She gasps. “You liked Brice?”

“Oh come on,” I reply. “You had to know.”

“I didn’t, Sloane. I swear.”

I press my head against the cool glass of the window. “Yeah, I know,” I say, realizing as I say the words that I believe them. “I know you didn’t.”

“I would never,” she insists.

“I know,” I repeat. “I’m just… It’s been a rough couple days.”

I hear her sobbing softly through the phone, and even from so many miles away, I want to reach out and reassure her. Despite my harsh words, I’m not really mad about Brice. And I don’t blame Tash for not getting caught—that’s as much my fault as it was hers. I just need her to show a little understanding for what I’m going through. Is that too much to ask?

“I’m so sorry about Brice and the cops and everything,” she says through the sniffles. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t get caught. I’m so sorry that you took all the blame and you’re suffering all of the consequences.”

Sounds like my real talk sobered her up quickly.

“If I could trade places with you, I would in a flash,” she insists. “But my mom—”

“I know, Tash. I really do understand. “I just… I need you to understand, okay? I miss you more than anything, and I want to be home more than anything.”

“Me too!”

“And even if I could go back and not tell the cops that I did it all on my own, I wouldn’t. You’re my best friend, and I don’t regret protecting you.” I take a breath. “But please, you have to stop with the guilt trips. Because I’ll be home as soon as I can. You know me well enough to know that’s true.”

She’s silent for a long time. I strain to hear the sounds of more sniffles, but it’s just silence. Did we get cut off? Maybe she hung up on me.

“Do you—?” Her voice is feather soft. “Do you want me to stop texting?”

“No,” I blurt. “God, no, of course not. Some days you’re the only thing keeping me sane.”

“Good. Because I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to talk to.”

In that moment, in that one sentence, I have an epiphany. I’ve always known Tash was my only close friend, and I’m okay with that. I just never stopped to realize that I was her only one, too. She seems so over-the-top outgoing, I guess I imagined she had legions of other friends just waiting to take my place.

But with me gone, she must feel as lonely as I do.

“We should talk more,” I say. “Not texting. Actual real talk.”

“I’d like that.”

I glance at the clock on my phone. “Just not at two-twenty-eight in the morning.”

“Definitely not.”

“Good night, Tash,” I tell her.

“’Night, Sloane. I love you.”

“Love you.”

We click off and, just before I drift back to sleep, she texts me a kissy-face emoji. I send the same one back and then mute my phone. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

Now if I could only solve the problem of Tru and the copycat vandalism, I’d be back to my one and only big problem: being stuck in Austin.

Chapter Seventeen

Oliver rubs his hands together. “The time has come, my little seedlings, to tell you about the senior projects.”

Everyone sits up a little straighter in their seats.

I slump farther down into mine. For the past couple days I’ve been in a kind of fog. It’s like I’m going through the motions, hearing the world around me, responding when necessary, but not really fully engaged. Since Tru confessed to the copycat vandalism, nothing has felt quite right.

Without his constant smiling and teasing and outlandish comments, the classroom full of people feels too empty. I feel too empty. How had he become such an integral part of my day in such a short period of time?

“Or, should I say,” Oliver teases, “project.”

He places a hard emphasis on the final letter of the word project. As in singular.

A couple of students groan.

Willa drops her head to the table.

“What?” Jenna cries.

“That’s right, kids.” Oliver gestures around the table at all of us. “This year, senior seminar projects are going to be a group project.”

While this doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me, some of the other students look outraged. I guess if they’ve been looking forward to doing solo senior projects for three years, it could be annoying to find out we’re going to do one big group thing.

I turn to stare out the window. It is a brilliantly sunny day and the Pokémon statue is gleaming like a fresh-off-the-mint dime. Could a day be more completely at odds with my mood?

“What kind of group project?” Willa asks, back in an upright position.

“The group will decide,” Oliver answers. “You can choose any media, any format, any direction you, as a group, decide.”

“What about the end-of-year exhibit?” Jenna asks.

Oliver smiles at her. “That will still happen. But instead of individual and small group presentations, you will present as a single group.”

Mariely raises her hand. “Can I ask why?”

“Yeah,” Dahlia says. “Why the change?”

Oliver nods. “I understand that many of you have been waiting years to work on these projects. You may have already been planning them, working on them even. And that’s part of the reason. We want everyone to be starting from scratch.”

Jenna looks like she’s about to cry. I know her type. She likes to be ahead of schedule. She probably started working on this freshman year, has it all planned down to the tiniest detail, and now it’s been pulled out from under her.

Kind of like my life. I spent three years at SODA, waiting for my time as senior to come. And then, because of one stupid decision, I had to start everything from scratch. Jenna should be happy it’s only an art project.

“And the other reason?” Willa asks.

“Because working entirely on your own or even choosing your own small groups isn’t necessarily realistic or representative of the real world.” Oliver starts a circle around the room. “You will often have to work with people you don’t know, don’t know well, or—to be honest—don’t even like.”

He pauses behind an empty chair, places his hands on the back.

“As part of the life skills initiative,” he continues, “we want your senior projects to mimic a real-life working artist scenario as completely as possible.”

I can’t stop staring at the empty chair Oliver is leaning on for emphasis. Tru’s empty chair.

There are a few other empty chairs in the room, and Tru always sat next to me, but for some reason the image of Oliver standing over that one across the table just shoots right through me.

Everything about this feels wrong. Tru should be sitting in that chair, should be in this classroom right now. Should be part of this group project, whatever it’s going to be.

I haven’t seen him since he barged into Principal Ben’s office and confessed to the art crime I’d been accused of. Two days with no teasing in the halls. No knocking on my bedroom window. Not even any sounds of yelling coming from next door.

I’ve texted him several times. I know I shouldn’t, since I’m the one who broke off with him, but this kind of changes things. This really changes things.

He hasn’t responded.

I’m worried about him. Mom says Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey have been out of town since the end of last week, so at least I know he hasn’t had to face his parents yet. The thought of what will happen when he does makes me sick. He shouldn’t be punished for something he didn’t do.

I jerk back.

That’s the exact moment I realize that, despite his confession and the lack of evidence otherwise, I know that Tru didn’t plastic the school. He couldn’t have, wouldn’t have. No matter how mad he might have been at me, he wouldn’t have set me up like that. I have nothing to go on except my gut, my instincts about him, but I believe it as strongly as if I’d seen the real vandal—whoever that is—plasticking the school with my own eyes.