“Fine,” I say, giving her hand a firm shake. “If there is ever a float involved, you can be there.”

Willow’s honking outside ends our conversation, and my mom waves goodbye, grabbing her ringing cellphone and tucking it in the crook of her neck while she grabs a pile of magazines to head upstairs to nap before her next shift.

The music blaring from Willow’s car is just as loud as it was yesterday when she drove away, and as I climb in, I spare a glance to the Harper house and note that Owen’s truck isn’t in the driveway.

“Think he’ll bother to attend any classes today?” I ask, my stomach twisted because I know how many of those classes are with me.

“Hard to say. That boy…he does what he wants,” she says, backing out of my driveway. “Nobody questions him.”

No, I suppose they don’t. Why would they?

His truck is parked near the exit. I spot it the second we pull into the parking lot, but after a quick scan around us, I don’t see him anywhere.

“You’re looking for him,” Willow says, her voice startling me a little. She’s standing at my passenger door, holding it open for me. I didn’t even hear her exit.

“He just…I don’t know. He makes me nervous.” My explanation is met with an intense stare, and Willow drops her brow then quirks an eyebrow up at me. “We had an incident,” I confess.

“As in what? You bumped into his truck? Accidentally opened a piece of his mail?” she says, holding the door wide for me as I climb out and sling my bag over my shoulder.

“As in I drop-kicked his basketball out into the darkness of night because he was making too much noise,” I say, wincing now that I realize just how bold I was, and how stupid it sounds out loud.

“Oh my god, you went all cranky old neighbor on him?” she pauses, then her face gives in to laughter. I hit her arm, willing her to stop before Jess gets close enough to hear.

“You have a cranky old neighbor?” Jess asks, putting his arm around Willow and kissing the side of her neck.

“Oh, she has a cranky neighbor all right. But he ain’t old,” Willow teases, and I shove her again. “She lives next door to the Harpers.”

“Ha. You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Jess asks, leaning forward to check my facial expression for confirmation.

“Afraid not. And I doubt I’ll be going over there for a cup of sugar anytime soon,” I say. As we round the corner of the building, I notice a few boys all wearing beanie caps and hoodies sitting on a set of picnic tables down the hill. They’re smoking—blatantly smoking on campus—and one of them turns around to catch me staring, and smirks as he grinds his shoe over his cigarette butt on the walkway. He nods in my direction, and the guy sitting next to him turns around.

Owen turns around.

His eyes lock on mine fast, and even without words I can hear everything he’s thinking—I see my entire evening replay in the reflection of his eyes, the smallest twitch sending the corner of his lip up, and shivers travel down my spine.

One of his friends distracts him, and for once, I’m aware enough to take advantage, slipping into the music room before he can look back. But that look on his face stays with me, follows me for the rest of the hour, and I think it may also be there tonight, in my dreams.

My father would find my entire first period of school to be a tremendous waste of time. Today’s first half hour was spent on the school’s fight song—something that sounds pretty elementary, and the same every single time we play it. The second half of class was spent learning how to snap to attention on Willow’s direction. It was all so military; so very…unmusical.

So purposeless.

So…fun.

My first two days of band practice have been a break for me, a breather from the constant pounding of my fingers up and down the keys. I’ve lived my entire life with the constant drive to move my hands faster, make things louder, create fuller chords and stretch my fingers so far that they actually ache at the end of the day. But in here, in this room, with these new friends—could I call them that yet?—there was absolutely no pressure.

The second hour was mine, and I relished every second that ticked by, making up for my failed night of playing at home. I brought my music book with me, and spent the time working on that one line of notes, leaving the room almost happy with it.

I’m still humming the passage on my way to English, enjoying this little personal celebration of satisfaction, when my happiness gives way rapidly to tension, the kind that drowns.