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“Cool.”

“Annnnd, I sort of explained how I was getting to prom to my mom, only she thinks I’m gonna wind up there with Liam—I told her you were just Liam’s accommodating junior buddy.”

Darius fully looked over at me. “That’s not some racist thing, is it?”

“Like, would my mom approve, otherwise?” I asked us both out loud, before putting my hands to my mouth. I didn’t know. “I mean, she’s seen me hanging out with Liam. If someone she doesn’t know—who, God help me, isn’t a member of our beloved baseball team—tries to pick me up—honestly, if you’re asking if my mom’s a racist, I don’t think so? But I’ve also never gone on a real date before. So she could just generally dislike all boys who aren’t named Liam.”

He appeared to be in deep thought long enough that I thought I’d ruined things, then asked: “You’ve never been on a date before?” and I realized that I had, only in an entirely new and different way.

I shook my head mutely.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that,” he said. I felt my ears get red and I couldn’t quite look over at him for the rest of the drive in.

The day passed by in a blur. I read, I listened—to everyone’s texts, in addition to my teachers—and I performed just enough to give the illusion that I was really there.

But I wasn’t. I was in-between again. Half-way in school, walking the halls, listening to the clamor between classes allaround me—and half-way already gone. My confidence that there was someplace better than this that I could someday get to, leaving everything here but Lacey and Sarah behind—it was the only thing that got me through each day.

And now, with the pressure of Mason and photos and prom, of Danny and bras and blow-jobs, I found myself living more in that dreamworld, the one where I could somehow afford college and only take classes I wanted to take and professors trusted me to be a grown-up instead of hounding after me like a child. Just two more years here. Two years would only be 1/40thof my likely eighty. I could survive anything for two more years.

College, and the opportunities for freedom it might provide, was my California.

I was considering this and trying to figure out who I could borrow Aleve from, blundering late out of the library on my way to chemistry, when I walked past Bruce.

“Hey, Jessie,” he shouted and I turned. We were the only people in the hall—he grabbed his crotch and shook it at me. “Anytime you want to suck a nut dry, let me know.”

Things went white. Electricity poured out of the walls and crackled all around me. He would’ve felt it if he hadn’t been so eager to shame me—I could see the loose hairs atop his head start to rise.

“Wouldn’t wait by the phone if I were you,” I said, trying to stay calm, as he laughed on his way down the hall.

I did the math in my head quickly. Just a little over 730 days to go.

Liam ignored me in chemistry, which was just as well, and I beat Darius out to his car in my eagerness to escape. I leaned against the passenger door, watching him stride out to it like he owned the whole parking lot. Somehow the self-confidence thatI used to think was egregious had become a massive turn on and I wished that he were walking toward me instead of the driver side. He beeped it open and we both got in.

“You ready?” he asked.

“If you have a plan.”

“Mason’s cutting practice today for me. And you’re coming with. He’ll want to play a video-game with me, he always does. We’ll do that, then I’ll go pee, and you’ll ask to borrow his phone, then wipe it.”

“But—” I checked out the clock on his dash. I had maybe an hour of leeway, if that, and if my mom caught me I was going to have to lie again, raising the chances of me getting caught and grounded 200%.

And if I got caught doing this, of all things—in a room with two stupid stoned boys –

Darius read my mind. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“You’re completely sure about that?”

“Yeah. As sure as I can be. All you have to be is cool, Jessie.”

Easier said than done. I closed my eyes. “I may never admit this outside of this vehicle, but I am not cool.”

“You can control electricity with your mind. You are cool. Trust me,” he said, with far more confidence than I felt, and then I felt us turn in the opposite direction of Ventana.

Mason lived in yet another nice house on a lot surrounded by acres of yard. I found myself envying his ability to go about his life never having to hear his neighbors shouting, as we knocked on the front door.

He answered almost instantly, excited to see Darius—and confused to see me. “What’d you bring her for?”

“To drive me. Think I’m going to let you try the special shit alone?” He made a show of swinging out his keys and like a faithful DD, I caught and pocketed them.