Chapter 2

Chloe's face went blank.

"We're friends," she said, to the room, to the cameras, to everyone except me.

I left the circle and went to the table where the drinks were. I don't drink. I just needed something to do with my hands.

My phone buzzed again.

[You can't handle alcohol. Stop drinking. Be good.]

I looked up.

Chloe was standing in front of Mark, close enough that his shadow fell across her face. She was laughing at something he'd said, the easy laugh she used with strangers.

I knew Chloe better than anyone alive.

Which was how I knew that whatever she felt for Mark, she had already stopped hiding it.

The party ended sometime after midnight.

Outside, the rain came down hard, drumming on the front steps of Delta House, running in sheets off the gutter.

I opened my umbrella at the bottom of the stairs.

Chloe walked over and took it out of my hand.

"Julian, Mark and I don't have one," she said. "Let us use this. Someone else can walk you back."

The umbrella was mine. It had my initials inked inside the handle, in my handwriting, from the summer she'd given it to me.

"Thanks, kiddo," Mark said, ducking under it beside her. "I'll give it back tomorrow."

They walked off down the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder under my umbrella, and disappeared where the streetlight ended.

Everyone else left in cars. Tires hissed on the wet road, one after another, until the street was empty.

No one asked how I was getting home.

I stood in the rain and watched the place where they'd been. Chloe knew no one would wait for me. She knew exactly how long it would take me to walk home in the dark.

She took my umbrella anyway.

My phone rang. My dad.

"Julian. If you want to stay at Riverton for the summer and take care of Chloe, that's okay."

Rain ran off my chin and into my collar. I closed my eyes.

"Dad, I've made up my mind. I'm done waiting for people who are ashamed of me. Book the flight."

"I'm going to California."

My clothes were stuck to my back. Water filled my shoes.

And when I come back, no one gets to ignore me again.