me if it’s a problem.”
I turn, and Sam stands next to her. He’s still watching George and Jane walk away. They both are. But then Sam turns to me and shrugs, as if to say I shouldn’t let it bother me that George just ditched me to ride home with Jane. And it shouldn’t bother me. I didn’t even want to drive George this year in the first place. But for some reason, it does.
“Yeah, I can give you a ride,” I finally say to Hannah. “You need a ride, too?” I ask Sam.
He says his mom got off work early for once and she’s already waiting for him the parking lot. But we exchange numbers, and say we’ll text over the weekend.
“And, Emma,” he says as he walks away, then turns back and flashes me a smile, revealing his perfect straight white teeth. “Don’t let them get to you. I think your idea is pretty brilliant.”
* * *
“Sam is so nice,” Hannah says as he gets in his mom’s car and we walk toward mine.
“Yeah, he is,” I say nonchalantly. She gives me directions to where to drop her off—apartments on the other side of town. And I nod, though Sam’s word—brilliant—bounces around inside my head, and makes me feel warm. Or maybe it’s just that it’s so hot inside my car, from having sat outside in the sun all day. And anyway, I don’t mention to Hannah that I’m kind of hoping Sam and I do text over the weekend, that maybe we make plans to hang out. I miss my sister and now George is mad at me, too. And it turns out I really don’t like quiet as much as I always thought.
“So, I’m thinking,” I realize Hannah is saying now. “That maybe I match with Rob.”
“Rob? Robert Martin?” She nods enthusiastically. “No... We can’t just match up in coding club. We have to think bigger. It has to be the whole school.”
“Rob and I have a lot in common,” she says. “And I swim with his older sister. She’s really nice. We’ve actually been friends for years.”
“But you’re missing the point,” I tell her. “Our algorithm can examine your likes and dislikes against every guy’s in the whole school. Maybe there’s someone else who you don’t even know yet. You’ve just started at Highbury. There’s 400 students. Maybe you would even match a junior or a senior?”
I don’t say this out loud to her, but I also know that in order for me to win this little argument with George and Jane over our project, I’m going to have to do something bigger, a grand gesture. If I can get other people at school interested, outside of coding club, I could expand my social horizons as Ms. Taylor mentioned. And if I get the school excited, then coding club will be forced to do my project for the state competition. I think about Jane and George probably eating pepperoni pizza at his house right now and brainstorming other ideas, and for some reason, it makes me really annoyed.
“Hey,” I say as I stop at the light across the street from her apartments. “How about you come over to my house now instead of me taking you home, and we can get to work on this together?”
“Now?” she asks, sounding surprised. I nod. “But I don’t really know much about coding yet. I did a summer camp once in middle school, but that’s it.”
“Well, I’ll teach you,” I say quickly. That’s my job as a senior and president of club, isn’t it? To mentor.
She nods and her red hair bobs in front of her face, but even with her mess of hair, I can tell she’s smiling. For once it feels like I’ve said exactly the right thing.
Chapter 5
Izzy FaceTimes me later that night, just after I’ve gotten into bed. My eyes are closed but I hear the chimes, the ringtone I set just for her, and I jump out of bed to grab my phone. It’s midnight here, but only nine p.m. in California.
I pick up, and Izzy’s pretty face fills my screen. Her cheeks look pinker than they used to—she’s gotten too much sun already. I put my finger up to touch them on the screen. She’s so far away but she’s right here.
“Oh my gosh,” she says, her voice bursting. Izzy has one speed, fast and excited. Seeing her again on my screen, I remember how exhausting it used to be sometimes