“Like what?” I spit at him. “When did you talk to Olivia?”

Zander rolls his eyes. “Relax. She turned down my offer to move in, so don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

I’m not sure when I tune Zander out, but before he decides to drag me back onto the mound, I practically run back to my bike. And as I leave, my friends are shouting my name like it’s a curse word, and it feels like the last day of school all over. Like I’m back to square one.

OLIVIA

We don’t usually spend time at my house, but when I see Aiden from my window I text him to just come in. He hasn’t been to my house since that first time a few weeks ago, and he wasn’t in my room then. But my mom’s gone for the day and Aiden knows I’m leaving, so when I poke my head out of the door and wave him back, I’m not as nervous about it.

“Hey,” I say, from my desk chair. Usually I’d sit on my bed, but the last talk I had with a guy while on a bed didn’t turn out that well.

Aiden’s eyes scan the room, stopping on my piles of boxes and little piles of clothes and picture frames that are in the process of being packed, and then they land on me. “Why were you talking to Zander about me?”

I’m caught off guard by the question. I didn’t expect to talk about Zander. “I—I was just trying to help.”

“By going out with your ex?”

“No, of course not. That’s not what happened. We didn’t go out.” But even as I say it, I’m not entirely sure it’s the truth. I was mad that Aiden left, and anyone who saw us definitely would have assumed it was a date. “I was just trying to help.”

“By telling him my problems? Problems I would tell people myself, if I wanted to?”

It doesn’t sound great when he says it like that, but it’s also not how it actually went down. “That’s not what happened, Aiden.”

“I don’t believe you, Olivia.”

I want to tell him that he can, that he should, but I’m not sure that it’s true. I’m not sure what is true anymore.

“You’ve kept me at arm’s length from the start,” he says, his voice tight. “I’ve never met Emma.”

“You’re in the same class; you’ve met Emma.” I say it gently.

He shakes his head at me, his eyes squinted in disbelief. “I’ve never met Emma as your best friend. We’ve never hung out with her. You’ve never introduced me to your aunt, or anyone.”

“You met my mom.”

Aiden snorts. “Under duress. While I was helping you do housework.”