By Wednesday, Roxie had a problem.

She was glowing.

Actually glowing.

It was disgusting.

She noticed it in the bathroom mirror before first period, while fixing one curl that had decided teamwork was optional. Her skin looked better. Her eyes looked brighter. Her mouth kept trying to smile like it was stuck.

Terrible.

"You look happy," Angela said at Roxie’s locker.

Roxie shut the door. "That’s your personal opinion."

"You do. You keep smiling like the Joker."

Karen leaned against the locker beside her, arms crossed. "You’ve checked your phone seven times in four minutes."

Roxie looked at her phone in her hand.

"It’s called being updated."

"It’s called being pathetic," Karen said.

Angela gasped. "In a cute way."

"There is no cute way to be pathetic."

"Yes, there is," Angela said. "Look at freshmen."

Roxie rolled her eyes and started walking.

Her phone buzzed before she reached the stairs.

Zac: Bow again?

Roxie stopped walking for half a second.

Angela slammed into her shoulder. "Ow."

Roxie looked down at her screen.

Zac was ridiculous.

He had barely said two words to her in school all week. In public, he was normal Zac. QB1. Team table. Senior hallway. Laughing with Mason. Talking to Dylan. Nodding at teachers like he had never once stood in her room with blood on his hand.

But his texts were everywhere.

Before school.

After practice.

At night.

Randomly during lunch, like he had some radar for when she was trying to act normal.

And Roxie liked it.

She liked the secrecy more than she should have. The glances across crowded hallways. The fact that no one else knew why her phone lighting up could make her chest feel less tight.

It was stupid.

It was private.

It was hers.

Roxie typed with her thumb while walking.

Roxie: You’re obsessed with my hair accessories.

Zac: You keep wearing them.

Roxie: That’s how accessories work.

Zac: This one’s better.

Roxie touched the ribbon at the end of her ponytail before she could stop herself.

Black today. Senior picture day deserved effort.

Not that she cared.

She cared a normal amount.

Meaning she had woken up two hours early, curled her hair until her arms hurt, redid the left side three times, changed shirts twice, and nearly cried when one curl fell wrong.

Roxie: You have strong bow opinions for a man who wears the same hoodie three times a week.

Zac: It’s a good hoodie.

Roxie: It has emotional support fabric?

Zac: You tell me. You wore it.

Her stomach flipped. It was the hoodie she had worn at his house. It smelled like him. She blushed, remembering the way he had looked at her when she came downstairs in it.

Angela grabbed her arm. "You’re doing it again."

Roxie locked her phone. "Doing what?"

"That face."

"I have one face."

Karen snorted. "Lie. You’re poisoning the air with your love hormones."

Roxie stared at her. "You say too many words before eight."

Across the hall, Zac walked out of Mr. Callahan’s room with Mason and two linemen. He glanced over, briefly. His eyes touched Roxie’s face, then her hair, then her bow.

He looked away before Mason or Dylan noticed.

Roxie’s phone buzzed a second later.

Zac: Pretty.

Roxie’s breath caught.

One word.

So unfair.

So illegal.

Roxie: Weak.

Zac: Still worked.

Roxie: You wish.

Zac: I saw you blushing.

Roxie slapped a hand over her cheek.

Angela screamed. "AHA!"

People turned.

Roxie wanted to throw herself into a locker.

Karen looked delighted in a very quiet, terrifying way. "Caught."

"I hate both of you," Roxie said.

Angela hooked her arm through Roxie’s. "No, you don’t. You’re in a good mood. Ava said it too."

"Ava?"

"Yeah. At practice yesterday. She said, ’Roxie’s been in a weirdly good mood.’"

Karen nodded. "She said it like she was afraid it meant layoffs."

Roxie scoffed. "I am not in a weirdly good mood."

Angela looked at Karen.

Karen looked at Angela.

Then both of them looked back at Roxie.

Roxie sighed. "I dislike this friendship."

Her phone buzzed again.

Not Zac this time.

Ethan: Senior picture day? Please tell me Briarwick makes everyone look like they’re running for office too.

Roxie: Worse. We’re all being turned into brochure people.

Ethan: Tragic. Send proof.

Roxie: Absolutely not.

Ethan: Coward.

Roxie: Accurate but still no.

Ethan: Your loss. I look amazing in a tie.

Roxie: That sounds like something a person in a bad tie would say.

Ethan: Mean girl.

Roxie: Correct.

She locked her phone again.

Angela leaned closer. "Was that Zac?"

