He follows me out of the pool, and we both dry off. I use Micah’s towel and hope he won’t mind. I keep myself wrapped in it to hide my bathing suit. At the snack table, there are all the things I usually love to eat, but now it all seems gross, which is exactly how I feel, and I just want to get out of here.

“I thought you were hungry,” Evan says, chomping on a Dorito.

I pick one up and take a bite. The fake cheese flavor hurts my tongue.

Sierra screams as Sam grabs her hands and they topple off Micah’s and Jack’s shoulders.

I would give anything to be able to walk home right now.

Evan reaches for my hand and holds tight. “C’mon. Let’s go around the side of the house.”

“I —”

“C’mon,” he says again. He smiles in this suggestive way that makes me kind of hate him. Why can’t he get the message?

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Sorry.”

“What?”

He looks surprised that I, plain and boring and unpopular Rachel, would turn him down.

“Sorry,” I say again.

He drops my hand. “Suit yourself,” he says. He tosses his towel onto an empty chair, runs to the end of the pool, and cannonballs the Chicken players. They all scream and laugh. Micah glances over at me, and I try so hard to say I’m sorry with my expression, but he turns and splashes Sam and pretends to be having the best time of his life in this trying-too-hard way that is just sad and embarrassing.

I stand there with my half-eaten Dorito and feel like I’m going to throw up.

On the walk home, Micah walks faster than me and I can barely keep up.

“Would you slow down?” I keep calling to him.

“I’m not walking fast!” he calls back without turning around.

“Micah! Stop!”

He finally slows down, and I run to catch up. I reach for his arm, but he shakes me off.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Why are you mad at me?”

“You really have to ask me that, Rachel? Seriously?”

“What?”

“Evan? You kiss Evan? I thought the reason you didn’t want to be more than friends is because you were . . . that maybe you don’t like boys. But it turns out you just don’t like me! Why would you let me think that?” He makes a mean face that might be disgust, but I’m not sure.

“Let you think what?” I ask.

“You know what.” He says the words as if he’s repulsed.

My heart begins to throb in a way it’s never hurt before. My chest rises and falls as my heart thumps inside, trying to fight its way through, to show Micah how much it hurts. How much it loves him. How scared it is.

“Micah . . .”