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Provide $225 cash by winter formal to help pay for the damage Iaccidentallyinflicted on Betty White.

Drive you to and from school until Christmas break.

Occasionally, provided I’ve been given ample warning, drive you to locations within the GTA to help you film TikToks (gas money to be provided).

Pretend to be your girlfriend in front of your family.

Help you get a job to pay for the other half of Betty’s damages—Check!

As per item number one, I keep running into difficulty. Now that I’m no longer helping Amo Eli out at Shawarma Sitty, he’s nolonger slipping me hundred-dollar bills at the end of the week. Between gas for my car and my book-buying ban failing miserably (oops, I’ve purchased five more books since I last stepped into the bookstore—paperbacks though, because I’m on a budget), I currently only have one hundred and thirty-five dollars left in my bank account and half a tank of gas. I could try borrowing money from Mom but she’d probably ask too many questions. As it stands, she expects me to make my hundred-dollar-a-month gas budget actually stretch for the entire month. The woman is delulu. I flip to my green to-do list tab and add:find another way to make money!!!

Just as I’m about to reread the part of the contract that goes over what I agreed to do for Axel, Mom’s voice screeches from below, telling me there’s someone at the door. I glance at my phone. Axel still has another ten minutes left in his shift. I’m not even dressed yet. Oh well, it’s probably best he sees me in sweats. It may encourage my silly hormones to behave.

Mom’s eyebrows are knitted together when I reach the bottom of the stairs.

“What’s going on?” I ask, looking around the empty foyer. “You said someone was here to see me.”

She clears her throat as she leans up against the front door. “Ben is outside. I asked him to wait on the porch. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to speak to him.”

Ben is here? Why? And why now, when I look like a total schlump? I swallow and try to play it cool. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll go see what he wants.” I slip into my uncle’s too-small slides and step onto the porch. Ben’s seated on the porch swing. He’s in jeans and a black hoodie. His hair is still shaggy but he looks good. Then again, I’d probably think he looked good with a bag over his head.

“Hey.” I lean against the railing across from Ben, keeping a healthy distance between us.

“Hey.” He runs his hands up and down his thighs. “How are you?”

“Fine.” I say it almost like a question. He’s clearly nervous and I can’t help but revel in it. For once, he’s the one who’s anxious. Unsure. There’s a part of me that wants to ask him where he’s been. Call him out on why he’s been avoiding me. Tell him he can’t just stroke my hand and then disappear. Ben’s gaze meets mine briefly and his jaw clenches.

“I’m kind of struggling,” he begins, and immediately my mind starts to fill in the blanks. He misses me. He can’t live without me. Breathing is harder when I’m not around. “I had a bad stomach flu and missed a bunch of school. I’m so far gone that I got a sixty-seven on my last calculus test. You have Mr. Hanna, right?”

He wasn’t avoiding me. He was sick.

“Yeah? Second period.”

“How are you doing in his class?”

“I got a ninety-eight on the last test,” I say proudly.

“You and I both know math has never been my strongest subject, but when we were together, I was able to scrape by with high B’s,” he says. “I’ve been trying to catch up on what I missed but it’s like reading a different language. It also doesn’t help that Olivia is such a big distraction.”