She seriously just left me here.

Maybe she went to school? Where else would she go?

I returned to the bathroom and got dressed. Pulling on day-old clothes that I had slept in—after a shower, no less—should have been the most unpleasant experience imaginable. However, I was kind of grateful to be putting on my clothes at all.

After double-checking to make sure I had car keys on me, I left Wynonna and Carol’s condo. I navigated my way through the hallway, back to the elevator. Took it down to the parking garage. Power-walked to my Subaru, which—thank god—didn’t have a ticket.

I hopped in, turned the key in the ignition, backed out, and stomped on the accelerator.

I floored it all the way to school.

“Dude,” said Holden. “Where the hell have you been?”

I closed my locker door, and there was Holden’s face—where a masked serial killer would be if my life were a horror film.

Nope. Just a body-swap comedy—funny to everyone but me.

“Uh,” I said. “I slept in.”

“No shit,” said Holden. “Just in time for lunch. Well, I guess if anyone has a right to sleep in, it’s you.”

The hallway was a riptide, pulling everyone and everything into the cafeteria. Holden and I stepped into the flow of bodies, submitting to the undertow.

Today, on the Piles Fork lunch menu, was “pizza.” You’d think it would be impossible to ruin something as simple and perfect as pizza, but Piles Fork had it down pat. The trick was to make the crust too thick and crunchy, with too little sauce, too little cheese, and turkey pepperoni. Then they burned it.

“You know you live in a dystopian society when the pizza is consistently worse than the meat loaf,” said Holden.

“Right?” I said. “I bet Katniss Everdeen wouldn’t touch this shit. This is how you start the Hunger Games.”

We made a straight line to the trash, dumped our pizza, and then veered to the vending machines. Funyuns it was!

By the time we sat in our usual corner of the cafeteria, Holden had a contemplative look on his face.

“So I did some research,” said Holden.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Twelfth Night,” he continued. “Imogen is gunning for the main character, Viola, right? And knowing Imogen—being the drama nut and overachiever that she is—she’s probably going to get the part. Right?”

“Probably.”

“You, my friend, need to get the part of Duke Orsino.”

“Who the hell is Duke Orsino?”

“He’s the leading male role, and the guy Viola has a crush on the entire play.”

Already, I felt the social anxiety and early-onset stage fright crushing my insides. “Oh man. I dunno. I don’t think I can handle a role where I’m romancing it up with Imogen. I’ll probably forget all my lines and stress-puke.”