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“It would be nice if she spent some time with us, too,” she said, and went back into the house.

Why couldn’t she just say, Tell her I love her? I got into the car and headed to school.

Ryder’s mother was the one who had had to move her schedule to take the meeting with Dr. Steiner. I saw that Ryder’s car was already there when I pulled into the parking lot. Those students who had arrived were already chatting about his mother’s appearance. I went directly to the office to give Mrs. Knox the permission letter for my early departure. While she read it, I looked at the closed door of Dr. Steiner’s office. Mrs. Knox saw where my gaze went and cleared her throat.

“I’ll give this to Dr. Steiner as soon as she’s finished with this difficult meeting,” she told me.

“Thank you,” I said. I could see she that was dying to know what the reason was for my leaving school at lunchtime. I just smiled and left her.

Ryder didn’t appear in any class until the period before lunch. Shayne and Kory were already in class. When Ryder entered, all conversations stopped, and, it seemed, so did all breathing. He ignored everyone, even me, and took his seat. He kept his eyes down. When the bell rang, I looked first at Shayne and Kory to see if they were going to start something again, but all they did was glare in his direction. I stood there, waiting for him to gather up his things.

“I’m on very strict probation,” he said. “Can’t look sideways at anyone, or it’s the guillotine. Here’s a good one,” he continued as we started out. “My parents took a page from your foster father’s book. They want me to avoid you. I had to promise to do so, or they threatened to go forward and put both Summer and me in a military-style school no matter what happens here at Pacifica.”

“They blame me?” I asked.

“No. It’s more like an ‘I don’t know how to handle a mature relationship yet’ sort of thing.”

“They believed the things your sister said?”

Since it was lunchtime, we didn’t have to rush out. I, of course, was planning on leaving anyway.

“I’ll walk you out to the parking lot,” he replied instead of answering. “I’m not hungry, and I’m planning on slipping away shortly after you do.”

“Oh, Ryder. This sounds so dangerous now.”

“Danger is my middle name.”

“No, really.”

“What do you want me to do? Become a puppet here and not speak to you or see you again? Because that’s the alternative to all of this, Sasha.”

“Why did they believe those things about me?”

“It wasn’t about you. It was about me. They’re assuming I’ll do something to ruin you, that I might already have done it. I’m poison, don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t,” I said.

He paused and took a deep breath. “Summer’s not the only mess in the family. I’ve been in trouble before, and I don’t mean running away when I was little or stuff like that.”

“You told me about your mother and the miscarriage.”

“No. There was a girl at the last school. She was much younger than you.”

“How much younger?”

“She looked much older than she was.”

“How much younger?”

“She was thirteen.”

“Oh, Ryder.”

“She looked eighteen. Honest. One of those precocious puberty girls or something. I was stupid.”

“What happened?”

“My father had to pay her parents off. Nothing terrible really happened, but . . .”