“Yes. I like art.” I spot Afton walking along the beach with the Wongs, keeping up with them but looking at her phone. Something about her expression catches at me. Wistful? Resigned?

“Sometime,” Nick is saying.

“Huh?” I didn’t catch the first part of his sentence. Or any of the past two or three sentences before that.

“I said, you’ll have to show me your work. Sometime.”

“Oh. Okay, sure,” I say, but I don’t mean it.

I turn my attention back to Afton. She catches me looking at her and frowns for just a second, like a single cloud passing in front of the sun, before she smiles at something Mrs. Wong says. Guilt lies heavy in my gut. I want to tell her. I really, really do.

But I’m not going to.

Chapter 18

18

My keep-Afton-away strategy doesn’t work, however, because not even a half hour later she approaches me outside the restrooms at Volcanoes National Park. “What’s going on with you?” she asks immediately.

Shit.

“Nothing is going on with me,” I spit out. Another lie.

“Still thinking about Leo?”

“No, I am not thinking about Leo at all, except now I am, thank you very much.” It’s a good cover, I realize, acting like I’m upset over the stupid breakup. It explains things that I need to explain. Like the way my teeth are grinding together right now.

“You should talk to Mom about it.”

I snort. “Mom. Mom doesn’t even know I broke up with my boyfriend. Does she know you broke up with your boyfriend?”

“Not yet,” Afton says lightly. “She’s busy.”

“She seems to make time for the things she cares about, though,” I say bitterly.

“Yeah,” Afton says, because she thinks I’m actually saying something good about Mom. “She’s had some interesting breakups. She could give you some perspective on the subject.”

“I don’t want Mom’s perspective,” I mutter.

“That time I . . . after my first time, in the garage, I talked to her,” Afton says.

I sit up straighter. “You told Mom about having sex?”

Afton nods.

I scoff. “What did she do?”

“Oh, she wasn’t exactly happy about it,” Afton remembers. “But she hugged me. She talked me through it, even. She’s not as good as Pop about these kinds of things, maybe, but she’s capable of the parenting thing. When forced. You should talk to her.”