When I got to class the next day, my usual seat next to Darren was taken.

“Way to save me a seat,” I said, poking his book as I sat behind him.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked without taking his eyes off the page.

“Physics,” I said. “So how was your weekend?”

“Worked. What’d you do?”

I dug in my bag to find a pen as I told him Brendon’s family had a party on Labor Day.

“I wouldn’t have thought you two would have anything in common,” he said, still not looking up.

I asked him why, and he said Brendon seemed “pretty ambitious and driven.”

“And I’m a slug on a log?”

“No, he just seems different than you. Like he’s from a different world.”

Mr. Horowitz came in then and began telling us about his weekend hiking near his cottage in Traverse City, while I thought about what Darren had said. Brendon was driven, but it was one of the things I liked about him. Sure, he set goals and was ambitious, but Darren had made it sound like a bad thing. Maybe it was my imagination, but I felt he meant I wasn’t in Brendon’s league. I was starting to get weird vibes about Darren, but I figured I was just being paranoid about my relationship.

Mr. Horowitz asked us all to write about something we had done over the weekend. My home life was a lot more chaotic than my friends’ right now, so assignments that reminded me of this were not welcome. I went into my own little world as I wrote my essay, and I didn’t look up until I felt somebody touch my arm at the end of class.

Writing about my weekend and feeling like I didn’t fit in with Brooke put me in a funk. The more I thought about Darren’s comment, or overthought about it, the more my self-esteem slipped into the gutter. I was not in a positive mindset by the time my guidance counselor, Mr. Murray, called me down to his office. Every September the counseling department makes all the sophomores and juniors meet with them for an “informal chat.” Yeah, whatever. It was to make sure we could read and had some sort of plan for the future which didn’t include being a “baby’s mama” for some football player. Mr. Murray had the results from a test I had filled out last year. I remembered taking the test in homeroom on the last day of school, and my teacher saying it was “not a big deal, just a fun quiz to find out your interests.” Yeah, now my “fun quiz” was being held up as my life plan for the future. Meanwhile, he had a poster above his desk that said, “Not Every Day is a Good Day.” You’re telling me, buddy.

Mr. Murray read off my results, which basically said I was a loser with no ambition. I had ambition. I wanted to be a writer, own a little boutique, and have my own organic skin care line. So then Mr. I’m-going-to-look-down-on-you-because-I-need-to-feel-like-a-big-man asked me patronizingly if I had a game plan for my store and organic skin care goals.

“If you want to start a beauty cream line,” he said, coughing, “then you’ll need to take a chemistry class. And if you’re serious about owning a store, then you need to take some business classes.”

Yeah, I barely got through the math for dummies class I took last year, so I was sure business classes weren’t going to be a breeze for me. And chemistry? Was he joking? I only got through the intro to physical science class last year because Tyrell Johnston was my lab partner, and he did all the work since I told him I was afraid I’d blow myself up.

“Well, my main goal is to be a writer, and I’m taking creative writing—”

“That’s nice, but those types of jobs are uncertain. You need to have a game plan to fall back on. After all, you don’t want to end up bagging groceries,” he said, touching his nasty goatee. “Besides, they have those U-Scan things now, so bagger jobs are down.”

I walked out with my self-esteem now out of the gutter and into the toilet. And not even one of those nice TV remodeling show toilets, but the gross ones at the beach with no doors on the stalls, a ring of rusty water in the bowl, and the remains from the person who didn’t flush. I should have known the day was going to suck when I saw it was a Taurus moon day, which was my irritating time. I thought the day couldn’t get worse, but then Katia Muniz, the school big mouth, came over and started asking me about Brendon.

“I heard you guys are super serious. Is it true?” she asked.

No, I made it up because I have no life. “I don’t know. We’re just dating. Why are you asking?” I said.

“Um, no reason,” she said, smirking. Now there could have been a ton of reasons why she was smiling all weird: maybe she thought of a funny joke, or she had food poisoning and she wasn’t smirking, but having stomach cramps that gave her a weird expression; or perhaps she was just a jerk who was trying to let me know I was way out of my league. Margaux came over and stared Katia down until she walked away.

“What did Katia want?” she asked.

