"In a hurry to get to a funeral? Maybe dump Nick for a nice cold corpse? Oh wait. Nick is is a corpse." a corpse."

I held eye contact with her, refusing to back down. After all these years she still hadn't tired of the same old stupid jokes. Still hadn't grown out of them. Mom had told me once that if I kept ignoring Christy, eventually it would get boring for her. But on days like today, ignoring her was easier said than done. I was so over this rivalry thing, but no way was I going to let her get away with breaking my stuff.

I pushed past her into the aisle, which had started moving. "Whatever your problem is..." I said. I held up my MP3 player. "You're going to pay for this."

"Oooh, I'm shaking in my boots," she said.

Someone else added, "She might cast a spell on you, Christy," and they all laughed.

I moved down the aisle and stepped down onto the sidewalk, cut behind the bus and jogged to the bleachers where Stacey, Duce, and David were hanging out as usual.

I climbed up to meet them, out of breath and furious.

"Hey," Stacey said. "What's up? You look p.i.s.sed."

"Yeah," I said. "Look what that b.i.t.c.h Christy Bruter did to my MP3 player."

"Oh, man," David said, taking it out of my hands. He pushed a few b.u.t.tons, tried to switch it on and off a few times. "You could get it fixed or something."

"I don't want to get it fixed," I said. "I want to kill her. G.o.d, I could just rip her stupid head off. She'll regret this. I'm totally going to get her back for this."

"Just blow her off," Stacey said. "She's such a cow. n.o.body actually likes her."

A black Camaro roared into the parking lot and rolled up next to the football field. I recognized the car as Jeremy's and my heart sped up. For a second I forgot about the MP3 player.

The pa.s.senger side door opened and Nick stepped out. He had on the heavy black jacket he'd been wearing lately, and it was zipped up to his chin against the cool wind.

I skipped up to the top of the bleachers and yelled out to him.

"Nick!" I called, waving.

He caught my motion, tipped his chin upward slightly, and shifted his course in my direction. He moved slowly, methodically toward me. I bounded down the bleachers and across the lawn to him.

"Hey, baby!" I said, reaching him and wrapping myself around him. He sort of dodged me, but leaned down and kissed me, then turned me and slung his arm across my shoulders just like always. It felt so good to be under his arm again.

"Hey," he said. "What're you losers doing?" He used his free hand to do some sort of handshake thing with Duce and then socked David in the shoulder.

"Where you been?" David asked.

Nick smirked and I was struck by how odd he looked. Vibrant, almost buzzing or something.

"Been busy," was Nick's only reply. His eyes swept the front of the school. "Been busy," he repeated, but he said it so quietly I'm pretty sure I was the only one to hear him. Not that he was really talking to any of us. I could've sworn he was talking to the school itself. The building, the ant-like activity inside of it.

Mr. Angerson scuffed up behind us then and used his "princ.i.p.al voice," the one we liked to imitate at parties: No, Garvin students, beer is bad for your growing brains. You must eat a healthy breakfast before coming to school, Garvin students. And remember, Garvin students, just say no to drugs. No, Garvin students, beer is bad for your growing brains. You must eat a healthy breakfast before coming to school, Garvin students. And remember, Garvin students, just say no to drugs.

"All right, Garvin students," he said. Stacey and I elbowed each other and snickered. "Let's not linger this morning. Time to go to cla.s.s."

Duce flicked Angerson a salute and started marching into the school. Stacey and David followed him, laughing. I started, too, but stopped under Nick's arm, which was still holding me in place on the sidewalk. I looked up at him. He was still staring at the school, a grin playing around the corners of his mouth.

"Better go before Angerson ruptures something," I said, tugging at Nick's arm. "Hey, I was thinking. Want to ditch lunch and get Casey's today?"

He didn't answer, but continued staring at the school silently.

"Nick? We better go," I said again. No response. Finally I kind of shoved him with my hip. "Nick?"

He blinked and looked down at me, the grin never changing, the bright look in his eyes never wavering. Maybe even growing more intense. I wondered what in the heck he and Jeremy had taken that morning. He was acting really weird.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Got a lot to do today."

