Chapter 6 Chapter 6

Dad was making eggs when I came downstairs Monday morning, which meant one of two things: he was in a great mood, or he was about to deliver news I wasn't going to like. The man only cooked when he needed something from me.

"Morning, kiddo." He slid a plate across the island without turning around. Scrambled, with the little bit of hot sauce I liked. Definitely news.

I sat down slowly, pulling my sleeves over my hands. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." He finally turned, spatula in hand, wearing the exact expression he used when he was about to bench someone for their own good. "I enrolled you at Evergreen High. You start today."

I stared at him.

"I know," he said, pre-emptively.

"Dad."

"The district needs thirty days notice for late enrollment and I already used them. You've been here a week, Avery. You can't sit in the bleachers doing homework forever."

"I wasn't doing homework. I was observing. Anthropologically."

He pointed the spatula at me. "You were watching Knox Callahan run drills and calling it research."

My face went hot. "That is a wild accusation with zero—"

"He texted me good morning, by the way. Very polite kid." Dad sat down across from me, suddenly less coach, more just Dad—the version with the tired eyes and the coffee mug that said World's Okayest Whistleblower that I'd given him three Christmases ago. "I know this is hard. New school, senior year, all of it. But you're brave, and you're funny, and you're the only person I know who can read four hundred pages in a single weekend and still form coherent opinions. Evergreen High doesn't know what's about to hit it."

I looked at my eggs. My throat did that annoying tight thing. "What if I hate it?"

"Then you come home and tell me every terrible detail and I make eggs again."

"That's your solution to everything."

"Eggs are reliable." He shrugged. "Unlike most things."

I couldn't argue with that. So I ate my breakfast, went upstairs, spent twenty-three minutes staring into my closet like it contained answers, and settled on dark jeans, my tan oversized sweater, and the white sneakers I'd probably regret the second I hit the salted sidewalk. I told myself I wasn't dressing for anyone specific. I was dressing for me. For confidence. For a strong anthropological first impression.

My sneakers were absolutely going to get ruined.

---

Evergreen High was exactly what it looked like from the outside: a wide, low brick building with Eagles banners in every window and a trophy case in the front entrance so large it had its own lighting rig. I stood in front of it for a moment, hands in my pockets, reading names on plaques. Callahan, D. — 2003 Regional Champions. Knox's dad. I hadn't made that connection until now, standing here under the fluorescents with the smell of floor wax and cafeteria coffee in the air.

No pressure to be the new girl in that shadow.

The front office gave me a schedule, a locker combination, and a laminated map of the school that was already out of date because, as the secretary told me with great solemnity, the science wing had been renumbered over spring break. I thanked her, tucked the useless map into my bag, and stepped into the hallway just as the first bell screamed overhead.

Controlled chaos. Lockers slamming. Laughter. Someone running with a hockey stick at a low enough angle to be technically legal. A poster for the winter formal taped crookedly above the water fountain. Normal. Terrifyingly, comfortingly normal.

I checked my schedule: first period, AP English Lit, room 114.

I had barely made it six steps when someone fell into stride beside me.

"You look like you're navigating a minefield."

Finn. Of course. He was wearing a grey Eagles hoodie with the sleeves pushed up, backpack slung over one shoulder, that warm lopsided grin already deployed at full power. He looked—annoyingly, unfairly—like the kind of person who had never once been nervous about a first day of anything.

"I feel like I'm navigating a minefield," I said.

"Good news. I know where all the mines are." He plucked the schedule from my hand with zero hesitation, scanned it, and handed it back. "AP Lit, right? I've got that too. Come on, Henderson's your tour guide now. Non-negotiable."

"You realize that's a slightly alarming level of confidence for someone who hasn't been asked."

"I've been told it's one of my best qualities." He steered me left at the intersection before I could go right, which would have apparently taken me directly into the renumbered science wing and certain schedule-related doom. "How was the lake last night?"

I glanced at him sideways. He was looking straight ahead, expression neutral. But his jaw was doing that thing—that careful, deliberately relaxed thing people do when they're trying to seem like they aren't waiting for an answer.

"Cold," I said. "And really beautiful, actually."

"Yeah." A beat. "It's a good spot."

Something in the way he said it—like he knew it well, like maybe it meant something to him too—made me want to ask. But the question felt like stepping onto ice I hadn't tested yet, and I'd already had one metaphorical near-drowning this week.

We reached room 114 just as the second bell rang.

And there, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a slow grin spreading across his face like he'd known exactly what time I'd arrive, was Knox.

"Huh," he said, eyes moving between me and Finn with the practiced ease of someone who was definitely filing this away for later. "AP Lit. Didn't know you were enrolled."

"Since approximately seven this morning," I said. "Your coach-related scheming is showing."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He pushed off the doorframe and held the door open, one arm extended, utterly unbothered. "After you, Kane. Welcome to Evergreen High. Try not to fall."

"I hate you," I said pleasantly, and walked in.

Behind me, I heard Finn muffle a laugh. Heard Knox say, low: "She doesn't."

And the terrible, wonderful, deeply inconvenient truth was—

He wasn't wrong.

I found a seat in the second row, pulled out my notebook, and stared at the whiteboard while AP English Lit filled in around me. Finn sat to my left. Knox sat one row back and one seat to the right, which meant every time I glanced toward the window, there he was, chin resting on his hand, already watching.

Minnesota, I thought, uncapping my pen.

You are a problem.