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“I don’t know.” He sank back into his seat and then looked at me. “What do you want to do now?” He waved one hand in the direction of where my trailer was—and the other back out of the park.

What would happen if I went with him now?

What did I want to happen if I went with him now?

Too much. I could still remember the way his lips felt, pressed against mine. I brought a hand up to them, as if I could hold the memory there.

“I should go,” I said, nodding in the direction of my home.

He drove very slowly on the path I told him to go, like he was making up for all the speeding that’d gotten us here, or he was hoping I’d change my mind. Then he parked us, oh so gently,right beside my front yard. Razor’s body was gone. That was good, at least.

“So,” he began as I turned towards the door. I waited. “When can I see you again?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because it was true. “But soon,” I added, because that was true, too.

He gave me a half-smile. “Okay. Bye, Jessie.”

“Bye,” I agreed, and closed the door.

All I wanted to do that afternoon was bug Lacey. I was trying not to freak out about it—I assumed she was busy at the hospital, sitting at her mom’s bedside, calling relatives, etc. But I was also scared that maybe I’d done something wrong, that maybe the second the ambulance doors had closed, Ms. Harper’d died, for reals.

At least worrying about that stopped me from worrying about Darius, and what we’d done and what that meant? Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him. But it had to me. I started and stopped myself from texting him a hundred different times, too.

And when my mother got up, she interrogated me mercilessly, making me relive every one of my brief moments at Liam’s party for her, which was almost impossible, because everything I’d done with Darius kept filling my mind. I kept trying to think of ways to talk about him to her, to get her off the subject of Liam, but couldn’t, not without having to explain way too much.

“And your study session? Was he there today?”

I was surprised she remembered. I smiled at her a little foolishly. “With different kids. Not him.”

“Oh, well,pshaw,” she said, waving the ‘lesser’ kids away.

My resolve didn’t break until my mom was out the door and Allie was in bed. It was text Lacey or text Darius, and Lacey was safer.

How’s your mom?

I felt the text lasso a thread between her and I, and it’d occurred to me that maybe I could pull out the laptop and zoom in and go through the hospital’s info just like it was ZB to see if she was alive myself—but I wanted to hear things from Lacey.

OK. For now.

Anything I can do?

I texted back with a sympathetically sad emoji at the speed of thought.

Not tonight. But—tomorrow? Can we meet?

Of course! When/where?

I’ll let you know. Thanks Jessie.

Ur welcome. Love you.

I texted back and set my phone down to charge.

Conscience cleared, I lay back down and worried and daydreamed at the same time.

CHAPTER 34

“Jessie.”