We started walking, our hips b.u.mping one another with each step.

"I'd let you borrow my MP3 player for first period, but Christy Bruter busted it on the bus," I said, holding it up for him to see. He peered at it for a moment. His smile widened. He grabbed me tighter and walked toward the door more quickly.

"I've been wanting to do something about her for a long time," he said.

"I know. I totally hate her," I whined, squeezing all the attention I could out of the incident. "I don't know what her problem is."

"I'll take care of it."

I smiled, excited. The sleeve of Nick's jacket scratched along the back of my neck. It felt nice. Real somehow. Like as long as that sleeve was scratching along the skin of my neck everything would be normal, even if he was on something. For right now anyway, Nick was here with me, holding me, going to stand up for me. Not for Jeremy. For me.

We hit the doors and Nick finally let go of my shoulders. A breeze gusted right at that moment and swept down the collar of my shirt, billowing the front of it. I shuddered, my spine suddenly getting really cold.

Nick opened a door and waited for me to go in ahead of him.

"Let's go get this finished," he said. I nodded, heading toward the Commons, my eyes peeled for Christy Bruter, my teeth chattering.

3.

[FROM THE G GARVIN C COUNTY S SUN-TRIBUNE,.

MAY 3, 2008, R 3, 2008, REPORTER A ANGELA D DASH]Jeff Hicks, 15-As a freshman, Hicks would have ordinarily not been walking through the Commons, according to some students. "We don't go through there if we can help it," freshman Marcie Stindler told reporters. "The seniors ha.s.sle us if we go down there. It's sort of like an unwritten freshman rule to stay away from the Commons except during lunch. Every incoming freshman knows that."But Hicks was running late on the morning of May 2nd and cut through the Commons in his hurry to get to cla.s.s, which some are calling a cla.s.sic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He suffered a shot to the back of the head and died instantly at the scene. A memorial has been set up in his name at Garvin County State Bank. Police say it's unclear whether Levil knew Hicks or if Hicks was accidentally hit by a bullet intended for someone else.

Because Mrs. Tate had kept me in her office for so long I missed the first period bell and walked in right in the middle of Mrs. Tennille's First Day of School speech. I know Tate had done it to keep me from having to brave the pre-first period hallways, but I almost would have preferred that to the eyes boring into me when I walked into cla.s.s. At least in the hallways I could sort of walk in the shadows.

I opened the door and I swear the entire cla.s.s stopped what they were doing and looked up at me. Billy Jenkins dropped his pencil and just let it roll off his desk. Mandy Horn's mouth flopped open so hard I thought I heard her jaw crack. Even Mrs. Tennille stopped talking and stood motionless for a few seconds.

I stood in the doorway, wondering if it would really be all that noticeable if I just turned around and walked out. Out of the cla.s.sroom. Out of the school. Back home to bed. Tell Mom and Dr. Hieler that I was wrong, that I wanted to finish high school with a tutor after all. That I wasn't as strong as I originally thought.

Mrs. Tennille cleared her throat and put down the marker she was using on the whiteboard. I took a deep breath and shuffled to her desk, holding out the hall pa.s.s Mrs. Tate's secretary had given me on my way out.

"We're just going over this year's syllabus," Mrs. Tennille said, taking the pa.s.s. Her face remained stonelike. "Go ahead and take your seat. If you have any questions on something we've already covered, you can ask me after the bell."

I stared at her for a beat longer. Mrs. Tennille had hardly been one of my fans to begin with. She always had a problem with the fact that I wouldn't partic.i.p.ate in labs and with the fact that Nick sort of "accidentally" set fire to a test tube in third period once. I can't even count how many times she'd landed Nick's b.u.t.t in detention, and she'd always glared at me when I loitered on the sidewalk in front of the school waiting for him to get out.

I couldn't imagine what she must feel for me now. Pity, maybe, for not seeing in Nick what she always saw? Did she want to shake me and shout, "I told you so, you stupid girl!"? Or maybe she felt loathing for what happened with Mr. Kline.

Maybe she, like me, replayed that scene over and over in her head a million times a day: Mr. Kline, the chemistry teacher, using his body to literally shield about a dozen students. He was crying. Snot running out of his nose, body shaking. He had his arms held out to each side, Christlike, and was shaking his head at Nick, defiant and scared.

