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“Oh,” he responds, realizing the absurdity.

“Seems cruel.”

The two of us fall into a comfortable silence as we eat our cake and watch everyone around us. It’s a madhouse of weirdness that you’d have to see to believe, and the noise combined with the dreadful music becomes too much.

“God, I’m so ready to go home,” I complain, but Sebastian just shrugs. “What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know. It could be worse.”

“Worse? Take a look around. How could it be worse?”

“You should come to my house for a day.” He takes another bite and keeps his eyes down. “I kind of like being here. It’s safe.”

Things at home must be pretty bad for him to feel this way, and seeing the wave of sadness that just washed over him strikes me hard. I can’t peel myself away from looking at him, and when he notices me staring, I give a faint, “Is it really that bad?”

He nods, handing me his plate in avoidance of my question. “You can have the rest.”

I take it and set it next to me.

His eyes meet mine again, and there’s an unspoken connection, an honesty that can’t be defined, and somehow, we just get each other.

“Is it hard?” I ask. “Hiding the truth from all your friends?”

Again, he nods, and I find myself nodding with him because I get it—the need to lie and to pretend you fit in. And then I wonder if he will hide our friendship once we’re out of here.

A flit of movement from over his shoulder catches my attention just in time for me to see Max sneak out of the room unescorted.

“Where is she going?” I mumble as I track the room to locate all the staff, only to find that no one has noticed she left. Being right next to the door, I push to my feet but don’t straighten to my full height.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll be right back.”

Then I duck out and rush down the hall, not entirely sure where she ran off to. When I reach the girls’ hall, I hear retching and charge toward our room, making it just in time to see her vomiting into her laundry basket.

“Max, no!”

I go to where she’s kneeling on the floor, and when she lifts her head, she has tears streaming down her face. “It’s okay,” I try to assure her but it comes out frantically, knowing we could get caught in here at any moment.

Darting over to my laundry basket, I pull out one of my dirty sweatshirts and bring it over to her so she can wipe her mouth. She scoots back on her bottom until she’s against the wall and then kicks her basket across the room while she buries her head in the shirt and cries.

“It’s okay,” I keep repeating as I sit next to her and wrap my arms around her shoulders. “You’re okay.”

She shakes her head as she sobs helplessly. All I can do is hold her. She’s made so much progress over the last couple of weeks, and having a setback like this has to be devastating.

“It isn’t okay,” she blubbers and then drops the sweatshirt away from her face. “I’m so disgusting and ugly.”

“What are you talking about? You aren’t ugly at all.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice. It’s what everyone does.”

“Look at me,” I tell her, and then I wait for her to do it before asserting, “You arenotugly.”

She drops her head away from me as she softly weeps. Silence fills the gaps between us until she murmurs, “He doesn’t even notice me.”

“Who?”

“Sebastian.”