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paying for it, though. She asked me to find one for her when I asked her to come. I was excited about it. I thought it was just so that we’d have a place to be alone to . . .” He trailed off.
    “Have sex?” Lucy finished. She’d assumed they had already done it, that he had lost his virginity to her, both from the way he’d acted when he got back and from that picture she found. Still, it was weird to hear herself say it, to hear herself say it and have almost no feeling about it at all.
    “Um . . . yeah,” he said. “I guess.” He turned away. “But I think she just wanted somewhere else to go so that she wouldn’t have to stay with me after she dumped me.”
    “Hmm,” Lucy said. “Weird.” She did not like the way that she sounded now, so pinched, and sharp, and mean. She did not like the tiny smile she felt playing on her lips.
    Alex looked so sad.
    Lucy took a breath. Heartbreaker or not, she was still a human being. And the human response to someone’s suffering should never be joy , no matter how much of a jerk that someone might be. “It’s too bad that happened to you,” she said gently. “Having a broken heart sucks.”
    “Thank you,” Alex said. And then tipped his head, as though something had just occurred to him. “Hey, so I was giving you space before because I thought I should or whatever, but you’re clearly okay so . . . does that mean we can be friends now?”
    Lucy paused. “Sure,” she said. “Of course we can.” But she didn’t mean it.
    Lucy walked back to the photo closet, went to her cubbyhole, and took out her contact sheets of the pictures she’d taken over the summer. She hadn’t even glanced at them in weeks, not since she’d become a Heartbreaker. How funny to look back and see the world through the eyes of the girl she used to be. The pictures she took now jumped out and grabbed you. These old ones whispered your name over and over until you noticed.
    She stared down at the row of tiny photos. In the center of the page was one of Tristan in profile, playing harmonica in his car as the sun went down. Lucyremembered that day, how the two of them had sat there, their feet up on the dash, eating Popsicles until it was black outside. What was special about the photo wasn’t the composition or the lighting or any of that crap—what stood out was the look on Tristan’s face, in his eyes. There was just so much of him in there—his sweet, funny, smart, weird self. She hadn’t known why she was taking the photo at the time, just that something in her gut told her to.
    She looked up at Alex, who’d just emerged from the darkroom carrying a close-up of a crying eye. His eye. He held up the print, and rubbed his chin, like he was deep in thought about it. Then he glanced at Mr. Wexler, backed up toward his desk, and let out a cough. When Mr. Wexler didn’t look up, he coughed louder. It was so obvious what Alex was doing that Lucy almost had to laugh—he was trying to get Mr. Wexler to notice his picture so he’d call the class over to discuss how great it was. Mr. Wexler had done it a few times for Lucy’s photos, and Alex always looked so surprised, so shocked, that the compliment had been given to her and not him.
    Lucy rolled her eyes and turned away. Perhaps he was the same old Alex after all.
    Sometimes the world just made no sense. How was it possible that she’d fallen in love with this idiot—that she’d pined away for him, given him her heart, and let him break it? Yet she’d broken the heart of her best friend, the best person she’d ever known. It was completely wrong.
    What mattered now was only this: Could she fix it?
    There may be one tiny little chance, Gil had said.
    Lucy just hoped it was enough.

Seven

    G illy, Rowan says he’s buying you a ticket to visit him in Australia,” Olivia said, reading from Gil’s phone.
    “Well, that’s sweet,” said Gil.
    “Wonder if you can cash it in for the miles?” Liza said with a smirk.
    It was