I liked Kline. Everybody liked Kline. Kline was the kind of guy who'd come to your graduation party. The kind of guy who'd stop and talk to you in the mall-and none of that "h.e.l.lo, youngster," Mr. Angerson the Princ.i.p.al kind of c.r.a.p, either. Kline would say, "Hey, what's up? Keeping your nose clean?" Kline would turn a blind eye if he saw you sneak a beer at a restaurant and get away with it. Kline would give his life for you. We always kind of knew that about Kline. Now the whole world knew that about him.

Thanks to impressive TV coverage of the shooting, and that annoying Angela Dash writing for the Sun-Tribune Sun-Tribune, pretty much everyone in the world knew that Mr. Kline had died because he wouldn't tell Nick where Mrs. Tennille was. So I suppose it wasn't news to Mrs. Tennille. I also suppose that's why she looked at me like I was a plague set free in her cla.s.sroom.

I turned and scuffed to an empty chair. I tried to keep my eyes rooted solely to the chair, but found it was impossible. I swallowed. My throat felt too thick. My hands were so sweaty my notebook was slipping out. My leg throbbed and I felt myself limping and silently cursed myself for doing it.

I curled into my desk and looked up at Mrs. Tennille. She stared at me until I was settled and then turned back to the whiteboard, clearing her throat again and finishing writing her e-mail address on the board.

Slowly the heads of my cla.s.smates turned back toward the front of the room and I felt myself begin to breathe once again. Eighty-three Eighty-three, I chanted in my head. Eighty-two, if you don't count today. Eighty-two, if you don't count today.

While Tennille talked about the best ways to contact her, I concentrated on my hands, trying to slow my breathing the way Dr. Hieler had taught me to do. I stared at my nails, which were chipped and ugly. I'd never found the energy to file them smooth and now I was oddly self-conscious about them. All the other girls would have prepared for the first day of school by doing things like painting their nails, picking out their best clothes. I'd barely even washed. It was just another way that I was different from all of them, and somehow, oddly, it was just another way that I was different from the way I used to be.

I tucked my nails into my palms. I didn't want them to show, afraid that someone would notice how ugly they were, but found myself strangely calmed by the feeling of them jabbing jaggedly into my palms. I lowered my hands to my lap and made hard fists, squeezing until the nails dug into my palms and I could take a breath without a wave of nausea rolling over me.

"E-mail me any time you have a question," Mrs. Tennille was saying, pointing to what she'd written on the board, and then she stopped short.

There was some commotion going on to my left. The kids were rustling around, one girl stuffing books and papers into her backpack quickly. Tears were streaking down her face and she was hiccupping, trying to keep it inside.

A few other girls were hovering over her, rubbing her back and talking to her.

"Is there a problem?" Mrs. Tennille asked. "Kelsey? Meghan? Is there a reason you're not in your chairs?"

"It's Ginny," Meghan said, pointing at the crying girl, who I now realized was Ginny Baker. I'd heard on the news about all the plastic surgery she'd had, but hadn't really realized how much it had changed her face until now.

Mrs. Tennille placed the dry erase marker into the tray at the bottom of the board, then quietly and steadily folded her hands in front of her. "Ginny?" she said in a voice so soft I wasn't sure at first it had come out of Tennille. "Is there something I can do to help? Do you need to go get a drink maybe?"

Ginny zipped her backpack and stood. Her whole body was shaking.

"It's her," she said, without moving. Everyone knew who she was talking about, though, and they all turned to look at me. Even Tennille glanced in my direction. I put my face back down toward my hands and squeezed my fingernails into my palms even harder. I sucked my lips inside my mouth and bit down on them hard from the inside, clamping them shut. "I can't sit here with her without thinking about... about..." she sucked in a breath and then let it out with a stream of anguish that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Why did they let her come back?"

She grabbed her backpack with both hands in front of her, hugged it to her belly, and rushed up the aisle, pushing both Meghan and Kelsey backward into desks.

