I'd first seen Jack with my friends last Wednesday, but it didn't stop then. For the next week, every time I walked into the cafeteria and headed for our usual table, Jack would be there. Sitting in the corner, looking very much uncomfortable while my friends talked to each other as if he wasn't even there. At least when Seth wasn't interrogating him, that is. 

"I'm not gay!" Eli exclaimed from the spot next to me, breaking his tense silence. "I told you already, pansexual."

Seth smirked and turned to Jack again. "Yeah, so, are you pansexual like our special snowflake Eli here? Or are you gay?"

Jack shook his head.

"So, you're into pu-"

"Jesus, Seth," Megan said, her face scrunching in disgust. "Stop tormenting the kid."

"Tormenting? I stopped doing that, like, a week ago. Now we're bros."

"More like you want him to be your replacement now that Eli's fed up with your bullshit," I said, hoping to instigate some drama. "What's going on between you two anyway?"

"Nothing," Seth and Eli said at the same time.

Megan and I exchanged looks.

"It's kind of funny, Seth," Megan began, "how you're always going on about how girls start the most drama, but look at you now."

Seth sat up straighter in his seat. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Megan smiled that sly, kind of cute smile of hers. "Even Romy is chill compared to how much of a drama queen you are."

"I'm chill period," I scoffed.

Megan adjusted one of the bright clips in her dark hair. "That's such a lie and you know it. Right, Ms. I went to juvie but didn't tell anyone?"

"How do you know about that?" I shot Jack a knowing look, then asked him, "Did you tell them?" When he didn't answer, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Great. Thanks a lot."

"Actually," Megan said, "I heard it from Penelope Dupont."

Suddenly, it was as if the most recent versions of myself collapsed into one. Romy with her friends, Romy in the flower shop with Jack, and Romy in juvie. Three separate lives running parallel but never meeting. An unlikely intersection in the most boring place imaginable—a stuffy high school cafeteria.

"How do you know Penelope?" I asked quietly. My juvie partner in crime, pathological liar with the makeshift altar to Satan underneath the bunk bed we shared.

Megan's smug gaze pierced through me. "She's auditioning for that beauty pageant with me. Probably my biggest competition looks-wise, but I don't think that girl has a chance of winning. She's batshit crazy."

Penelope at a beauty pageant? Probably her parents' doing, maybe their way of recovering her reputation after her juvie stint. I wondered if Anika was still locked up, and I almost felt a pang of something thinking of her, alone and hopelessly trying to convert some of the others girls into her personal cult. When she got out, unlike me and Penelope, she wouldn't have a well-off family to go back to—for her, it was back to foster care, and then the streets once she turned eighteen. Better hope the devil helped her then.

"Don't even start with that beauty pageant shit," Seth groaned. He looked at me, his small pupils dilating in the cloudy gray of his eyes. "But it's true you went to juvie?"

"Yep," I said flatly.

"You're not gonna tell us about that?"

"Nope."

"But you knew about it," he said to Jack. "What do you think of that, huh? What do you think of her?"

Jack simply shrugged.

"You like her, you don't like her... you into evil girls or what? I need real answers, man."

"Why do you care?" Eli suddenly asked. "Can we go back to normal instead of having lunch be you interviewing Jack for thirty minutes straight?"

Seth grinned and wrapped his arm around Eli's shoulder, pulling him close. "Aw, you jealous, bro?"

"Fuck you," Eli huffed.

Seth pushed him away just as abruptly as he'd embraced him. "Yeah, jealous for sure. Jealous of who, though, you tell me."

"Maybe it's more guilt than jealousy," I suggested. "Tell me, Eli, is it true you used to be friends with Jack?"

"Wow, looks like everyone's revealing secrets all of a sudden," Megan laughed.

Eli glared at us. "It's not true. I didn't know him. I don't know him." He hadn't looked at Jack once throughout the whole lunch period until now. "Why would you lie?"

Jack met his gaze with a bored stare. His lips quirked, as if he wanted to say something, reveal it all.

Seth frowned at Eli. "Why wouldn't you tell me about that?"

"Because it's not true!" Eli cried.

"So what is true?"

Jack typed out something on his phone. Seconds later, I received the text.

From Jackass:

what romy said is true.

When I showed it to everyone, Eli froze. Megan clapped her hands and laughed. And Seth sat back, calm and quiet for once as he traced the rim of his soda can.

"You still coming to the party?" he asked Jack.

"I doubt he wants to," I said.

"Just know he needs it. He needs to interact with people who aren't you."

"How thoughtful of you, Seth."

Maybe his "mute boy is one of us" charade was nothing but his ridiculous attempt at preserving whatever high school social credit he had left. Maybe he'd rather everyone think he and Jack were friends than everyone knowing about the pepper spray, us three running away in the night, the fact his "friends" had berated him for hanging out with Eli.

"You're invited too, by the way," Seth told me.

"Me? I'm not coming."

He let out a low laugh as the bell finally rung. "Yeah, that's what you say every time."

