Yesterday with Scott.”

Fuck. “So the whole damn school knows.”

“No,” she says thoughtfully. Lacy looks me over and I can tell she’s searching for that pathetic girl from a long time ago. “He only told me, Chris, and Logan. The one with dark hair sitting next to Ryan is my boyfriend, Chris.”

“My apologies.”

“He’s worth it.” She pauses. “Most of the time.”

For four classes, people have ignored me. I helped the situation by sitting in the back of each room and glaring at anyone who looked at me for longer than a second. Lacy drums her fingers against the table. Two thin black ponytail holders wrap her wrist. She wears low-rider jeans and a green retro T-shirt imprinted with a faded white four-leaf clover.

“How many people have you told?” I ask her.

The drumming stops. “Told what?”

I lower my voice and pick at the remaining black paint on my nails. “Who I am and why I left town.” I’m fishing. Because of the enrollment slip, no one has called my name out in class and no one’s mentioned my uncle. For today, I’m anonymous, but how long will that last? I’m also testing the waters for the town gossip. Lacy’s dad was a police officer and he was the first one to walk into the trailer that night.

“No one,” she says. “You’ll tell people about your uncle when you’re ready. It’s sickening. No one gave a crap about Scott until the World Series. Now everyone worships him.”

A group of girls break into laughter. The same type of purse rests on the table in front of each perfectly manicured girl. Sure, the colors and sizes of the purses are different, but the style is the same. The blonde laughing the loudest catches me looking and I toss my hair over my shoulder as a shield. I know her, and I don’t want her to remember me.

“Gwen’s still staring,” Lacy says. “It might take a few days for the hamster wheel turning her brain to make the full circle, but she’ll figure you out soon enough.”

I might appreciate her sarcasm if I wasn’t distracted by the blonde. Gwen Gardner. The summer before kindergarten, Lacy’s mom suggested to Scott that I go with Lacy to Vacation Bible School. I put on my favorite dress, one of two that I owned, pinned as many ribbons as I could in my hair, and skipped into the room. A group of girls in beautiful fluffy dresses surrounded me as I introduced myself.

To the tune of giggles and whispers from the other girls, Gwen proceeded to point out every hole and stain on my beloved dress.

That was the high point in my relationship with Gwen. From there, it went downhill.

“She still a bitch?” I ask.

“Worse.” Lacy’s tone drops. “Yet everyone believes she’s a saint.”

“And I thought third grade sucked.”

Lacy snorts. “Imagine what middle school and training bras were like with her. I swear the girl blossomed into a C-cup between fifth and sixth grade. Thank God Ryan finally broke up with her last spring. I couldn’t stand being within a foot of her a moment longer.”

Of course Ryan dated Gwen. I’m sure the break-up is temporary and they’ll marry soon and create tons of other little perfect spawns of Satan in order to torture further generations of people like me.

We lapse into an awkward silence. It’s strange talking to Lacy. It used to be the two of us against the world. Then I left. I assumed, in my absence, she’d become one of them—the girls who were perfect. She had the potential to be one. Her parents had money. Her mom would have bought her the clothes. Lacy was pretty and fun. For some insane reason, she stuck with me—the girl who had two outfits and lived in the trailer park.

I scratch off the remaining paint. Yesterday Allison bought me nail polish in the annoying shade of mauve. How can anyone look at me and think mauve? “What did your dad tell you?”

Lacy’s pinkie taps the table repeatedly.

“That he was called to your home and that you later moved to another city.”

Surprised, I glance up to catch sincerity in her dark eyes. “That’s it?”

“Everyone thinks Scott swooped in and saved you. Daddy and the other guys that responded that night let that rumor stand.” Her forehead crinkles. “It’s what happened, right? You’ve been living with Scott?”

I scratch my cheek, trying to hide whatever reaction she might see. I could lie and tell her yes, but that would be like I’m embarrassed about Mom. And I’m not embarrassed. I love her. I owe her. Yet there are times…

“I cried for three months when you left,”

Lacy continues. “You were my best friend.”

I cried too. A lot. Thanks to me and my stupid decisions, I cost my mom everything and I lost my best friend. Typical me—a hurricane that leaves nothing but destruction.

“Go sit with your friends, Lacy. I’m bad news.”

“In this classroom, those two guys sitting over there are the only real friends I have.”

Lacy drums her fingers once more. “And you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Your life must suck then.”

She laughs. “Not really. It’s a good life.”

The teacher calls the class to order and I inch my seat away from Lacy’s. An unseen, uncomfortable vise tightens my chest.

Normal people don’t like me. They don’t want to be my friend, and here is someone offering friendship willingly.

As the teacher calls attendance, Ryan’s name is read and he answers with a deep, soothing,

“Here.”

Taking a chance, I peek in his direction and find him staring at me again. No smile. No anger. No cockiness. Just a thoughtful expression mixed with confusion. He scratches the back of his head and I’m drawn to his biceps. My traitorous stomach flutters. God, the boy may be an ass, but he sure is built.

