Chapter 2

They started dating in the second week of school.

I know because Cleo posted about it. A video of Beck sitting in the bleachers during cheer practice—not his own practice, hers—with the caption he stayed. It had sixty thousand views by the time I saw it at dinner.

After that he started showing up in her content regularly. She'd point the camera at him, he'd wave it off, she'd keep filming, he'd eventually say something that made her laugh, she'd post it, and her numbers went up. Every time.

I watched maybe four of those videos. Then I had a competition to register for.

Coach Harris pulled Beck aside after the first Thursday session he showed up late to. I couldn't hear what was said, but I saw Beck's face on the way out—the look he got when someone told him something true that he didn't want to sit with.

The next day he left school at lunch to pick Cleo up from somewhere and missed practice entirely.

When I passed him in the hall that afternoon, he said, unprompted: "I've got it under control."

I hadn't asked.

He stopped me a week later, between third and fourth period.

"I wanted to say something," he said. "About me and Cleo. I know how it probably looks."

I waited.

"She makes things feel like they're actually happening. Like I'm living instead of just training for something." He paused. "Being around you always felt like studying. That's not a bad thing. It's just not the same."

"Okay," I said.

"I just want you to stay out of it. Whatever you're thinking—let it go."

"I'm not doing anything, Beck."

He nodded like that settled it and walked away.

I stood there for a second.

He wasn't wrong, exactly. I'd spent five years building things for someone who thought I was studying the whole time. I already knew how that sentence ended.

I went home that evening and registered for the National Programming Challenge. I'd been putting it off since sophomore year for reasons that didn't exist anymore.

Last time I'd spent those years writing code for someone else. This time that work was mine to use.

By November, Beck's name had shown up in two pieces in the school paper. Neither one was good. His stats were down, his attendance was inconsistent, and one of his teachers had flagged him for academic review.

I heard Carla's voice through the wall of our houses one evening—that carefully flat tone she used when she was furious and keeping a lid on it.

I submitted my first-round entry the same week.

Carla showed up at school on a Wednesday in December. No makeup, which meant she hadn't planned to leave the house—she was always put-together when she knew she'd be seen.

I was coming out of the computer lab when I heard her voice down the hall.

"Your coach called me, Beck."

"I know. I talked to him."

"Your GPA is—"

"I'm handling it."

Cleo was standing next to him with her arms folded, staring at the floor. She had the look of someone who was used to having a camera on her and very much did not want one on her right now.

Carla's voice dropped. "You have a real shot here. If you throw it away over—"

"Mom." His voice went tight. "This life, I'm not letting someone else make my choices for me. That's not happening."

He stopped.

I went completely still.

He recovered fast—"I just mean I'm not a kid anymore"—and kept talking, but something in the air had already shifted. Cleo was frowning at him. Carla had gone quiet in a different way.

I was still standing in the hallway. Apparently I had been for a while.

Carla stepped away from Beck and walked over to me.

"Maren." She stopped. "It wasn't you. The coach called me himself." She put her hand on my arm for a second, warm and brief. "Take care of yourself."

She left. Beck was already moving Cleo toward the exit. He didn't look back.

But I'd heard him.

This life.

He was reborn too.