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grab a bag of cheese popcorn. Not too surprisingly, the cop won’t mind his own business.
    â€œWhat are you kids up to tonight?”
    The dude I’ve grabbed glances at me, and I can see the wheels spinning in his head. Please don’t give me away, I think, hoping beyond hope that he plays along. Then I feel his hand give mine a little squeeze.
    â€œNot much,” he says to the cop. “Just buying some chips. We’re probably going to just lay low tonight and watch a movie.” He turns to me. “So what do you think?” he asks. “Doritos?”
    It goes against everything I believe in, but I can’t afford to get caught, so I force myself to speak in a sickening baby-doll voice. Anything to avoid sounding like a girl who paints graffiti. “My favorite!” I say. “You know that.” To top it off, I giggle and give him a little bump with my hip.
    We both try to ignore the cop, but he just stands there, looking at us. “So you guys aren’t heading to the prom?”
    â€œNope,” I say, remembering to stick with the girly voice. “I’m in, like, a huge fight with my friend Tiffany, and I can’t be in the same room with her, so we, like, decided to skip it, but she’s totally going anyway, probably just to spite me. I mean, I don’t understand why some people have to be such bitches, right?”
    The cop’s eyes start to glaze over. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he says. “Listen, did you guys happen to see a girl running past the store a few minutes ago?”
    â€œWhat did she look like?” asks my fake boyfriend.
    â€œShe had a dark hoodie on and some kind of knitted hat,” the cop says. He looks me up and down. “She was pretty much exactly your size.”
    â€œWow,” I say. “A five-foot-five teenage girl. Can’t be too many of those around.” He gives me a dirty look, so I giggle again and roll my eyes for good measure.
    â€œYeah, anyway, you kids stay out of trouble.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he does a slow circuit around the store before finally leaving. As the door jingles behind him, I let out a deep breath.
    Fake boyfriend looks at me with a curious, slightly amused expression. I can tell from the way that he’s dressed—ballcap and a Nike T-shirt—that he’s a bit of a jock, which means that he and I probably have nothing in common. He’s cute, though, even if he’s not my type. He has short, dirty-blond hair and brown eyes. One of his front teeth twists slightly in front of the other one, which makes his otherwise conventionally handsome face kind of interesting.
    I smile at him. “Thanks a million.”
    â€œHey, no problem. Ummm…” He glances down, and I realize I still have his hand in a death grip. I drop it and laugh.
    â€œSorry. I guess I was a bit stressed-out.”
    â€œNo worries. So should I call my lawyer? Am I an accessory to murder or anything like that?”
    â€œI promise you it isn’t that serious.” We both stand there for a moment, smiling. I feel incredibly stupid. “Well, thanks again for your help,” I tell him. “Enjoy your chips.”
    At the front of the store, I stop and look out the window. The cop is still sitting in his car, sipping on coffee. Shit . I turn around before he notices me and pretend to stare intently at a rack of magazines.
    After a minute, fake boyfriend walks to the counter and pays for his chips. He gets to the door and stops when he sees the cruiser.
    â€œHey,” he says, loud enough for me to realize that he’s talking to me. “You coming?”
    I pause. The last thing I want is to be around people, but I know that if I walk out of the store by myself, the cop will definitely start hassling me, and I can’t afford another run-in. Not tonight.
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    He hands me the chips, and I follow him past