I hadn't realized how much I didn't miss Dakota until she was back. I should have cherished her brief absence. Maybe baked a cake and ate the entire thing in her dishonor.

Not only had she returned, she'd come back with a new dye job, and a renewed sense of superiority tinged with cold hatred. Maybe she'd attended a one-day seminar on bullying techniques and wanted to try them all out. On me.

It began before homeroom. I twisted the combination on my locker, my fingers coming away coated with a sticky sap. Washing it off in the bathroom made me late for homeroom. It was obvious from Dakota's undisguised sneer who had sabotaged the lock. She might be ace at bullying, but she was piss poor with covert ops.

"Bitch," she said under her breath as I made my way past her desk to mine.

Oh, it was on.

I slumped into my seat. Darren gave me a half questioning, half fearful expression. What is going on?

I glared at the back of Dakota's ombre hair, hating myself for admitting how awesome it looked. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I glanced over at Darren, who nodded. He must have texted me.

Taking out my phone, I kept it low so Mr. Anderson wouldn't see it. Teachers seemed to think we should be living back in the 1990s from 8 am to 3 pm, and I did not want to get my phone confiscated.

Darren: Dakota called you an assortment of colorful adjectives to her friends before you got here.

Me: She's super pissed at me. Must be a Thursday.

Darren: Yeah but what did you do?

Me: Nothing!

Darren: But what does she think you did?

Me: IDK

Darren: You do too.

I assumed Blake finally grew a spine and dumped her. But that had nothing to do with me, and I didn't feel like chatting about it over text message with Darren.

Me: Whatever it is, the whole school will know by lunch.

I wasn't wrong. By midday, I knew, my friends and enemies knew, the custodian probably knew too. And what I thought I knew, well, I was super wrong.

Kayla laid it out for me. "Are you ready for the drama?"

Vanessa, Darren, and I leaned our heads in towards the center of the table. Kayla proceeded. "Our Popular Queen has sent our Popular King packing."

"What?" I said this louder than I'd intended. Several heads at neighboring tables turned towards me. Their gazes lingered. I lowered my voice. "I thought he broke up with her."

Kayla shook her head. "You should know more than us about this."

"What's that supposed to mean? Why would I know anything?"

Vanessa nudged my shoulder. "You know, because of you and Blake."

"There is no me and Blake. We're just friends. Barely that."

"That's what people always say when they're not just friends," Vanessa said.

"Mazie," Kayla tapped her spoon against her water bottle like she was about to give a toast. "Do you really not know what the rumor mill is churning out?"

I shook my head. "I have enough on my plate with, you know, my home situation. I don't care what people here are saying."

"Well maybe you should, because what they're saying is that you told Dakota you're getting it on with Blake, and that's why she dumped him."

I leaned back, too stunned to respond. Pushing my tray away, I fought against the nausea churning its way through my stomach. Wouldn't that make Dakota's day if I puked right then and there.

I turned towards the Populars' table. Dakota sat surrounded by her minions. Blake was nowhere to be seen. Finally, I looked at my friends again. Shaking, I formed the words I wanted to say. "If any of you believe I'd be stupid enough to tell Dakota any of that, we should probably re-evaluate our friendship."

Gathering my tray with its half-eaten salad, I left the table and, ignoring the looks and whispers from my classmates, hid in the bathroom for the rest of lunch. In the grand scheme of Mazie's panic attacks, this one ranked somewhere right in the middle. I'd survive it, I knew, but I wasn't so sure I'd survive my junior year. We weren't even a month in and already I'd made enemies in high places and gained the suspicion of everyone around me, even my own friends.

Maybe I didn't have any real friends. Not here at least. Jack might be the only one who I could rely on. Except, he disappeared sometimes without notice and was the noncorporeal counterpart to a douchebag. Regardless, he was all I had.

Or not.

Near the end of lunch, a light wrapping shook me out of my mind's self-loathing state of friendless loop.

"Mazie, I know that's you in there. I recognize your shoes."

I didn't say anything, but I did manage to wipe the last of the tears from my eyes.

"Come out of there. It's not sanitary," Kayla said. "Hey, you know I don't believe what people are saying. I was just relaying what I'd found out. Honest."

I wanted to believe her, so I leaned against the door and gushed. "I haven't done anything with Blake. But... you know how it is. He has a connection to Jack that he doesn't understand. It confuses him." And me. It really confused me, and if I was being honest, it was getting harder and harder to navigate the whole Blake-Jack duology, but she didn't need to hear all that now.

