"Why wouldn't I be?"

I should've known she wouldn't make this easy.

"Um. Well. I heard this rumor."

"A rumor?" she says in mock surprise. "About me? That's shocking."

"Yeah. Well. I guess it was only a rumor."

Because you sound like your usual old self.

"What was it?"

"Oh. Nothing. It was dumb."

"What was it?" she says, more demandingly. "Let me guess. I got pregnant?"

"No."

"I got kicked out of school?"

"No."

"I had an affair with one of the teachers? I got caught using drugs?"

"No. It wasn't any of those things."

Please stop.

"Then what? I've heard them all, Lainey. You can't surprise me."

Fine.

"They said you tried to kill yourself."

I listen to her breathe. I wait. I count her breaths. Six, seven, eight - I can't take it anymore.

"Leah? It's not true, right?"

"Of course not," she says. But her voice sounds different. "G.o.d, Lainey. You're so gullible. I'm glad you give a s.h.i.t, though - I really am. I could use a friend like you at my new school. But, Laine, we've both moved on, you know?"

This time, I'm the one who doesn't say anything. Is this really it? Is Leah letting me go for good?

"Yeah. Um, OK," I finally say. "Sorry to bother you. I'm glad it was only a rumor."

"Thanks, Lainey. Hey, have a good life."

She hangs up before I can say good-bye for real.

I don't know how many times I've wished I'd never met Leah Greene. I don't know how many times I was sure I hated her.

I should be thrilled to be set free at last.

So why do I feel so empty?

For months after I talk to Leah, I have the same dream about her. She's in a black sports car with a faceless man. She lifts her arm to wave good-bye. As she does, blood starts to gush out of a slit in her wrist. She's crying. I try to open the door to let her out, but the car is moving, pulling away from me, down a black dirt road. Leah keeps waving at me. And now I can't tell if she's waving good-bye or gesturing for me to come after her. The blood starts to cover the window until I can't see her face. I run after them, but the car disappears. Then I wake up, sweating. Feeling sure the rumors were true.

One day I'm home sick from school with a bad cold. I'm lying curled up in a ball on the couch with my favorite old quilt wrapped around me, watching old Real World episodes, when the doorbell rings. I waddle to the door, still wrapped in my quilt. I a.s.sume it's my mother coming home from work to check on me. She's always coming to the door with her hands full, pressing on the doorbell with her elbow so someone can come help her. I swing open the door without looking to see who it is first.

Standing there in a shiny sweat suit that looks brand-new, and certainly hasn't been sweated in, is Mrs. Greene.

"Oh, Laine!" she exclaims when she sees me. "This is grand!"

"Hi, Mrs. Greene," I manage to say to her heavily made-up face.

"Are you under the weather or something, Laine? I didn't expect to see you."

I nod.

"Oh, I'm sorry. But I'm glad, too. Not that you're sick, I mean. But that you're here. I've been meaning to bring this to you for weeks. But, you know, things get busy. I've been carrying it around in my purse for days, and today I finally remembered to do something about it." She's made her way inside, closing the door behind her.

It occurs to me that we've probably never been alone together before, and it feels a little odd.

Mrs. Greene rummages through her large black patent-leather purse.

"Ah," she says. "Here it is."

Before I have time to guess what it could be, out comes the nesting doll that Sam gave me all those years ago. As soon as I see it, I can almost smell that night: the candles, the food, the wood polish on the floor.

"It's your nesting doll, Laine! Remember?"

"Yes." But I don't hold my hand out. I just look at the doll sitting quietly among Mrs. Greene's perfectly manicured fingers.

We're still standing in the hallway. My head feels like it has doubled in size, and I can't close my mouth because I have to breathe through it.

"You must have left her at the house, Laine. And then forgotten about her? Anyway, when I was reorganizing some of Leah's and Brooke's things, there she was. And I thought, well, that was Laine's doll! Leah tried to tell me that you gave it to her, but I know Leah. Sam meant for you to have it."

She presses the doll into my hand.

"Thanks," I say. I try to imagine Leah being caught in a lie, but I just can't do it. Leah is the best liar ever. She told me once it was OK to lie as long as you asked G.o.d to forgive you right away afterward. Sometimes I thought I knew when she was lying because she'd pause for a minute and I thought maybe she was saying a quick, silent prayer.

"It's a shame you two aren't friends anymore. But I guess you grew apart. That always happens in high school, when you take different cla.s.ses and things."

I nod, feeling the line across the doll's middle with my finger.

"My goodness were you two inseparable! Remember, Lainey?"

"How does Leah like her new school?" I ask. I look up at Mrs. Greene to show her I really do want to know.

Her face is grayish, her makeup cakey. She seems older than I remember.

"Oh, well, Leah's a little too big for her britches these days. Says she wants to quit school because she isn't learning anything. Ah, Laine, I never should have started her in kindergarten a year late. But I wasn't ready to let go of her! I think she hated being almost a year older than all her cla.s.smates, though. I think it was hard on her, even though she was always such a good student. But she developed so early, anyway, and then - well, you know. Leah has always looked a lot older than she is. When we took her out for her thirteenth birthday, the waiter thought she was eighteen! He couldn't take his eyes off her."

She says the last bit proudly. I see Sam dancing with Leah and Brooke in the living room, watching their bodies, while Mr. and Mrs. Greene smile proudly. I feel ill. I want to hurl the doll across the room.

"You should see her now, honey," Mrs. Greene goes on. "She thinks she's going to be a model. I wish I had the pictures from her portfolio to show you. We had them done at a studio in Boston. The photographer told us she was a natural. So of course now she thinks she can just quit school and become the next supermodel."