Mrs. Tennille took a couple steps toward her and stopped. She nodded slightly and Ginny rushed out of the room, her contorted and ragged face pulled up into a grimace.

Everything was completely still for a minute and I squeezed my eyes shut and silently counted backward from fifty-another one of those coping methods I'd learned. From Mom or Dr. Hieler, I couldn't remember. I heard bells in my ears and I felt twitchy. Should I leave, too? Go after Ginny, tell her I'm sorry? Go home and never come back? Should I say something to the cla.s.s? What do I do?

Finally, Mrs. Tennille cleared her throat again, turned back to the whiteboard, and picked up her marker. Her face looked unsettled, but her manner remained stoic. Good old steady Tennille. Couldn't charm her nor faze her.

"As I was saying," she began, and then she launched back into her lecture.

I blinked away the little white lights that were dancing in front of my eyes and tried to focus on what she was saying, which was hard because pretty much n.o.body stopped staring at me.

"The next unit will focus on..."

There was more restlessness and once again she turned and stopped. I glanced to my left and saw a couple kids talking heatedly among each other.

"Cla.s.s," Mrs. Tennille said, her voice still stern but losing its grip on authoritative. "May I have your attention now, please?"

The kids stopped talking but remained restless.

"I would like to get on with this so we don't fall behind before the year even begins."

Sean McDannon raised his hand.

"Yes, Sean?" she said, a little exasperation creeping into her voice.

Sean coughed into his fist the way some men do when they want to change their voices from regular to super-powerful and manly. He looked at me, then looked away quickly. I tried a weak smile, but it was wasted because he'd already turned back.

Sean was an okay kid. Never a problem with anyone. n.o.body really liked or hated him. He sort of flew under the radar most of the time, which can sometimes be the difference between getting along in high school and getting picked on in high school. He didn't get picked on that I ever knew about. He got good grades, joined academic clubs, kept his nose clean, had an una.s.suming girlfriend. And he lived about six houses down from me, which meant we'd played together as kids. We hadn't really talked much since about 5th grade, but there was no hostility between us. We said hi to each other if we pa.s.sed in the hallway or at the bus stop. No big deal.

"Um, Mrs. Tennille, Mrs. Tate told us that we should talk about... um, about these things, and-"

"And it's not fair that Ginny should have to be the one to leave," said Meghan. While Sean had been pointedly not looking at me ever since that first glance, Meghan made an effort to swing her head around and glare at me. "It's not like Ginny did anything wrong."

Mrs. Tennille twisted the dry erase marker between her hands. "n.o.body asked Ginny to leave, Meghan. And I'm sure Mrs. Tate meant that you could come up to her office to talk about these-"

"No," said a voice at the desk behind me. It sounded like Alex Gold, but my body felt frozen and I couldn't turn my head to be sure. My fingernails dug deeper into my palms, leaving painful purple crescents across them. "No, when the school had that trauma guy here he told us we should feel free to talk about stuff whenever we need to. Not that I need to or anything. I'm so over this."

Meghan rolled her eyes and shifted her hateful stare from me to a spot over my shoulder . "Well, good for you. But you didn't have your face blown off."

"Well, maybe that's because I never ticked off Nick Levil."

"Okay, that's really enough," said Mrs. Tennille, but by then the conversation had gotten well out of control. "Maybe we should get back to our discussion..."

"Neither did you, Meghan," Susan Crayson said, sitting just to Meghan's right. "Your face didn't get blown off either. You weren't even really friends with Ginny before the shooting. You just like the drama."

And that's basically when all h.e.l.l broke loose. So many kids were talking on top of one another, it was almost impossible to tell who was saying what.

"... all a bunch of drama? My friend died..."

"... not like Valerie shot anybody anyway. She just had Nick do it. And Nick's dead, so who cares?"

"Mrs. Tate said arguing wouldn't solve..."

"... bad enough that I have to have nightmares every night about it, but to come to cla.s.s and..."

"... you saying I liked that Ginny got shot because it was good drama? Are you seriously saying that?"

"... had been nice to Nick, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Isn't that the whole point of..."

"... ask me, he deserved to die. I'm glad he's gone..."

"... what do you know about friends, anyway, you loser..."