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have. With some of the guys from my German class.”
    I stared at him, incredulous. “What did you do there?”
    Charlie blinked innocently. “Enjoyed the dance stylings of Chastity and Sage. Charming women. A little past their prime.”
    I shook my head. I didn’t believe him for a second, but if Charlie thought he could shock me so easily, he was wrong. “Fine. When Mr. McFadden gave me a ride home on the last day of school, he put his hand on my thigh.”
    Charlie’s eyes widened. “False. Completely false.”
    I squeezed Charlie’s leg to demonstrate.
    â€œPlease tell me you’re lying,” he begged.
    â€œYeah,” I admitted, withdrawing my hand. “Didn’t happen.”
    â€œI lost my virginity at last year’s regional debate championship,” said Charlie.
    â€œFalse.” I had seen the girls on the debate team, and they weren’t Charlie’s type. After a beat too long, I said, “I have romantic history with another member of the Essential Five.”
    My goal was to trick Charlie into talking about Liane. The two of them rarely referred to their lifelong friendship, which was starting to make me suspicious.
    â€œRomantic history?” He raised an eyebrow. “What does that even mean?”
    I shrugged. “It’s up for interpretation.”
    â€œYou’re lying,” Charlie concluded. “Tim’s a little out of your league, and you don’t seem like the type to—”
    â€œTo hook up with Liane?” I suggested.
    Charlie’s upper lip curled. “I was going to say, to get sexually disoriented.”
    Sitting on that bus with Charlie made me all kinds of disoriented. “So have you ever hooked up with Liane?” I asked, breaking every unspoken rule of the game.
    Charlie flopped back against the seat, like the question amused and exhausted him in equal measure. “Liane Gallagher?” he stalled. “The coldhearted giantess?”
    I rolled my eyes. Liane was beautiful, and he knew it.
    â€œNo.” Charlie drew out the word, making it sound like a gift. He pressed his knee firmly against mine. “Liane and I are just friends. Always have been.”
    I stared out the window, trying to weigh the likelihood of this claim. The Columbia River was peppered with windsurfers, their sails like neon sharks rising from the water. I wanted to believe him.
    Charlie put his hand on my thigh. “But Tim and I have shared the occasional vulnerable moment.”
    I grinned, relieved to be back in the game. “Liar,” I said.
    â€œHow can you be sure?”
    â€œTim wouldn’t break the pact.”
    â€œThe pact.” Charlie smiled distantly, as if I had invoked a joke from years ago.

    Eventually our game fizzled out and we listened to music, sharing a pair of earbuds, until the bus finally turned down a gravel road. We passed a wooden sign shouting SHINING STARS ! in chipped paint. Somebody opened a window and the air smelled different—clean and bottomless. We had traveled a long way, I realized. Even if summer turned out to be terrible, at least it wouldn’t be a rerun of last summer.
    â€œI’ve got one.” Charlie powered off his iPod and pressed his temple against the seat back. His eyelashes were long, his face freckled and so close. “I liked kissing you.”
    He was talking about The Seagull . Contrary to our excruciating rehearsal, the kiss had felt perfectly natural in front of a real audience. The only problem was that during every performance—for about a second of our three-second embrace—I forgot all about being Nina kissing Trigorin. Very briefly, I was Rebecca kissing Charlie, and completely thrilled. The feeling vanished when the lights went down—two years passed between acts three and four; we had to change costumes fast—but I thought Liane was probably aware of it, somehow.
    â€œFalse.” I rolled my