"No."

Karen’s eyebrow lifted. "Interesting."

"Stop saying interesting like you’re collecting evidence."

"I am collecting evidence."

"It was Ethan," Roxie said.

Angela’s face lit up like someone had opened a snack table. "Ethan Ethan?"

"There are multiple Ethans."

"Not in your life with that tone."

Roxie kept walking. "He was asking about senior pictures."

Karen studied her. "And Zac?"

"What about him?"

"You’re texting both?"

Roxie stopped and turned. "I’m allowed to text people."

Angela held up both hands. "Nobody said you weren’t."

"Your faces did."

"My face is supportive," Angela said.

Karen shrugged. "Mine is realistic."

Roxie started walking again before either of them could say something worse.

Yes, she texted Ethan.

Yes, she texted Zac.

No, it was not the same.

She just let Zac text her about bows and birthdays and whether she ate. Let Ethan text her about school and jokes and the old version of her that had once felt less exhausted.

By lunch, Roxie had survived three compliments on her hair, one freshman asking what curling iron she used, and Mrs. Danvers telling her she looked "lovely," which felt illegal because teachers should not comment on senior picture day unless they were prepared to fund emergency makeup repairs.

The cafeteria was loud and packed. Senior picture schedules were taped to the walls, and everyone was acting normal while secretly panicking.

Girls kept checking compact mirrors.

Guys kept pretending they did not care while fixing their collars in dark phone screens.

One basketball player had clearly borrowed his dad’s blazer and looked like he was about to sell insurance.

Angela and Karen sat across from Roxie with their trays.

Zac: Senior picture today?

Roxie: No. I woke up early to impress cafeteria chicken.

Zac: It’s working.

Roxie looked up.

Zac sat at the football table across the room. He was not looking directly at her, but his phone was in his hand under the table. Dylan sat beside him, talking, and Mason was eating fries off someone else’s tray like a raccoon with school spirit.

Roxie typed back.

Roxie: You can’t even see me from there.

Zac: I can see the bow.

Roxie: Again with the bow.

Zac: It’s a good bow.

Roxie: Compliment my actual hair, coward.

There was a pause.

Then:

Zac: Your actual hair looks pretty too.

Roxie stared at the message.

Her stupid chest warmed.

She hated him.

A lot.

Maybe.

Across the room, Zac looked down at his tray like he had done nothing.

Roxie: I knew it. You’re obsessed with red hair.

Zac: ...

Roxie pressed her lips together to stop smiling.

A burst of shouting rose near the drinks station.

Everyone looked over.

Two boys were shoving each other near the vending machines. Someone’s tray hit the floor. Orange soda splashed across white sneakers. A group of juniors started chanting because boys had the emotional depth of raccoons near garbage.

"Fight?" Angela asked, already half-standing.

"Almost fight," Karen said.

"Should we look?"

Roxie rolled her eyes. "We’re not tourists."

They looked anyway.

Obviously. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

The commotion pulled half the cafeteria’s attention. Chairs scraped. Phones came up. Someone yelled, "Move!" and another person laughed so loudly it made a teacher snap.

Roxie turned just enough to see Coach Hayes pushing through the crowd.

Then something hit her hair.

Right in front.

A soft, sticky pull near her cheek.

Roxie froze.

At first, her brain refused to understand it.

The cafeteria noise kept going around her, loud and stupid and normal, but all Roxie could feel was that tiny weight in her front curl. Warm from someone’s mouth. Wet at the edges. Pulling at the strands every time she breathed.

Angela looked back first.

Her face changed.

That was how Roxie knew.

Curious to horrified in half a second.

Roxie’s stomach dropped.

"What?" she asked.

Angela’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Karen leaned forward, and her eyes went flat.

"What?" Roxie repeated, sharper now.

Ava, seated two tables away, covered her mouth. "Oh my God."

Roxie slowly turned her head.

On the cafeteria wall beside them was the senior picture poster.

SENIOR PORTRAITS TODAY.

A sample girl smiled from the page with perfect hair, perfect lighting, perfect everything. The kind of fake, glossy school photo people’s moms framed and cried over.

Roxie stared at it.

Then she reached toward the curl hanging beside her face.

Karen caught her wrist. "Don’t touch it."

Too late.

Roxie’s fingertips brushed something soft and rubbery.

Pink.

Sticky.

Stuck deep into the curl she had spent twenty minutes fixing alone.

Her hand went cold.

The sample girl on the poster kept smiling.

Roxie did not.