❀     ❀     ❀

On Friday evening, Jack was scheduled to work at the shop, but Talia said he called in sick. Even though we worked in silence most of the time, his absence still felt strange. No Jack wiping down the shelves or repeatedly fixing the arrangements at the window, the loud music from his AirPods occasionally blasting when he passed in front of me.

I stayed for longer than usual. Dusted the shop from top to bottom. Cleaned out the storage closet in preparation for the refrigeration system Talia wanted installed. The flyers Jack and I had plastered all over the city were working judging from the constant stream of customers—way more than we ever got at the old shop. Most importantly, I hadn't seen Grace's face in a week. If this was the beginning of my flower empire, I'd take it.

"What I can't figure out is," Talia said as we turned off the lights and locked up the doors together. "Do you know what happened to Jack?"

"I don't believe it for a second that he's sick. Actually, he's probably at a party right now."

She made way to her car parked on the street. "Party?" she asked, getting into the driver's seat. "Jack. At a party."

"I told you he's been sitting with us at lunch now. Seth invited him for whatever reason."

"That just doesn't seem right. What if he's meaning to pull a nasty prank on him? What if he's just pretending to be Jack's friend so he can betray him later?"

"You think he'd do that?"

"Teenagers can be disgusting, vile creatures."

We sat in silence for a few seconds. "I don't understand why Jack agreed to go to that party anyway."

"Maybe he's lonely," Talia theorized. "He can't communicate with people. Just imagine how that feels. I know you act like he chooses no to talk, but that's not how it is. Maybe he sees this as his chance to finally fit in."

I laughed. "Jack is really not the type to care about 'fitting in', Talia."

"So what? It's not about 'fitting in', it's about being accepted. I know that it's hard for you to understand because you hate everyone, but look, after years of being ignored, of being bullied and being thought of as weird, wouldn't you want to take the opportunity to actually not be like that for once?"

I took a deep breath. For a few seconds, I tried to take her words seriously. To put myself in Jack's shoes. But no feeling arose. I didn't understand.

"Think about Grace," Talia continued, more quietly this time. "Remember how you told me that when you threw tantrums in public she refused to acknowledge you were her child? Or how sometimes she'd stay out all night when you were a baby because she didn't want to deal with you crying? How does it feel like knowing she didn't accept being a mother?"

I blinked at the blurry streetlights lining the road, my limbs stiff and my insides cold.

"It didn't feel nice," I muttered. Who would've thought Talia would officially become Psychologist #6. "

"So imagine how it feels like for Jack, to not be accepted by most people at all. I've talked to his mom, Romy. She tries to understand him. She tries to help him. But still, she keeps hoping for the day he'll finally change."

"Can we not talk about Jack anymore?"

"I think you should go to that party and see what's going on."

"Fine," I snapped, and Talia's brows shot up her forehead in surprise. Quite frankly, it didn't take a lot to convince me to go snoop in on the action. "Fine, I get it, I should go do the right thing, whatever."

She patted my shoulder. "When I'm not right you are, so it balances out."

"Ugh." I leaned across the car so I could give her an awkward half hug. She seemed surprised at my sudden affection, but after a few seconds, she hugged me back.

"You're kind of a dick sometimes," I said, "but thanks."

She laughed against my hair. "Always here to support my little sister."

I pulled away. "Little? I'm taller than you."

"As if it matters," she said. "We're both short as hell."

"You don't mind if I use your car to go rescue Jack, do you?"

Here I was, becoming everything I said I wouldn't, the brave knight to his helpless princess. He'd hate me for it, I was sure of it, but when had that ever stopped me?

Talia smiled. "Not at all."

❀     ❀     ❀

Every time I went to Eli's house for a party, a sense of dejavu swallowed me whole. The soft ripples on the lake. The boat bobbing along almost to the rhythm of the loud music coming from inside the house.

It couldn't be real. No way Jack could ever let himself come here.

Still, I went inside—the equivalent of stepping into a time warp, an endless loop of alcohol and stale conversations and other people's drunken mess.

At least until I saw him.

Pizza tattoo guy from the pepper spray incident, who'd ogled me like the total fuckboy he was—at least until I sprayed him in the face. How could I ever forget.

"Where's Jack?" I demanded.

"Jack?" he asked, clearly drunk—too drunk to be mad at me for what I'd done—and leaned closer to me in the stifling noise.

"Mute boy," I said instead, and pizza tattoo guy grinned.

"Oh, you came to see him? He's in the kitchen with Seth and the others. Trust me, you won't be disappointed." 

Seth and the others.

You won't be disappointed.

❀     ❀     ❀

A/N: 👀

by the way, if you want to listen to the playlist for this book, find it on spotify under my username "destaciax" and my playlist "the one without words soundtrack" 

(I'll put the link here too)

This chapter is dedicated to Eye-Spy for the hilarious and insightful comments! Their YA romcom/mystery book "Caught" is also one of my favorites 💜 💜