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"What?" Her eyes scrunch together

"You called me a jerk when you opened the door"

"Not you Stephen was Is" She closes her eyes, then reopens them "I take that back You are a jerk"

My head snaps to the side Stephen? Her ex-boyfriend? The kid will not give up and, when it co This is the third tiroveled twice and both ti, it didn’t bother me Lila and I were friends But then I fell for her and Stephen becaed in my side

I trash all the questions I have about Stephen and his appearance at her house and focus on what’s important: Lila "I’h h it could be herme sweat "I can explain"

Her head falls back "God, Lincoln If you had coo or last week or last ht I knew you"

I step forward as es out of my chest "You do" She does Better than anyone else "Yes, I lied But everything else is true"

The way she sucks in her lower lip as her head shakes no tells ainst me

"I don’t believe you," she says "For all I know you’re the serial killer the Post-it note warned me about"

"What?" Never mind It doesn’t matter "Lila, you are the one person who knows "

"Minor!" Her eyes redefine the terid

I retreat a step Bad choice in words "Minor could be an understateraduate froh school, Lincoln, and you had the balls to lie to me about it" Lila bursts forward and stabsreonyou"

"You still can I’ust of air hits my cheeks as she slams the front door in ether as the roses slap the side of h A few petals float down to the wooden porch With a heavy sigh, I sit on the steps Not that I ever wanted to know, but this is what being set on fire ony

If I feel this way, how ht Disoriented Lost Not knohich way is ho The root of all uidance counselor askedHe said it wasn’t a profession and to get serious That if I wanted to get into a decent college I needed to apply myself now

I told hi He said that was a hobby and that I needed to becooals"

I told him it wasn’t rand a year and to drink cheap coffee And then I asked hiave uy’s an asshole?

Do you know the last time I had detention? Never I’m no saint, but I keep my mouth shut and head down Rules suck Society sucks

Josh followed the rules and now he’s dead He liked riding horses Maybe if he had looked that damn counselor in the eye and said, "I want to ride horses for the rest of my life," thencross-legged in the ers slide over the deep indentations of words obviously written in agitation Words written so quickly, I wouldn’t have been able to decipher

He sent this one to me in the fall, a week after he started his senior year Lincoln hated his guidance counselor He was the one who convinced Lincoln’s brother to join the Marines out of high school It’s because of that fateful decision that I met Lincoln

"Lila," says Echo, her voice a bit disjointed frolance aton the bed next tolove of her life on their way to freaking Colorado Right now, I despise happy people "How’s Iowa?"

"Kansas," she corrects

"Whatever, it’s flat and they have tornadoes" I pick up one of thefor The one that proht word Nothing about me is cluttered Each stack represents the ed by the date on the post the side

My entire life is systemized like this My books alphabetized by author on lass hutch, anized by date received My scrapbooking materials are boxed in color-coordinated Tupperware I like plans and organization and not boys who promise to attend the University of Florida with h school

"Lila?" says Echo She pauses for way too long "Did you give him a chance to explain?"

The envelope crunches in h school, Echo, and he didn’t tell me about it Do you have any idea how I felt when I had to find out on my own that he lied?"