“I need a book,” I whispered, and ran to hide in the stacks to watch him like a freaking stalker instead of just walking up and saying hello like a normal person because I could not be more spineless. Or more lonely for him, even though I saw him nearly every day. I am a mess. I stood in the biographies section and watched his lean, strong arms move as he turned pages, and wrote notes, and put his hand on the close-cropped dark hair on the back of his head, and, wait—who is that?

He smiled up at a long-haired girl, her back to me; he stood, and they talked.

She was at least three inches taller than him.

Katrina.

Kira was instantly beside me, peering through the shelves at Sean chatting with the other half of our euphoniously conjoined nemesis. “What the shit is she talking to him about?” she whispered. “He is so— Can’t he ever be mean to anyone?”

He gathered his stuff, pulled his backpack on his shoulders, and they left the library together.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

Down the hall, to the parking lot, she was laughing; he didn’t talk much. They got in her car and drove away.

My stomach swam.

Back in the library, Kira pounced. “What is he doing?”

“Don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask him?”

“No.”

“Just call him and ask, say, Hey, I saw you, what’s up?”

“It’s not my business. Doesn’t matter.”

She dropped back in her chair. “Why are you giving up so easily?”

I sat beside her. “I’m jealous.”

“Okay.”

“Jealous, while I’m stringing him along.”

“You are not.”

“I am. I’m too scared to be his girlfriend, but then I decide he doesn’t get to be with anyone else? He can’t have a conversation or get in a car with any girl who isn’t me? That’s not fair. And I’m not doing my homework. Jealousy is the most dangerous trap of all, now I’ll never know if I want him because I do or if I just don’t want him to be with anyone else.”

Kira shook her head. “You are killing me. I could barely follow that line of…nonlogic, twisting yourself in knots. He isn’t ‘with’ anyone else.”

“And now I feel guilty because you have your own life, you shouldn’t have to hear about all this garbage. I need to remember why I’m here. None of this matters.”

She looked a little stricken. “It matters to me.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she said. “Sean was my only friend at this school, on the entire island. Until you came. And sometimes, when you talk about leaving so soon, I wish…I like you two together. I like you having reasons to stay.”

The ache, the tug I’d been feeling sometimes, pulled again.