incredulous look.

“Well,” I say, turning back to Jayla, “you and Elissa were a total train wreck, and I still stood by you for all of it.”

“Elissa didn’t lie to me.”

“No, she just lied to everyone else about you, so she didn’t have to come out. And then you turned around and started seeing Emily even though you had to keep it a secret from your coach at first, so pot, meet kettle.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Jayla says.

“It’s exactly the same thing!”

“That’s actually also a good point,” Nikki chimes in again, and this time we both look at her. I would laugh if I wasn’t so ridiculously frustrated right now.

“Will you just trust me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m worried. Your summer-program audition is at the end of the month, and you don’t even mention it anymore! You’re barely ever around, and when you are, it’s just been Ridley this and Bats that, and how perfect they are, and now we hate them, and now we like them again. It’s annoying! Are you doing anything besides worrying about this boy?”

“Okay, that’s probably the best point so far,” Nikki says. “You really don’t ever talk about music anymore.”

“Forgive me for trying to get out and live a little—like everybody wanted me to do. And now that I’m doing it . . .” I grip my pencil so hard I nearly snap it. “I’ve got it under control, but thanks for your votes of confidence.”

“Fine,” Jayla says. “But I don’t know how you see this all playing out. Eventually, your parents are going to find out, and then what? Did you even see the guest post your stepmom wrote on ComicsAlliance last week about how corporations are destroying this industry? She name-dropped Mark Everlasting and The Geekery specifically, saying they were this totally insidious force, not even realizing they were already in her store!”

“I don’t care about our families’ stupid fight!”

Mr. Lillis walks in the door then with a huge stack of books from the library, and oh god, not another research project, but at least it spares me from having to reply. I pour myself into the lesson, desperate to tamp down everything Jayla’s stirred up in me. Maybe I haven’t been practicing as much, or maybe I just found a better cello-life balance. And maybe I don’t know how this will all come together yet, or what’s going to happen, but I do know I love being around him, and that his arms feel warmer than any arms I’ve ever felt in the history of arms.