I grab a plastic fork off the table and take a heaping bite of cake, earning a fist bump from Kevin and a groan from Jody.
“I have plates,” she wails as Annie and Charlie join us. Her shoulders slump as we destroy the cake one delicious bite at a time.
“You’re a bunch of barbarians,” she says grimly.
Kevin slides a fork over to her. “You know you want to.”
She heaves a sigh and slides into the chair beside me. “You’re a bad influence, Avery. First violence and now the corruption of youth.”
Charlie winks at me and slides a wrapped package across the table.
“Presents too? God, I missed you guys.”
Charlie and Annie exchange a conspiratorial smile, and I raise my eyebrows in suspicion. I unwrap the gift cautiously and find a pair of boxing gloves, which I stash under the table as the cafeteria monitor wanders by. “You guys are gonna get me suspended again,” I warn.
We’re polishing off the last of the cake when Courtney walks by with Scott stumbling after her. I stiffen, bracing myself for a confrontation, but she walks right past, as if we don’t exist, and finds her way to her table, where a group of minions receive her like royalty.
Some things never change, I guess. And I’m surprised by how little it bothers me. For the first time ever, Courtney doesn’t feel like the enemy. She’s just a girl I don’t particularly like.
Annie’s phone chimes on the table, and she looks at it scornfully.
“He’s been texting me like crazy,” she says, flashing me the screen. Scott.
I blink at her in surprise. “Are you texting him back?”
“Only to torture him,” she says mischievously, standing up and unzipping her sweatshirt before giving a theatrical stretch that manages to show off her killer abs.
I sneak a look at Scott and see that he’s practically drooling on his cafeteria tray.
“You’re evil,” I tell her, impressed.
Her phone chimes again, and she shakes her head in disbelief. “He seriously thinks I’ll take him back.”
Not in a million years, she taps out on the phone, and then turns it off and stashes it in her bag. “He’s not worth the time,” she tells me. “This is a special day.”
I laugh and bump my shoulder against hers. “I have a surprise for you, too.” I reach for my bag slowly, drawing out the suspense, and watch as Annie bounces in her seat, excited.
I pull out a stapled packet of typed pages and present them to her with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
“Seriously? I bring you a party and you bring me . . . your homework?”
“Not exactly,” I say, laughing. “But kinda. Remember that god-awful story I wrote for Miss Donaghue last semester?”
Annie rolls her eyes at me. “You mean the one she told you was full of potential?”
“Yeah. That one. I have a confession to make. I was really upset when she hated the ending.”
“You don’t say.”
I smack her with the papers. “I’m being serious here.” I laugh. “Back then, I couldn’t imagine any other outcome. I got stuck on one idea and couldn’t see past it.”
Annie gives me a rueful smile. “I can identify with that. So what changed?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure exactly.” I look around the table, thinking of everything that’s happened this year. “It was so strange, the way the story came together,” I tell her. “It’s like . . . once I stopped trying to force things to happen the way I thought they should, everything sort of fell into place.”
“I like that,” Annie says, taking my story and hugging it to her chest. “I can’t wait to see how it ends.”
Acknowledgments
I’m sitting at my desk, surrounded by crumpled-up papers, trying to find the words to express how very thankful I am. Beyond all my wildest dreams, How It Ends has been transformed from a file on my computer to the book you now hold in your hands, and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to so many people for making this dream come true.
I want to thank my remarkable agent, Mackenzie Brady, who saw a spark of potential in an earlier draft of this story, and who helped me nurture that spark into something more. Mackenzie is everything you would want an agent to be—brilliant, intuitive, savvy, tenacious, patient, and kind. She works tirelessly to protect the interests of her authors, and I am thankful for her every single day.
Mackenzie works as part of a team at New Leaf Literary & Media—and what an incredible team it is! The day my name went up on the Authors page of New Leaf’s website is one of my proudest, and I still can’t believe I’m fortunate enough to be represented by what is hands-down the best agency out there. Thank you, Joanna Volpe (who knows the answers to all the questions), Pouya Shahbazian, Kathleen Ortiz, Suzie Townsend, Dave Caccavo, Danielle Barthel, Jaida Temperly, Jackie Lindert, Jess Dallow, and Chris McEwen for all your hard work.
I want to thank my editor, Sarah Landis, and the entire team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I will never forget the first time I spoke with Sarah—she talked about my characters like she knew and loved them, and I couldn’t wait to get started working with her. She is a truly phenomenal editor, and I have grown as a writer under her expert guidance. Her insights have taken this book to a whole new level, and there aren’t enough words to express how grateful I am.
The more I learn about the world of publishing, the more I appreciate just how many people bring their expertise to each project. The team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is beyond compare, and I am thankful for all of their contributions—editors, copyeditors, proofreaders, production and design teams,
