“Don’t,” he says, his voice rough and raspy.

When I look back down at him, the mask is gone, and his eyes are bleak with pain. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I lower myself back onto the bed next to him.

This is the real Tru.

“My dad,” he begins, then stops and lowers his head.

I slip my hand from his grip and instead lace our fingers together. The heat of our joined palms is like an inferno.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to—”

“He and my mom fight.” He huffs out a sharp breath. “A lot.”

“All parents do,” I say, trying to make him feel better.

He lifts his gaze, and there is a coldness in his eyes that chills me to the core. “He and I fight. A lot.”

There is something…dark and empty about what he’s saying. There is pain, yes, that’s obvious. But there’s also…rage, maybe? Grief? Loss? No, not loss. Lost. It’s like he’s lost.

Whatever his father did to cause this much pain in someone as joyful and light as Tru, someone should do right back to him. No one should ever be made to feel this way.

Almost without thinking, I find myself leaning forward, closing the distance between us. I’m not sure if I think it will erase that emptiness in his eyes, but I have to try.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

I can’t tear mine away from the desperate, hungry look in his eyes.

Just one kiss, I tell myself. What could it hurt?

But before I can answer the question, there’s a knock at my door.

I jump up and away like my bed is on fire. Only our hands are still interlaced, so I don’t get very far.

“Sloane, honey,” Mom says. She tries the door handle, but thankfully it just rattles. “Why is your door locked?”

Eyes wide, I give Tru a pleading look. He lets me pull him to his feet and I drag him across the room, toward my closet. I tell her, “Because you keep coming in without permission.”

“Let me in,” she insists. “This is serious.”

I shove Tru into my closet. There are no clothes for him to hide behind—nothing to hang if nothing is unpacked. I hold my finger to my lips, praying that he’ll do a better job than he did on the roof last night, as I swing the door mostly closed.

Then I unlock and open my room door the minimum amount necessary for her to see my face and nothing beyond. Thankfully the closet is behind the door.

“What?” I demand, affecting as much righteous annoyance as I can.

Mom makes a face. “Good morning to you, too.”

I sigh. “You said it was important.”

She looks like she doesn’t want to let my attitude go, but then decides it’s not worth the argument. “Tru is missing.”

My breath catches in my throat, but I quickly force it to resume a normal pattern. “What do you mean missing?”

“Miko says his bed hasn’t been slept in,” Mom says, a pained look in her eyes. “He even left his phone and his ID.”

I can tell from her expression and her tone that she’s feeling so very sorry for her poor friend who has to deal with such a troublesome son. Just like she feels sorry for herself for having to deal with me.

But she’s only seeing—and hearing—one side of the story. The poor, put-upon parents who can’t seem to control their troublemaking son.

Mom didn’t see the broken look in Tru’s eyes just a few minutes ago when he was telling me about the fights with his dad. She didn’t hear the start of the one last night, the way his dad was tearing into his mom.

The whole one-sided, Tru-against-the-world argument is bullshit. His dad is at least an equal participant. Maybe more.

“Yeah, well,” I say, forcing my eyes not to check out the closed closet door just a few feet away, “what do you want me to do about it?”

“Miko thinks you two are becoming friends,” she says, and the disapproval in her tone is obvious. “I told her I would ask if you knew anything.”

I’m walking a fine line here. Between Tru hiding in my closet and Mom standing in front of me. Say something to defend Tru, and I wind up pissing Mom off and giving Tru’s big ego a steroid shot. Although he might actually need that boost right now. Say something to satisfy Mom, and the hungover eavesdropper in the closet will hear every word, and Mom will keep thinking he’s something that he’s not. In the end, I decide to err on the side of getting back to New York, to reassure Mom that the supposed future delinquent and I are nothing anywhere near friends.

Which is, of course, mostly true.

“Yeah, well,” I say, “I think he’s an ass.”

“Sloane Whitaker!” Mom gasps, as if she’s never heard me swear.

As if that’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.

“We’re not friends, Mom. He wouldn’t tell me anything.”

Both absolutely true. We’re not really friends. I don’t know what we are, especially after what almost happened on my bed before Mom showed up, but I’m not sure there’s a word for it in the English language.

There’s no one word—or ten thousand words—that can describe how I’m drawn to him, despite all the reasons I should want to stay away. How he makes me want to sink into him, to absorb his smiles and let some of his who-gives-a-crap attitude rub off on me. To make sure he never again feels the kind of pain I saw in his eyes this morning.

The pull between us is indescribable.

“Okay,” she says, seemingly satisfied for the moment. “If you hear anything…”

“I’ll let you or Mrs. Dorsey know.”

When she’s gone and my lock is back in place, I head straight for the closet. “You need to go,” I order as I yank open the door.

And find myself looking at an empty closet.

I spin around. My blinds are up, my window open.

That boy is stealthy like a freaking cat.

The first ArtSquad practice is surprisingly fun. I never thought about turning art into a competition, but tackling everything from basic design terms to art history to on-the-spot art challenges in a kind of Pictionary meets Academic Decathlon is actually a blast. I thrive on pressure, so the added motivation of time limits really brings out my competitive nature. I could get used to this.

Aimeigh runs a tight ship, and by the time our thirty-minute practice is over, she has given each of the twelve of us a homework assignment and two specialties to focus on.

Mine are typography and color theory, which I am totally cool with. Core principals of graphic design.

After everyone else heads to first period, Tru sticks around to help us clean up.

“Did you hear about Jaq?” Aimeigh asks as she gathers up her team materials.

Tru goes looking for a marker that went rolling across Mrs. K’s classroom after Aimeigh threw it at one of the guys for giving a smart-ass answer.

“Who’s Jaq?” I ask.

“She sits next to me,” Aimeigh answers, nodding to the table she sits at when AGD is in session.

I picture the girl with a messy bob died deep red with blond streaks. I think she’s in my modern lit class too. She always wears cute floral dresses with knee-high boots.

“What about her?”

“Expelled,” Aimeigh whispers, as if just saying the word is inviting the same punishment.

“For what?” Tru asks.

“Cheating,” Aimeigh says. “She plagiarized a paper or something.”

“That’s crazy,” I say.

“Who cheats in the first two weeks of school?” Tru asks. “You gotta save that shit for the end of the quarter at least.”

I punch him in the arm.

Despite all the talk about rule breaking and authority flaunting, I’m starting to suspect that—aside from the drinking—his serial screw-up persona is totally fake. Nothing more than a show he puts on for his parents and anyone he wants to impress. The bad boy image might be nothing more than a facade.

“So just like that?” I ask. “She’s out?”

“Zero tolerance,” Aimeigh says.

Tru hands her the marker. “I’ll see you lovelies later. I gots to get to film and video.”

“Good morning, girls,” Mrs. K says as she sweeps into the AGD room. “You’re here early. I didn’t miss an appointment, did I?”