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“Well, not really a grown woman.”
    Mrs. Poindexter shook her finger at her. “I was just your age when I wed my Arlen more than seventy-five years ago. And just eighteen when I had my first baby.” She chuckled. “Not that I recommend it. No, no . . . the younger generation is smart to wait.”
    Sophie nodded somberly.
    Mrs. Poindexter took Sophie’s hand and clasped it warmly. “You are a very smart girl, Sophie. Why, I still remember when you were a little thing, and how you’d come over and play chess with Mr. Poindexter while he was recovering from heart surgery. Do you remember that?”
    Sophie nodded again, smiling a bit this time. “He was a good chess player.”
    “Well, one day after you left, he took me aside and told me that you were the smartest child he’d ever laid eyes on.” Her faded eyes lit up. “And if you knew my husband, you knew that was high praise indeed.”
    Sophie didn’t know what to say to that.
    “And I know how you thought he was letting you win sometimes, Sophie girl. But the truth is, he never did.” Mrs. Poindexter chuckled. “Nope, he never did.” She sighed and glanced back at her house. “Well, I better get back before my own fire alarms start going off. I’ve got green beans cooking.” She turned and slowly walked back to her house.
    Sophie stood there thinking about what Mrs. Poindexter had just told her. She had no idea that Mr. Poindexter hadn’t been letting her win. In fact, she distinctly remembered him teasing her, saying that if and when she won, it was simply because he felt sorry for her. Anyway, it was a sweet story and a nice compliment. But she’d been a child then, and despite having a high IQ, she’d been a bit on the naive side. Maybe she still was.
    The truth was, she hadn’t changed all that much. In the same way she’d fallen for Mr. Poindexter’s tricks back then, she’d fallen for Dylan’s deception just a few weeks ago. For a smart girl, she was pretty dumb. Or maybe she was just living in denial. Deep, dark denial. And if ignorance was bliss, which seemed unlikely, then knowledge was power.
    Sophie marched into the house, grabbed her purse, ran out to her car, and drove to the nearest Walgreen’s. She parked the car and hurried inside, heading straight to the feminine hygiene department. She searched until she found what she was looking for—an early pregnancy test.
    She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was around, then picked up the box and began scanning the back.
    “Hurry up,” said a girl who was coming her way.
    “Just chill,” another girl said.
    Sophie shoved the box back onto the shelf and turned her attention to the rack next to it. Unfortunately that was the birth control section. As the two girls, both from her school, approached, Sophie reached out and grabbed a package of sanitary pads without looking closely at them. She wasn’t a pad user since she preferred tampons, but anything was better than being caught with an at-home pregnancy kit.
    Acting as if nothing was unusual, she turned and carried the large, hot pink package of pads to the registers, getting into the line with only one woman in it. As it turned out, the pads she’d chosen were some kind of supersized, mega-absorbent, recommended-for-elephant-use sort of product. And when she got to the cash register, she realized that a guy about her age was the cashier.
    Avoiding his eyes, she shoved the enormous package toward him, and with heat racing up her neck, she fumbled in her wallet for the right amount of cash. What were the chances of a robbery just then? A masked man could burst into the drugstore and just shoot her. Of course, with her luck, the morning paper would read Teenage Girl Found Dead with Maxi Pads Clasped in Her Arms.
    Sophie heard the girls laughing as she made her way out of the store. They were probably just laughing for the sake of laughing. That’s what girls her age did. But it sure felt as if they were laughing at her, as if