“Thank you,” she said with a sigh, picking up a brochure for a fishing supply store and fanning herself. “I don’t mean to cause a ruckus here. But my boss is driving me nuts.”

“Understandable,” I assured her.

“He’s just so . . .” She threw her hands in the air. “Well. Anyway. Not your problem. Listen: this seems like a pretty good gig. Stick with it and never accept a job as an assistant for a scientist, no matter how brilliant. Hear me?”

“Heard,” I said with a smile.

“I’ll be at the cabin. Tell your dad to please, please come as fast as he can. My boss likes his privacy, and a big old hole in the door isn’t providing it.” She turned and left.

“It’s just a racoon,” muttered Jade.

I shrugged. “It did chew a hole in her door. In the most expensive cabin. And it sounds like she didn’t sleep all night.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m out of here.” She grabbed a few waters from the fridge and took off.

Jade and I had never really been buddies; she’d had her own friends. Blair had never been Miss Popular since she was always at dance and couldn’t go to normal things like sleepovers, but she still invited me to the stuff she did go to. If I showed up somewhere Jade and her friends were, Jade would have a heart attack. She basically wanted me to disappear. That was fine with me. Her and her friends didn’t talk about anything more important than lip gloss and listened to screechy music. It’s not like they wanted to learn about Katherine Johnson or how to find Scorpius.

I bummed around in the office, scrolling through Sophie’s Instagram feed. I was right; they were totally avoiding me. There was picture after picture of her and Lex—floating on Musky River, paddleboarding, giving kissy faces in front of the fireworks on the Fourth of July. They even got together with some other kids from school and went to a Brewers game in Milwaukee. Whatever. I pulled up our group text, which had been full of jokes and homework questions and invitations to hang out during the school year. Now it had dwindled to practically nothing.

I clicked over to Caleb Evers’s feed. He didn’t have as many pictures, but there were still a few of him and his friends gathered around a dock. A couple of him holding a big fish. I looked back even further, to spring.

There was the picture from prom. Blair, smiling in her shiny pink dress that we’d all gone shopping for together. Caleb had his hand on her back, and he was looking right at her.

“Abby?” I slammed the laptop shut as my dad walked in behind me. “Whoa, state secrets or something?”

“Nothing,” I muttered.

“I’m here to let you off the hook,” said Dad, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Man, it’s hot out there. Why don’t you go jump in the lake? Call the girls or something.”