Just like Sam said, I think.

"Well," she says with a sigh, as if it's all too much to think about. "And what about you, sweetie? What have you been up to? Thinking about college yet?"

But she doesn't wait for me to answer. "Oh, I had such high hopes for Leah. For Brooke, too. You know about Brooke, don't you, Laine?"

I shake my head.

"She's going to go to school to become a court stenographer."

"A what?" The doll feels heavier and heavier in my hand as I try not to remember that night.

Please, Mrs. Greene. Just go away.

"A court stenographer. It's the person who types out what people are saying in a court case. You know. Like a trial. She's really excited. Thinks she's going to be able to witness all the interesting cases. I think it would be boring. At least she might meet some lawyers, though. You know, she really is pretty."

I manage to smile, even though I desperately need to blow my nose.

"So, a touch of the flu? I hear something's going around."

I sniff.

"And here we are still standing!"

"Oh, I'm sorry." I feel like a child standing in my pajamas with my blanket. When I move aside, she heads straight for the kitchen. I didn't even know she knew where it was. I follow, my blanket trailing behind me, wondering what I'm supposed to do next. I've never spoken to Mrs. Greene for this long in my life.

"Can I make you some tea, Laine?"

In my own house? "Um . . . OK," I say quietly. I place the doll on the kitchen table and sit down.

Mrs. Greene turns the doll so she's facing me before she walks to the stove to start the kettle. She hums while she searches for and finds two teacups and the tea bags. She seems peculiarly happy. Like she's trying too hard. Mrs. Greene was always so proud of how beautiful her girls were. Still are. Maybe too proud. If you've got it, flaunt it, she'd told them. But at what price?

We drink our tea while the doll watches us.

"Do you know why it's called a nesting doll, Laine?"

I shake my head.

Mrs. Greene reaches for the doll and separates her. She pulls out each doll, lining them up in a row as she goes until she gets to the last doll. Then she puts them all back inside each other again. "Each doll nests inside the next biggest one. And the largest one of all keeps the others safe, like a mother hen."

"That makes sense," I say, taking a sip of the tea. It tastes better than the way my mother makes it - it has lots of milk and sugar. I wonder if she makes tea like this for Leah.

As soon as I finish, Mrs. Greene gets up to leave. When I thank her for bringing the nesting doll, she gives me a close hug. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s smoosh up against me, but it doesn't make me feel bad, like I'd imagined when I saw her do it to other people, though never Leah or Brooke. I don't think I've ever seen her hug them.

From the window next to the door, I watch her hurry across the driveway to her new white Cadillac. She waves as she pulls away. I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

I go back to the kitchen and find the nesting doll still sitting happily on the table.

I hate that Mrs. Greene took her from Leah. I hate that Mrs. Greene must have found the doll and confronted Leah about it. It would have reminded Leah about that night and my broken promise. I can still see the strange glance between Sam and Leah when she took the doll from me the next morning. How he almost seemed to know she'd do it, and so it had really been a gift for her all along. But mostly I can still hear the sound of her quiet cries in the dark the night before.

I take the doll up to the doll closet and throw it inside. The doll breaks apart when it hits the floor. I shut the door before the pieces rattle to a stop.

By the end of my soph.o.m.ore year, I pretty much give up on ever having any real friends. I'll get through this torture they call school, and then I can go live as a hermit someplace.

Only just as I make up my mind to live my life in exile, Jessica Lambert comes up behind me and tells me I have a pen mark on my shirt. I try to cover the spot by holding my books in front of it.

"It's not a big deal," she says. "That happens to me all the time." She smiles at me.

"Thanks," I say, looking at my shoes.

I've known Jess, which is what everyone calls her, since grade school. But we've never been friends. Leah never liked her for some reason. Leah made all the decisions about who would be in our "group." None of those girls ever felt like real friends to me. I knew they only talked to me because of Leah. And Leah knew it, too. Sometimes I think Leah liked it that way.

Jess and I both play the clarinet in band. For Christmas, my father gave me an old clarinet he found at a flea market. He fixed it up and insisted that I try to learn how to play. I wasn't crazy about the idea of being a band geek, but once I tried playing, I liked it. I liked making noise without using my voice. Besides, if I'm going to be alone the rest of my life, who cares?

A few days after the shirt incident, I sit next to Jess at practice. She smiles at me and says, "Hi."

"Hi," I say back, a little too friendly.

This is the extent of conversation number two. But at the next practice, we sit beside each other again. This time she nudges me when Mrs. Hathaway, the band director, claps her hands and tells us we're all brilliant.

"Must be deaf," Jess whispers.

I snicker.

Two practices later, Jess asks if I want to share stands with her.

"Sure," I say nervously. But when I put my music away to share hers, we realize she plays second clarinet and I only play third, and both sets of music won't fit on the stand.

"Oh, well," Jess says. "We can still push them together. That way Hathaway can't see us write notes."

Hathaway? Notes? Apparently, Jess has decided we're friends.

I slide my stand next to hers so our music folders touch and Hathaway can't see us. Jess gives me a satisfied smile.

After practice a few days later, Web Foster is waiting in the hall for Jess. I didn't know they were friends, but it's obvious they're close by the way Web grins at her when he sees us. He doesn't seem surprised to see me with Jess. He even knows my name and says hi.

The next day we're sitting in chemistry, and Web sends Jess and me the same note.

I dare you to scream as loud as you can at 10:05.

We both look over at him like he's crazy, but he winks and points to the clock.