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her plain white T-shirt, pale pink miniskirt, and red suede Puma sneakers. Even though it was October, it was almost eighty degrees out. She had pulled her hair back from her face, showing off her flawless, caramel-colored skin.
    “Hey,” Maya cried, a little out of breath. “Under six minutes?”
    “Barely,” Emily teased.
    They both plopped down on the rock. For a second, neither of them spoke. It was so much quieter back here in the woods than by the street. Emily tried not to think about how she had run from Toby through these very woods a few weeks ago. Instead, she concentrated on the way the water sparkled over the rocks and how the trees were just starting to turn orange at the tips. She had a superstition about the big tree she could just make out at the edge of her backyard: if its leaves turned yellow in the fall, she would have a good school year. If they turned red, she wouldn’t. But this year, the leaves were orange—did that mean so-so? Emily had all sorts of superstitions. She thought the world was fraught with signs. Nothing was random.
    “I missed you,” Maya whispered in Emily’s ear. “I didn’t see you at school today.”
    A shiver passed through Emily as Maya’s lips grazed her earlobe. She shifted her position on the rock, moving closer to Maya. “I know. I kept looking for you.”
    “Did you survive your bio lab?” Maya asked, curling her pinkie around Emily’s.
    “Uh-huh.” Emily slid her fingers up Maya’s arm.
    “How was your history test?”
    Maya wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
    “Does this make it better?” Emily pecked Maya on the lips.
    “You’ll have to try harder than that to make it better,” Maya said seductively, lowering her green-yellow catlike eyes and reaching for Emily.
    They had decided to try this: sitting together, hanging out whenever they could, touching, kissing. As much as Emily tried to edit Maya from her life, she couldn’t. Maya was wonderful, nothing like Em’s last boyfriend, Ben—nothing, in fact, like any boy she’d ever gone out with. There was something so comforting about being here at the creek side by side. They weren’t just together —they were also best friends. This was how coupledom should feel.
    When they pulled away, Maya slid off a sneaker and dipped her toe into the creek. “So we moved back into our house yesterday.”
    Emily drew in her breath. After the workers had found Ali’s body in Maya’s new backyard, the St. Germains had moved to a hotel to escape the media. “Is it…weird?”
    “It’s okay.” Maya shrugged. “Oh, but get this. There’s a stalker on the loose.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah, a neighbor was telling my mom about it this morning. Someone’s running around through people’s yards, peeping into windows.”
    Emily’s stomach began to hurt. This, too, reminded her of Toby: back when they were in sixth grade, he was the creepy kid who peeked into everyone’s windows, especially Ali’s. “Guy? Girl?”
    Maya shook her head. “I don’t know.” She blew her curly bangs up into the air. “This town, I swear to God. Weirdest place on earth.”
    “You must miss California,” Emily said softly, pausing to watch a bunch of birds lift off from a nearby oak tree.
    “Not at all, actually.” Maya touched Emily’s wrist.
    “There are no Emilys in California.”
    Emily leaned forward and kissed Maya softly on her lips. They held their lips together for five long seconds. She kissed Maya’s earlobe. Then Maya kissed her bottom lip. They pulled away and smiled, the afternoon sun making pretty patterns on their cheeks. Maya kissed Emily’s nose, then her temples, then her neck. Emily shut her eyes, and Maya kissed her eyelids. She took a deep breath. Maya ran her delicate fingers along the edge of Emily’s jaw; it felt like a million butterflies flapping their wings against her skin. As much as she’d been trying to convince herself that being with Maya was wrong, it was the only thing that