Chapter 5: Five Cole's POV

He applies for the hardship extension at 11pm.

Fifteen minutes, like she said. He sits at the kitchen table with his laptop and fills in the fields account number, address, reason for request and hits submit and stares at the confirmation screen for a long time.

He has been staring at things for a long time tonight.

He closes the laptop. Gets up. Stands at the kitchen window in the dark looking at the empty driveway.

I'm going to fix it. He said it to her back, to the dark, to the space she left behind her on the path. He doesn't know why he said it. He had not planned to say it. It came out of somewhere that has been pressing against his ribs since he read Madison's texts last night and understood fully, for the first time, the complete geometry of what he built with three careless words.

He goes to bed.

He doesn't sleep much.

Marcus finds him before first period.

"Madison's looking for you," Marcus says.

"I know."

"She's not " Marcus lowers his voice. "She's not in a normal mood, Cole. She's got that look."

Cole knows the look. Madison Cross at baseline is calculated and precise. Madison Cross with the look is something else a girl who has decided the outcome and is now simply walking toward it. He has seen it twice before. Both times it ended badly for whoever was in her way.

He finds her at her locker.

She sees him coming and her chin lifts a fraction, a tell. She is surprised he came to her first. Good.

"Cole," she says.

"Don't text Wren again," he says.

Her expression doesn't change. "You saw my message to her."

"She showed me."

This is a lie. Wren said nothing about showing him the text she simply told him it existed and watched his face. But Madison doesn't need to know the details of what Wren did or didn't do, and the implication that Wren came to him with it, that they are already operating as a unit, lands exactly where he intends it to.

Madison's jaw tightens. "Interesting."

"She works for my family," Cole says. "That's it. There's nothing there."

"Cole." Madison tilts her head. Her voice drops, softens, takes on the particular texture she uses when she wants something to feel intimate. "I'm not trying to start anything. I'm trying to protect you. Do you know what people are going to say when they find out the girl you let your friends bully for two years is now inside your house every day? Do you know how that looks?"

"Then don't tell anyone."

"I'm not the one you need to worry about." She closes her locker. Steps closer. "I'm worried about her. She's going to find out who you are, Cole. It's only a matter of time. And when she does "

"I said don't text her again."

He holds her gaze.

Madison reads his face the way she has always read it thoroughly, looking for the crack, the give, the place where he can be moved. He watches her not find it.

"Fine," she says. "For now."

She walks away.

Cole stands at her locker and watches her go and knows, with the flat certainty of someone who has known Madison Cross for four years, that for now is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence.

Wren is in AP English when he walks past the open door between classes.

He is not supposed to be on this corridor his next class is the other direction but his feet have apparently made a unilateral decision and he has three minutes before the bell so he doesn't correct them.

She is in the front row. Of course she is. Head down, pen moving fast, the specific focus of someone who is not performing engagement but actually has it. Her curly hair is loose today. She has a purple star sticker on the corner of her notebook that matches the ones on her locker.

He stops in the corridor for exactly two seconds.

She doesn't look up.

He keeps moving.

He is in his seat in AP History wrong corridor, three minutes of walking fast when his phone buzzes.

Marcus. Madison just went into the guidance counselor's office. With printed screenshots.

Cole stares at the message.

What screenshots, he types back.

Marcus: I don't know. But she was smiling when she went in.

Cole puts his phone face down on the desk.

He looks at the front of the room. At the board. At nothing.

In AP English three corridors away, Wren Hayes is taking notes and has no idea that Madison Cross is currently in a room with a guidance counselor and printed screenshots and a smile.

The bell rings.

Cole picks up his pen.

He has exactly six hours before Wren arrives at his house.

Six hours to find out what Madison just did.