I said she was asking about Brendon and me, and Margaux rolled her eyes. “I hate how she’s always trying to start drama,” she said.

And Margaux would know all about drama. We became friends when I changed schools in sixth grade. Margaux was the first person who talked to me. My biggest fear about starting a new school was not having anybody to sit with at lunch. However, on the first day she asked if I wanted to eat lunch at her table with her boyfriend, Todd, and all their friends. Her friends didn’t exactly welcome me, but Margaux always made sure to include me, even if Todd complained about me hanging around. He was her first boyfriend, and she told me they had been going out for six months, which actually was still the longest relationship she has ever had. I became part of their group until a few weeks later when Katia told Margaux this guy named Jeff, who she had a huge crush on, liked her. Margaux wrote Todd a note saying they should just be friends, and Todd was hurt, but he seemed to be okay with it—until Katia told him Margaux “dumped his butt for Jeff.” The next day I got to Margaux’s table before her, and suddenly everybody was being super nice to me. And then Margaux walked over with her tray, and Todd told her no one wanted her there. I remember her eyes watering as she stood there, not knowing what to do. When she went to another table, I got up and followed her. She never said anything, but ever since that day, she has always had my back.

“Just forget about her,” she said, snapping me back to reality. “Are you going to Brendon’s locker before class?”

I nodded, and she said she’d call me later. When I got to his locker, I heard Lauren telling him to check his e-mail because she wrote him back. Back. There could be a zillion reasons why he was e-mailing her, like they were on one of his stupid committees together or it could have been a homework question. But I didn’t need my intuition to tell me nothing good could come from his ex and him e-mailing each other. I didn’t e-mail my ex. Of course, partly because John had dated, like, fifty girls after me—and continued to talk to his ex while he was with me—and now he ignored me in the hallway like a complete jerk, but still. I tried to put it out of my mind and tell myself it was perfectly innocent, but all I could think about was how John had told me how “it was no big deal” when he was getting e-mails from his ex, and it had actually been a huge deal. And Margaux always told me exes who can’t let go always get back together. As much as I tried to tell myself I was just paranoid and it was fine, Lauren’s perfect little heart-shaped face kept popping into my head all day.

To add to my lovely day, Mr. Horowitz made us read our essays out loud in class. I felt a hot drip of sweat slide under my arm, and I tried not to make eye contact with him and clutched my bloodstone until it was all sweaty. As I hoped that he’d forget about me, he called on me right after some guy named Tom read his piece about the meaninglessness of life. Mr. Horowitz asked the class for comments when I finished reading. Silence. I hated how no one ever spoke up when I read something. It made me feel so unpopular. Everybody jumped right in when one of the popular juniors read something. If Rory read something, then half the class couldn’t wait to tell her how amazing it was, but even when I thought I had written something good, no one cared. Finally, Mr. Horowitz had to call on someone to talk about my essay.

“Tom? Do you have anything to say?”

Tom’s head snapped back like he had been in a trance. Rory whispered something to him, and he said he liked the part about me trying to get out of playing volleyball. Then Darren spoke up and said he liked how I wrote about sitting with Brendon’s grandparents when they were left out because of their health. I hadn’t intended to say it, but he had picked up on it. He went next, reading his piece on how he visited his grandmother in a nursing home. His piece described the weird, hospital smell in those places, and it made me feel like I was back in Grandma’s room.

Later, I saw Darren sitting by himself in the lounge, so I decided to sit with him instead of waiting in the computer lab for Brendon.

“Working on our next assignment?” I asked.

“No, this is a short story I’ve been messing with for a while. Do you want to read it?” he asked.

I still wasn’t used to how open everyone in our creative writing class was about their writing. Maybe they had all been taking classes where they had to read out loud so they were used to it. Or maybe they were more confident than I was because they were all better writers. His story was about a girl he had met on a camping trip. The part of the story he had written was basically a description of her. I asked if it was a true story.

“Sort of. I met her last summer, and she dumped me on the Fourth of July. Right during the fireworks.”

“So sad,” I said. I couldn’t imagine anyone dumping him.

“Tell me about it. I can’t stand fireworks now,” he said. “Let me see what you’re working on.”