"I know. I get it. This situation is unique. Like, literally, I don't think this has ever happened before in the history of humans unique." She paused. "Are you coming out of there or do I have to get my hazmat suit on and climb under to extract you?"

Unlatching the door, I slid it open and slipped out.

"Oh honey." She steered me towards a mirror. Black mascara mixed with purple eyeliner smeared down my cheeks like I'd rammed both sides of my face into someone's waiting fist. "You look like you'd been out clubbing all night. Take a moment. Fix yourself."

I nodded, splashed water onto my face, and spent the next two minutes undoing the damage and then reapplying makeup. Kayla stayed the whole time, even though it made her late for next period.

"Thanks," I said to her as we exited the bathroom.

"That's what friends are for."

I smiled. Friends were for moments like that. Kayla was a friend.

Surviving the afternoon was due large in part to me replaying that moment of friendship over and over in my brain. I could do with the looks and backhanded laughter knowing I had someone on my side.

It seemed I might make it through the day after all. The last bell rang, and I made the self-preserving choice to skip a trip to my locker and instead headed towards the student parking lot. But like several other days in the near past, I didn't quite make it to the safety of Kayla's car.

Blake, looking disheveled, his eyes gleaming and red rimmed, waited for me at the school's exit. I froze as soon as I saw him. But he didn't freeze. He moved towards me at a swift and striking pace. I was a deer and he was the oncoming car.

"Why did you do it, Mazie?"

I flinched at the force of his words and he halted his forward momentum.

"Don't come any closer to me," I warned him. "And if you believe what people are saying, then there's nothing I can say that will answer your question."

The vein on the side of his neck bulged. "You told Dakota we had sex."

I rolled my eyes. "That would have been a lie, and there's only one person in this conversation that's a liar."

I made to move past him, but he grabbed my arm.

"I told you not to touch me!" I pulled my arm away from him. "If you believe Dakota, that's on you, but I'm not the reason she broke up with you. I'm being played, and so are you. The difference between me and you is that you seem to like it."

Now it was his turn to flinch. "Why would you say that?"

"Look at the world you belong to, Blake. The Populars, playing King, as though you rule a kingdom. None of it is real and all of it is bullshit. Younger wannabe Populars kiss your ass and you've gotten used to it. You think it's all real and that it's the way life is. It isn't. I'm the one person at this school who talks to you like you're a person and not the king of the snobs and you're willing to write me off to preserve your fantasy. Well fine. You do you and I'll do me, and let's just hope that your world and mine stop colliding all the damn time."

Spotting Kayla near her car, I waved to her and moved on.

"Mazie, wait!" Blake called after me. I kept walking, but soon he was at my side. "Give me a minute."

"Ten seconds," I said, turning towards him. "Starting now."

He cocked his head to the side. "I don't know what to believe or not believe, but one thing I do know, even though it seems impossible."

"Five seconds."

"We know things about each other that we shouldn't. When you go home, I'm still there, aren't I?"

My mouth opened. I suppressed a gasp.

"I have secrets, Mazie. Some of them are dark. Do you know them?"

Turning away, I walked to Kayla's car. This time, Blake didn't follow.

I barely spoke during the drive home. All I could do was think about his words, try to make sense of them. I wondered if he even knew what he was talking about.

Blake had a deep, dark secret he thought I knew about. That fact might, according to Ethan's warning yesterday, make him dangerous—to me, to himself, to others—who knew? Jack might harbor that secret as well, which meant, if Blake was dangerous, Jack was... No. I couldn't make my brain go there. My sweet Jack was just that—sweet.

Jack waited for me when I got home. He seemed the same as always, but, picking up on my mood, he floated towards me with his lips turned down in a frown. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "So much. I don't want to talk about any of that right now, though. Should we watch a movie?"

"Sure, but first, let me show you something." He retreated into the kitchen and I followed. "Remember how I opened your door that first day?"

"It's burned into my memory forever."

"Yeah, mine too. Only, I haven't had much luck with that sort of thing since. But I've been practicing and watch this!" He grabbed at something lying on the counter. The first few times, his ghostly hands swiped right though. I walked over to get a better look, then froze, just as I had when Blake had come charging at me.

Jack swiped again and this time, he was successful. He held up his prize, his crooked smile and gleaming eyes awaiting my praise.

"Well? What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?" Out of all the things he could have attempted to grab, he'd chosen a butcher knife.