I shake my head a little, and she leans forward to catch my eye.

“Are you okay?”

My leg is bouncing again, the urge to run nearly overwhelming, but this is fine, I’m fine, I got this. But man, it would be nice if my bullshit could come off a little more low-key.

“Yeah,” I say, but my voice sounds strange. She sets her hand on my knee, and I jerk it away, not because I want to, but because I have to. “I just get—I don’t know. Sorry.” I feel my cheeks heat furiously and pray my mask is hiding it.

“Hey,” she says, and I snap my eyes to hers. I should have just gone to my room. I should have never tried to pull this off. I— “Did you know that peacocks are omnivores?” she asks, and that shuts my brain up real quick.

“Huh?”

“They’re omnivores. Most people think they just eat seeds and vegetables and stuff, but they eat bugs and frogs and anything they can catch, really. And they roost in trees so that tigers don’t get them while they sleep.”

“Okay?” I sort of say-ask, narrowing my eyes.

“Did you also know that bats have belly buttons?”

“What are you talking about?” And it’s possible I found the one person on this earth who’s even weirder than I am, because what?

“They do; they have belly buttons because they’re mammals, not birds. In fact, not only that, but they’re the only mammals capable of powered flight. Pretty wild, eh?”

“They have belly buttons?” I ask, tilting my head. I have no idea what’s happening right now, but the idea of bats flying around with little bat belly buttons is somehow both cute and disturbing.

“Yep,” she says, and the smile is back, that goddamn smile. And that’s when I realize my leg has stopped bouncing and I can breathe again. This weird-ass girl and her random facts just talked me down from the mother of all panic attacks. That’s . . . new.

I take a long breath and catch her eye again. “Thanks,” I mumble. “Like, a lot.”

“For schooling you about bats and birds?” She ducks her head. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“No, for—”

She waves me off. “My mom used to tell me random facts whenever I got nervous before recitals. We had a giant book of weird facts she’d cart around—worked like a charm every time.”

“Recitals?”

“It’s a long story. So, was it the dancing or the crowds?”

“Crowds.” I wince. “But I also can’t dance.”

“Can’t or don’t?”

I shrug. “Is there a difference?”