And guys like him don’t go for girls like me.

They only use me.

I force my eyes to the front of class, pull my knees to my chest, and wrap my arms around them. Lacy invades my space and whispers to me, “I’m glad you’re back, Beth.”

A sliver of hope sneaks past my walls and I slam every opening shut. Emotion is evil.

People who make me feel are worse. I take comfort in the stone inside of me. If I don’t feel, I don’t hurt.

Ryan

WAITING ON SUNDAY DINNER, I can observe a lot from my seat on the couch in the living room of the mayor’s house. For instance, the serious set of Dad’s mouth and the angle of his body toward Mr. Crane suggests that Dad’s talking business. Serious business. Mom, on the other hand, is laughter and giggles as she stands next to the mayor’s wife and the

pastor’s wife, but the way she fingers her pearls tells me she’s anxious. That means someone asked a question about Mark.

Mom misses him. So do I.

The power of observation. It’s a skill I need to play ball. Is the runner on base going to chance a steal? Is the batter going to hit the ball out of the park or is he going to hit a sacrifice fly in order to score the runner on third? Is Skater Girl the hard-nosed chick I believe her to be?

For the last two weeks, I’ve watched Beth roam the school. She’s interesting. Nothing like the girls I know. She sits by herself at lunch and eats a full meal. Not salad. Not an apple. A full meal. Like an entrée, two sides, and a dessert. Even Lacy doesn’t do that.

Beth sits in the back of every class, except for Health/Gym, where Lacy patiently makes small talk even though Beth stays quiet.

Sometimes Lacy can get Beth to crack a smile, but it’s rare. I like it when she smiles.

Not that I care if she’s happy or anything.

What I find the most interesting is that even though she’s Ms. Antisocial, she doesn’t avoid people. Yeah, plenty of kids hide in plain sight.

They duck into the library before school or during lunch. They evade eye contact and walk in the shadows as if they can go to school and never be detected. Not Beth. She stands her ground. Owns the space around her and smirks if someone comes too close, as if she’s daring them to take her on. A smirk that dares turns me on.

“Are you ready for the quiz tomorrow?”

Mrs. Rowe, my English teacher, rests against the arm of the couch. She also happens to be the mayor’s daughter. While everyone else wears suit pants, ties, or conservative dresses, Mrs. Rowe wears a daisy-print hippie dress.

Today, her hair is purple.

Considering the fights my family has had over Mark, I’m curious about the brawls that happen behind closed doors at this house. Or maybe other families find a way to accept one another.

“Yes, ma’am.” To discourage small talk, I shove a bacon-wrapped shrimp into my mouth.

Dad likes me to be at these occasional Sunday gatherings. I come in handy when the men discuss sports. I used to come in handier when I dated Gwen. Her dad is the police chief, plus my mother’s friends thought we were “cute together.”

“I hated these things when I was your age,”

Mrs. Rowe continues. I pop in another shrimp and nod. If she hated them, I would think she’d remember that useless conversation is physically painful. “My dad made me attend every dinner he threw.”

I swallow and realize that not once in my four years of being old enough to represent the family have I seen Mrs. Rowe attend one of these functions. I consider asking why she’s here tonight, then remember I don’t care. In goes a meatball.

“I read your paper,” she says.

I shrug. Reading my paper is her job.

“It’s good. In fact, it’s very good.”

My eyes dart to hers and I curse internally when she smiles. Dammit, it shouldn’t matter if it was good. I want to play ball, not write. I make a show of staring in the opposite direction.

“Have you thought about expanding it into a short story?”

This I have an answer for. “No.”

“You should,” she says.

I shrug again and begin to search the room for a viable reason to escape—like the curtains catching on fire.

A sly smile spreads across her face. “Listen, I received good news and I’m so glad I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to share. Do you remember the writing project we worked on last year?”

It’d be tough to forget. We spent the year devouring books and movies. Then we tore them apart as if they were machines so we could see how the parts worked together to create the story. After that, Mrs. Rowe snapped the whip and made us write something of our own. Hardest damn class I ever took and I loved every second. Hated it too. When I became too interested or too eager in class, the guys from the team rode me hard.

“Do you remember how I entered everyone into the state writing competition?”

I nod a yes, but the answer is no. Just because I loved the class didn’t mean I listened to everything she said. “Why? Did Lacy win?”

She had a hell of a short story.

“No…”

In goes another meatball. That sucks. Lacy would have been excited if she won.

“You finaled, Ryan.”

The meatball slips into my throat whole and I choke.

DITCHING THE FORMAL CLOTHES for a pair of athletic pants and a Reds T-shirt, I lean back in the chair at my desk and stare at the homework assignment I turned in to Mrs. Rowe. In four pages, poor George woke up to discover he had become a zombie. My favorite sentence is the paper’s last: