“Why would he think that?” But what I wanted to ask was, What did you do this time?

Kimberlee glared up at me. “I already told you. I really liked him and he brushed me off. Nobody brushes me off! I wanted to find out what the deal was and I kind of started . . . following him.”

“You stalked him?”

“It was not stalking!”

I waved my hands in an attempt to placate her. “Continue.”

“It wasn’t stalking. Years of stealing have just made me very good at not being seen.”

“I bet.” Everything had just taken a nosedive into surreal.

“And I . . . found out that his best friend . . . was more than a friend.”

“And he knew you found out?”

“Duh,” she said, looking at me like I was particularly remedial. “What’s the point of finding out a deep, dark secret if you don’t gloat about it? And a couple weeks later Preston got sent away.”

“Convenient,” I drawled.

“I didn’t do it!” she yelled. “I didn’t tell anyone what I knew. Well, except Khail.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know!” she protested. “No one believes me! Khail cornered me after school one day and tried to get me to admit I’d squealed, but I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

“And that’s why he still hates you a year after you died?”

She paused.

Oh no.

“Well . . . maybe that’s not the only reason.”

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. “What?” I said, more to my book than her.

“Preston’s parents sent him off before he could say good-bye to anyone, so all Khail had to remember him by were the two things he’d left at Khail’s house.”

“Lemme guess,” I said, not even bothering to put any inflection in my voice. “A Yankees hat and red boxers.”

Kimberlee had the decency to look chagrined.

My first run-in with Khail made a whole lot more sense now. “How does Sera fit into all this?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

She shrugged.

“Oh, come on. Let’s not play this game again.”

“What do you want me to say? Preston was gone and Khail acted like he didn’t even care, and so I started picking on Sera instead because I knew it would bug the hell out of him. And maybe I got carried away. It was more fun to pick on Sera; she got all mad and flustery,” Kimberlee said, as if we were talking about the weather instead of how she’d bullied my girlfriend. “Bullying Khail is like beating on a brick wall, but turn on Sera and they both go off the deep end. It’s surprisingly satisfying.”

“You really are crazy.” I meant it. I was seriously horrified.

Kimberlee rolled her eyes and turned back to the television. “Whatever. I wasn’t Miss Nice to Everyone. That’s hardly news. But I never told anyone except you about Khail or Preston.”

“Oh yes, you’re completely innocent.” My head spun. Tell her I hate her. Khail had meant every word.

And now I knew why.

“Why’d you tell me anyway? Are you hoping I’ll go plead your case to Khail?” I asked, already dreading that conversation.

“No!” Kimberlee said, turning around to face me again, her eyes deadly serious. “You cannot tell him! You have to promise. I don’t know if even Sera knows about him. So he’ll figure out exactly who told you and then he’ll never believe I didn’t out him and Preston.”

“Why do you care what he thinks? I mean this in the nicest way possible; you are dead.”

Her expression immediately snapped to a practiced neutral. “I just do, okay?” she said, turning back to the infomercial.

Someone’s crush didn’t die with her. In her own warped way, Kimberlee really did care for Khail. Still. Talk about doomed love. He’s gay, she’s dead, stay tuned.

I turned back to my calculus homework, but was having trouble focusing. I felt like I was keeping secrets from everyone. Sera, my parents—now Khail, the one person who knew everything about Kimberlee. Weirder, it was his own secret I was keeping from him.

One more drop, I told myself. Then I could go back to my life, and Khail could go back to his, and he’d never have to find out that I knew the one thing he apparently didn’t want anyone to know.

Three days. And this would all be over.

Twenty-Five

FRIDAY MORNING THE PLAN WENT into action. Step one was ridiculously simple. Khail leaned over to a girl in his first-hour class and said, “I heard the Red Rose Returner is going to pull something big on Monday.”

It took off from there. By lunchtime the whole student body was buzzing about it.

I expected Sera to be pissy as usual about anything having to do with the Red Returner, but she didn’t seem mad. She seemed scared. I tried to bring up the possibility of a date, but she brushed me off for the first time since we’d gotten together.

“I have tons of homework,” she said vaguely. “I can’t do anything this weekend.”

“But you just finished your big project for history and you haven’t mentioned anything else.”

“Yeah, well, my homework is hardly the most exciting thing to talk about,” she insisted.

“You have to eat sometime,” I pressed. “Can’t I take you out for a quick lunch on Saturday or Sunday?”