I summoned a ride—my feminism wouldn’t let me let Byron do it, not after he’d picked up our tab—and went home alone, sitting in the backseat behind FORMULA ONE DRIVER and just as confused as I’d been during the dinner itself. Byron’s phone number burned a hole in my pocket.

I kind of couldn’t believe that Byron had just left everything up to me. In a way, that seemed epically unfair, because now I had to decide what I wanted to do about it.

I rocked my head back against the seat’s head-rest, thinking, while my driver lived up to his word and blew through a yellow light.

That was the thing.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to be wrong about people’s labels before.

It was just that I literally never had been.

It all started when I was a precocious five-year-old. My mom thought it was funny that I was always trying to sound out words she assumed were on ads or billboards around us…up until I badgered her about the word she saw over my head, assuming that we were alike. We talked about the difference between real things and make-believe, and I didn’t understand, because none of it was make-believe for me.

I’d never been so frustrated in my little-kid life. I drew a picture for her and everything—a little stick-figure me, and the word ELLE! over my head, cheerfully. I drew a picture of her, with her word, OPTIMIST!, over her head, which she was charmed by, praising my big vocabulary.

And then I drew a picture of Daddy with his word, spelling out the letters, A…D…U…L…T…E…R—and my mom didn’t let me finish. She yelled at me, asked me where I’d heard that, and told me I shouldn’t even know that word, before making me go up to my room.

She hauled me to my pediatrician’s office shortly thereafter and told him I was “seeing things,” then demanded that I tell him what I’d told her.

I tried...and that was when I realized, from the expression on my doctor’s face, that not only was I different from my mom, but maybe also every other person in the world. It was like finding out that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy all weren’t real at the exact same time.

By the end of my appointment, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut, and the next time I looked in the mirror and saw my own word, it was FREAK.

I think I’d barely learned what “freak” meant as a playground insult two weeks prior…and then there it was, flying like a flag right over my head.

At least I knew that no one else could read it—I knew any kid I met who could would’ve absolutely just come over to me and said the word out-loud, pointing and laughing—but that was a small consolation for the way I felt inside.

And when my dad left a few months later, after a big fight with my mom, I couldn’t help but feel responsible.

What if I’d never told her?

What if I’d just kept his word to my dang self?

My mother never brought up me being able to read people’s words again, and neither did I.

**

I unlocked my apartment’s front door, and found Whitney still inside, surrounded by textbooks. “You just missed Chance,” she said, before looking me over with a frown. “Your date was that good, eh?”

“It wasn’t really a date,” I said quickly. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water, and headed into my room to think hard, pulling Byron’s number out of my pocket and tossing it on my desk as I sat down.

If I couldn’t wish my dad—or any of the many guys in high school who’d wanted to date me, from the PLAYER and PICKUP ARTIST crew, even the guys who seemed nice—into having a different word, there was no way I could possibly change Byron’s KILLER.

I chugged my water, and then flipped the empty glass over Byron’s phone number, like I’d trapped a spider.

I didn’t want to get rid of it. He was hot, funny, and clearly interested in me, no matter how bizarrely I’d behaved, and when I was with him I wanted to make excuses to stay nearby.

But at the same time—I knew I was reading him right.

I had to be.

Whitney gently knocked on my door. “Elle? Did you want to talk about it?” she asked.

And here I was again, banished to my room, unable to tell anyone else what I was thinking, or why. “No. Thanks though,” I called out to her.

**

The next day it was raining, which suited my mood. Everything seemed black and white, and I had a strong desire to drown myself in carbs.

Sasha and Logan sat down two rows in front of me in experimental psychology, mooning over one another and oblivious to me angrily glaring out at them from the depths of my hoodie. Neither of their words had changed yet, but I had a feeling they eventually would, to something sappy like, LOVED or BLISS—the kind of block-letter HAPPINESS that you could buy off the internet and put on your dorm room walls…and that it felt like I would never have.

Why did the one guy I’d been interested in forever have to have KILLER as his word?

Then again…would I have been interested in him at all if it hadn’t been?

If he’d merely been a PLAYER, I would’ve ignored him, too.

I took perfunctory notes and when class was over, Sasha looked back and spotted me. “Oh my God, Elle!” she squealed, like it was surprising to find me here, in this, the class that we both took three times a week. She made a heart with both her hands at me and beamed, then leaned over to smooch Logan’s cheek as he packed up his laptop. She reached for her phone.

Mine buzzed shortly thereafter, “Best twenty dollars I’ve ever spent!” she’d messaged me, followed by a plethora of hearts.

I’m glad! I texted her back, with a very forced smiley face, and then I made sure to wait in the room long enough for them to clear the hall before leaving.

**

When I got home that night, Byron’s phone number was still waiting underneath the glass where I’d trapped it.

I picked it up slowly knowing that I was probably about to make the worst decision of my life…and yet.

I haven’t found anyone for you, I texted him. Except for possibly myself, and that makes me cranky, went unsaid.

Three dots spun instantly on my screen, and Byron sent back a grimacing emoji. I had a feeling I failed your test. But before I could type anything else back to him, he texted, Can I get a redo?

I stared at the screen of my phone, listening to the rain hit the window outside, thinking about all the other guys I should be interested in and that I wasn’t, and typed in: Yes.