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neck—”
    “Rebecca Webb.”
    Sydney, whether she knew it or not, was now my most priceless ally. I sat up straight, eyes popping. “You know her?”
    “Yeah, we’re in Drama One together.”
    I didn’t know where to begin with my questions, and Ms. Hochhalter chose that moment to show up and start organizing her books on her desk. I had maybe thirty seconds.
    “Well, what does she—is she like—how does she—you know!”
    Sydney smirked at me and rolled her eyes. “Wow, you are hopeless, Ty,” she said, and poked my shoulder again.
    Ms. Hochhalter cleared her throat and opened a massive tome with gilt edges.
    “What’s she like?” I managed to spit out.
    Sydney thought about it for a second before saying, “She’s quiet.”
    The bell rang. “All right, my academicians, mouths closed, ears open,” Ms. Hochhalter said. “We’re starting Shakespeare today. I hear one groan, I see one adolescent eye roll, and your paper will be ten pages instead of five, plus you’ll wash my car every week for the remainder of the year. Any takers?”
    I loved having Ms. Hochhalter for English, but right then, I wanted her to shut up. This was important, couldn’t she see that?
    It didn’t matter. Sydney faced forward and dutifully opened her notebook. I did the same while my veins throbbed impatiently for more details, and Rebecca’s name whispered through my brain, echoing. I thought I could taste it.
    “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,”
Ms. Hochhalter said, taking a seat on top of her desk and crossing her ankles. “One of Shakespeare’s great romantic comedies. Yes, children, the rom-com has existed for centuries. Usually we’d do
Macbeth
, which is much more macabre, but the drama department is putting on
Midsummer
as the fall play, so we’ll all go to see the matinee together as a class.”
    Some kid in the back groaned. Ms. Hochhalter, without even looking at him, pointed in his direction and shouted, “My car, every week, rest of the year!”
    While the class laughed, Sydney slipped me a note.
She’s in the show
.
    I wrote,
Ms. H?
and slipped it back. Sydney shook her head at me, wrote, and passed the note again.
    Rebecca Webb is in Midsummer
.
    I didn’t exactly adore Shakespeare, but I became an instant convert to the Bard. And English class would never be the same. In more ways than one, it would turn out.
    The following week, I passed Becky in the hall on my way to math, like I did every day. I’d memorized her motions—the way she kept a book clasped in both arms in front of her chest, the way her left hip twisted just a bit more than her right with each step, the bounce of her cobalt bagagainst her thigh. The patch on her bag read
Just This Once
in white courier font. Yeah, try narrowing down
those
words in Google. I had no idea who or what it referred to.
    And on this particular day, Becky looked right at me.
    No mistaking it. Not only did we make eye contact, but she maintained it. Studying. Forehead wrinkled ever so slightly. Kept my gaze until we’d passed.
    I stopped and turned, to see if she’d look back at me. She didn’t. It could have been coincidental; maybe I’d just happened to fall into her line of sight? But no, she hadn’t
glanced
, she’d watched me. Which meant …!
    Then a senior guy banged into me and sent me to the floor. I had enough pride to be embarrassed as laughs and applause echoed up and down the hall, but not so much as to distract me from watching Becky walking away. She was too far by that point to have seen my little spill. Good.
    Recovering, I shoved the guy who’d crashed into me and called him a dick.
    “Oh yeah?” he said. He stood eight feet taller than me. “You think so, freshman?” He dropped his backpack to the floor and pushed me with one hand, sending me back about three hundred yards into the wall.
    Three of his senior buddies circled me, lowering their square heads and sharpening their razor teeth. Freshman year was about to get a lot shorter.