Page 37 of Rules for Rule Breaking

“I like feeling small.” She hugged her arms closer. “I know that scares a lot of people, but to me it’s comforting. When your own world inside of your head feels too big, you tend to focus on things that don’t really matter.”

“You mean like girls breaking up with you because you’re too boring?”

Winter wilted. “Carl Sagan said that ‘we are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.’ So in a grand sense, we are the last letter of the last word of the last page in the book of time. In your case, Jacqueline is maybe a sentence in theBook of Bobby Bae.”

Bobby lay down too and looked up at the sky with her. “But you don’t actually want to go to space, right?”

Winter wrinkled her nose. “No. Never. Have you ever eaten dehydrated space food? That’s a level of discomfort I’m not willing to contend with.”

Bobby laughed. “I think it’s starting to make sense now.”

“But things aren’t always as they seem. I just take comfort where I can get it.”

Narrowing his eyes, Bobby opened his mouth as if to say something else but then closed it.

They lay on the ground in silence, watching the clouds chase one another across the sky for what seemed like at least an hour. Winter felt like a gooey, melty chocolate chip cookie on a baking sheet. She felt that if she stayed there any longer, she’d become melded to the concrete.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bobby said at last. “We don’t want to be late for UPenn, and I won’t tolerate any more itinerary deviations.”

Winter sat up slowly. She had little pebbles sticking to her elbows and the imprint of the sidewalk on the backs of her legs. “Do you really want to go to UPenn?” she asked.

“I mean, yeah. It’s on the itinerary.”

“But can you picture yourself going to school there? I can’t see you in Philly. And if I hear you say ‘jawn,’ I’ll steal all your pens and dump them in the Schuylkill River.”

Bobby got up as well and dusted himself off. “Are you trying to unsubtly hint that you don’t want to visit UPenn?”

“I feel like it was pretty subtle.”

“As subtle as a blitzkrieg. What do you want to do instead?”

She played with her hands. “Well, did you know it’s illegal in Maryland to eat while swimming in the ocean?”

Bobby frowned. “You want to go to the beach?”

“The beach doesn’t sound better to you than UPenn? You and I both know neither of us are going there, and it’s impossible to be sad at the beach.”

All she’d done all summer was sit around her house eating carbs and getting nearsighted, and she presumed Bobby hadn’t been doing much better. It was time to seize an opportunity as it presented itself, as Halmeoni had advised.

Bobby rested his thumbnail between his teeth. “We have to drop my parents a pin. They’ll know we’re not in Philly.”

“You lack imagination.”

“You know I hate when people say that.”

Winter pushed her hair behind her ears. “Which is why we should do something fun today. We can put a VPN on your phone and be anywhere in the world. What do you say?”

“Yes,” Bobby said in a flash, apparently without even thinking.

Winter’s chin jutted back. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, why not? Let’s go before I change my mind.”

Winter giggled and prepared to stand.

“Actually, wait,” he said.

Well, that was short-lived, Winter thought to herself. “You changed your mind that fast?”