I handed him my essay on getting over my fear of horses. He read it and said he was impressed I was able to get on the horse after being so scared.

“Actually, I kinda added some stuff to make it sound better. I was actually riding one of those ponies that walk in a circle at a carnival. You know, the ones who are, like, sedated or something and couldn’t hurt a fly?”

“Those can be scary for a little kid,” he said.

“Uh, I was twelve at the time, and my mom had to bribe me with cotton candy to get on it. I was so scared, and I was probably bigger than the horse,” I said.

He cracked up. “Well, you did a good job of making me believe you were brave…even if it was a fat lie,” he said.

I glanced up at the clock and realized Brendon would be waiting for me at his locker, so I got up. Darren asked if I wanted to hang out again after school since we both had to wait during seventh hour for rides, and I thought it would be fun to have someone to talk to.

Brendon needed to stop at the public library downtown. I picked out some magazines to look at, but when I got back to the table, Brendon had already brought some books for me to read while he picked up stuff for his paper. The books were all mysteries, which he liked, but I wasn’t into. He told me to pick out the ones I wanted and he’d put them on his library card. I didn’t want any of them, but I grabbed two with interesting covers.

“What about this Hans Von Swiller one? I read a bunch of his stuff over the summer, and he’s good,” he said, adding it to my pile.

I hoped he wasn’t going to quiz me on them. On the way out, he asked me if I wanted to look at the writing section. I was ready to go, but he was already halfway down the aisle, so I followed him. He picked up a couple of books on writing and handed them to me. They all seemed the same to me, but I said they were interesting, and we went to check out.

“Can we stop for something to drink?” I asked as we walked to the car. “There’s a new juice bar on the next street.”

“We could just go to Beanie Weanies,” he said. “It’s right here.”

If I wanted coffee, I would have said, “Hey, let’s stop for coffee,” but I wanted juice. However, I didn’t feel like arguing—or walking home. He ordered an iced mocha, and I stood there trying to figure out what I wanted.

“How about a soda?” he asked.

“You know I don’t drink pop,” I said.

“Well, how about water?” he said as he checked his voice messages. “There are other people in line…”

Great, he cared more about the guy in line behind me getting what he wanted. I bet he would have gone to the juice place if Lauren wanted it. Of course, she probably only drank pure spring water flown in from the Alps. I finally settled on a bottle of apple juice, but I made sure everybody in line and behind the counter knew I wasn’t happy about it not being organic. We sat down, and he automatically opened my bottle for me. I knew he was just trying to be nice, but couldn’t I open my own stupid juice? I kept thinking about my numerology book and figured that my attitude change had something to do with my moving into the number six year, where I was supposed to get my life in order and break bad habits. Maybe I was just adjusting. Then his phone rang, and I knew he was talking to a girl. He gave one-word answers, and he didn’t look at me once.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll call you when I’m done with this,” he said.

Done with this? What the crap? I decided not to ask him about the call because he would just get defensive. I learned that the hard way last year when I asked my ex, John, who called while we were at the movies. I remember thinking it might have been an emergency because he got up and went into the lobby to take the call. Anyway, he almost took my head off and started accusing me of not trusting him. At the time, I had no reason to think something was up, but I had been getting weird vibes from him before the phone even rang. And, a few weeks after John flipped out about the call, I found out his ex-girlfriend, Brittanie, had been calling him a lot, and pretty soon the two of them were together, and I was alone. Sure, I was better off, but I was also hurt and humiliated to have to see them at school, making out near my locker. Margaux never said anything directly, but she hinted she might know something about an anonymous call to the school board complaining about people “going at it” in the halls because right after John and Brittanie hooked up, practically on my locker, the assistant principal made an announcement saying anyone “participating in any sort of lewd conduct or public displays of affection” would get an in-school suspension. She might not have been the most tactful person in the world, but Margaux was loyal.

I knew Brendon wasn’t John, but there was a little part of me which worried all guys could be like that. Zach and Kylie’s relationship seemed great, but Zach was also protective and sweet. Plus there was the fact Zach worshipped the ground Kylie walked on and would probably have given her a vital organ if she needed one to survive. I wasn’t sure Brendon even came close to feeling that way about me.