Page 69 of Heartland

“I’ll be okay.” At least this time nobody willbeat mefor my poor judgment. Unless it’s Kaitlyn, and she’d do it if given the chance. “I’ll just avoid Dylan for the rest of my three and a half years in college. No problem.”

Ellie cracks up. “Does this mean you’ll need more algebra tutoring?”

“Definitely.” And I should have thought of that before I charmed Dylan out of his underwear. “I think the financial aid office would hook me up with a paid tutor if I asked.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Ellie insists. “I’ll help you for nothing. It’s not like I get out very much.”

“Why is that?” I ask.

“Because I’m…” She murmurs the rest into her milk glass.

“Sorry? You’re…?”

“Seventeen.”

I blink. “Years old?”

“Yup.”

“But I thought you said you were a junior?”

“Oh I am. I started when I was fifteen.”

“So you’re, like, a genius?” I squeak.

“That’s a loaded word. We say ‘intellectually precocious’ instead.” Then she sighs. “I shouldn’t have told you, right? Nobody wants to be friends with the weirdo who isn’t even voting age and doesn’t have a driver’s license. I know all about particle physics. But I’ve never been kissed by a boy. Or a girl, for that matter.”

“Ellie!” I shake my head. “If there was a weirdo contest here at this table, you might not win. I’m a twenty-one-year-old freshman who ran away from a cult two years ago. And everything I know about boys I learned inSeventeenmagazine.”

Her eyes widen. “You do have some weirdo cred.”

“I know, right? And I don’t have any friends, except for the ones at home, and the one who has no idea what to say to me after last night.”

She flinches on my behalf. “I can help you with the algebra. But not the heartache.”

“That’s something,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “But in a few days I’ll have to figure out what to do about the little business venture Dylan and I started together. We’re supposed to make two hundred pounds of caramel over the next two weeks. While I put on a brave face and pretend that I’m just fine.”

“Twohundredpounds?”

“Or more. I don’t know what orders have come in.”

“I can’t wait to try this candy.”

“You can. There’s an extra box in the…” It hits me then. The co-op store meeting! A bolt of terror shoots through me. “Oh,no!I was supposed to deliver some samples to a Burlington store this morning. Dylan was going to take me there.”

“Maybe he did it?” Ellie suggests.

“God, I hope so.” But Dylan probably forgot, too. “I’ll guess I have to go to the library after this and check my email. I’ve been avoiding him.”

Ellie pulls her backpack off the floor and unzips it. She pulls out a laptop and flips it open. Then she hands it to me. “Bite the bullet.”

“Right now?” I yelp.

“Get it over with,” she says.

With a sigh, I take her computer. “Thank you for letting me use this.”

“Anytime.”