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“I don’t know if it worked. He’s taking his test now.”

“Is he passing?”

“Not if he’s using the answers I sent him.” If he’d gotten them. And if he didn’t realize halfway through that the answers he’d gotten were bogus. But I had confidence in his over-confidence—his scheme had been successful for an entire year, indeedyearsperhaps, so why would he get paranoid now? Paranoia was for people like me, whose lives had trained them to have one eye on the exit and a disarming quip just in case.

Lacey caught my wrist and gently pulled it down. “Maybe you don’t need them anymore—maybe they served their purpose.”

“Maybe.” I had Mason dead to rights for cheating—how could he not turn on Danny, with his scholarships at stake? “I mean—yeah. He’s taking his test now. It either worked, or it didn’t, you know? Everything else, from here on out, I can’t control. No matter how much I might like to.”

Lacey nodded. “Totally.”

“I’ll be back to just being me.” I said, looking at the horror of my ragged cuticles. Never had I felt so mortal, not even before the lightning.

“That’s not so bad, Jessie,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed, while bringing a traitorous hand back to my mouth.

Lunch passed quietly, with Lacey trying to distract me every few minutes, until it actually worked—the heat made the day seem to stretch out, this summer was going to be a hot one, like everyother summer ever in Kansas, not a damn cloud in sight. Maybe Darius had taken all the clouds with him. She shared her bottled water with me and the headache that’d gripped me ever since my time in the bathroom finally began to relent and?—

The bell rang.

I hadn’t felt it coming on, the current surging from administration outward to all the bells conveniently located in every public place on campus. Lacey stood, but I grabbed her wrist, pulling her back down.

“Class is over. If it did work, it’s time.”

She nodded and I pulled out my phone, opened up ZB, and started typing quickly with both thumbs.

I know something you don’t know,

I sent Mysterious Azzho1e, followed by a sweetly smiling emoji.

We sat on the bench as the cafeteria cleared out, and I worried that his phone wasn’t on, it’d run out of juice, or that today was the day he’d finally been caught cheating by his teacher anyhow, rendering the point of all this moot.

That your mom slurps cock? I already know alllllll about that.

He sent me with the same beatific emoji back.

That’s the Mason I knew.

Nope! It’s that you’re gonna fail that test in history.

I waited thirty seconds for him to come up with a witty retort. Had he read the screen? Was his phone in his pocket again? Didn’t matter.

And you’re gonna fail the 12th grade if you don’t agree to meet me privately somewhere by the end of the school day—because I’m gonna tell Principle Michaelson that you’ve been cheating.

Then I doubled down, flipping through the emoji screens to send Mason a row of smiling poops, finished by one last smiley.

“Do they represent what he’s doing right now in his pants? Or is it a commentary on the fate of your backpack?” Lacey asked.

I looked up and over at her and caught her smiling at me and realized that even if this hadn’t worked, it’d worked, you know?—and dared to smile back. “A little of both.”

“Let’s GO, ladies!” Coach Stevens shouted from the cafeteria door.

With the crowd so thin and everyone rushing to get to class, I made it to chemistry unmolested, sitting down just in time. I didn’t have my notes with me or the book, so I just pulled out a blank piece of paper and Mrs. Goodman could totally see that I was unprepared. She gave me a raised-eyebrow, but let it slide as she started lecturing. I’d set my phone on vibrate, so I’d feel whatever messages I got, if any. What if Mason didn’t check his phone again until ten o’clock tonight? Out of fingernails, I started gnawing on the end of my pencil.

Then I felt a light buzz, my phone wriggling in my back-pocket like it was a living thing, rattling against my chair. I tilted forward before I could get busted for it. It was Mason—it had to be him, right?

I wanted to phase out just a little to read my phone, but what if that snuffed out the last of my powers, when I could read my phone with my dang eyeballs? When I thought Mrs. Goodmanwasn’t looking I snuck a hand back and brought my phone out to hide under my desk on top my thighs. And while I made sure I appeared to be paying attention, furtively turned it on and opened it up and waited until she turned to the chalkboard to look down, scooting back so that I could see the screen, where two messages waited.