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the car.
    Our eyes met. The tool was gone. And there it was—that longing—like right after I’d saved him. What did he want from me?
    “God, Grayson, no, I’m not thinking that at all,” I said, taking a step back from him.
    “Then what are you thinking?” he asked, flipping his bangs out of his eyes with a toss of his head. In that second all I was thinking was how charming he looked when he did that. Wren, get a freakin’ grip!
    “You hit a nerve, okay? I’m royally screwing up this semester, and I hate it but not enough to cheat. I totally feel all that bullshit pressure to get good grades. And I’m not. Not like my friends,” I said, all the stuff I couldn’t admit to Jazz and Maddie came rushing out in one long breath. “Why do we even have to be judged by rank? What does that measure? All my number says about me is that I’m average. And to top it off, I’m supposed to know what I want to do with my life, but I know I won’t ever get into Harvard, so hey, at least that’s one thing I can cross off the list.”
    “You’re applying to Harvard?” Gray asked.
    I huffed. “Just forget it,” I said, turning away from him. Leaves rustled beneath my feet, punctuating the rush of my exit. He trotted next to me to gain ground, then stood in my way. I tried to go around him, but he kept dodging in front of me. I stopped, staring up through the canopy of half-barren branches. The sky was a deep shade of dusky blue. It would be dark soon.
    “Wren, please,” Gray said, putting his face in my line of vision, hands up in surrender.
    “I have to go,” I said, ducking under his arm. He grabbed my elbow, so I spun back to face him.
    “Why did you save me?”
    The question stopped me. I wrenched my arm free. “You were choking?”
    “I know, I just . . . but why did you step in? If it had beenme, and the situation was reversed, I don’t think I would have stepped in.”
    “So . . . you’re telling me you wouldn’t have saved me ?”
    He ran a hand across his face. “No, that’s not what I meant . . . not you, personally, I mean anyone. I wouldn’t have known what to do.”
    “Sure you would have. Simple. Health 101.”
    “Okay, I guess I deserve that,” he said. “I’m just saying I would have panicked. I did panic. I thought I was a goner until you stepped in.”
    “Someone would have helped you,” I said.
    “Maybe, maybe not. All I know is you did,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I guess what I want to say is thank you for saving my life.”
    A jogger trotted by. I crushed some leaves under my foot, letting what Grayson said sink in.
    “This is weird, isn’t it?” I said, stepping away.
    “What?” he asked.
    “I feel like I know you, but I don’t,” I began. “It’s like we had this intense moment, but . . . it’s over, isn’t it?”
    “It doesn’t have to be,” he said, “does it?”
    I rubbed my hands together, folded my arms across my chest. “I think I’d better get going.”
    “Sure,” he said, taking his keys out of his pocket. “Let me take you home.”
    “No, that’s okay. I don’t live too far. But . . .”
    “But what?”
    Asking for his number crossed my mind, but why would I ever need to see him again? He insulted me. Thanked me. What more did we have to say to each other?
    “But maybe I’ll see you around,” I continued, backing up. “Bye, Grayson.”
    He called my name, but I kept moving toward the entrance of the park, thankful that I had the green light to cross the street. I jogged, putting as much space as I could between us. The “Wren the Hero” chapter of my life could close now. It was more like an anecdote anyway, something I could tell my college roommates one drunken night.
    That is, if I even went to college.
    Something nagged at me though. Since the night I saved him, I’d felt a magnetic pull toward Grayson so strong, it scared me. I thought it was some sort of mystical thing, that once you saved