"Hey, I was going to spring for the real b.u.t.ter for the popcorn. I was willing to spare no expense. I wasn't looking for a cheap lay, just an easy one."

"You guys are pigs," Kelsie said without looking up from her magazine.

"If you wanted an easy lay, you should have asked Hailey out," Tristan said. "If she'll do a townie, then I guess she'll do anyone."

My heart stopped beating. I couldn't believe he had just said that. Everyone looked embarra.s.sed, but no one spoke up to defend me.

"I don't think it's fair that we all have to be on restriction just because of what she did," one of the soph.o.m.ore girls said.

Kelsie whacked the girl on the back of the head with her magazine. "You should stay out of it. What do you care about restriction? You weren't going anyplace."

The soph.o.m.ore blushed and looked down at her lap. I felt like pumping my fist in the air. You tell that stupid lip-glossed silver-eye-shadowed freak, Kels! You tell that stupid lip-glossed silver-eye-shadowed freak, Kels! That girl would have licked my shoes clean a week ago if I had asked her to. How dare she suddenly plop down in my group of friends and judge me. That girl would have licked my shoes clean a week ago if I had asked her to. How dare she suddenly plop down in my group of friends and judge me.

"I still can't believe . . ." Tristan's voice trailed off. His jaw thrust forward, and I knew that meant he was fighting back tears. Suddenly I forgave him for what he'd said. He was hurt and was trying to lash out. I wanted to rush into the room and throw my arms around him and tell him that everything would be okay and that we could work through this.

Kelsie leaned over and gently laid her hand on the side of Tristan's face. He pressed his hand to hers and closed his eyes. It felt like a knife sliding between my ribs to stab my heart. I knew she was just trying to comfort him, but it felt too intimate, too personal. Then I hated myself for thinking anything bad about Kelsie, when she was the only one who had stood up for me since everything had happened.

I didn't want to be there anymore. There was no way I could sit down and act like things were going to be okay. I needed to get out of there. I took a step back and stepped into nothingness.

My arms spun around trying to regain my balance. I must have been closer to the top of the stairs than I'd thought. For a split second I thought I was going to be okay, but then my ankle rolled to the side and I fell.

I screamed as I bounced down the stairs. I rolled down like a tumbleweed, my feet slamming against the wall as I went. I saw flashes of red carpet runner as I spun, and I prayed that I wouldn't break anything.

When I finally hit the bottom of the stairs, my head was throbbing and I had torn a hole in my yoga pants. I could hear people rushing to see what had happened. I tried to sit up, and winced when I put my hand on the floor to prop myself up. It felt like I must have sprained my wrist. In addition to the two nails I had broken cleaning cla.s.srooms today, now my pinky nail was sheared off and bleeding. I heard someone gasp, and I looked up. At the top of the stairs Tristan, Joel, and Kelsie were looking down at me.

"Ms. Kendrick," a voice said. I spun around to see Mr. Harrington standing in the lobby. "How nice of you to drop by."

15.

Mr. Harrington helped me to my feet. I was shaking from the shot of adrenaline. Everything hurt. It felt like I had been run over by a truck, but I was pretty sure no permanent damage had been done. I looked over each of my limbs. The crowd of soccer players from the lobby was jockeying for position. They seemed disappointed that I didn't appear to have broken anything, my brain wasn't leaking out my ears, and my shirt hadn't popped off. They would have been happy with either guts or b.o.o.bs, but this wasn't as interesting as they had hoped.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you do something embarra.s.sing like fall down the stairs in front of a group of people, you are required to act like you are fine, even if you aren't. Your arm could have a bone jutting out, and you would still try to laugh it off as if everything were hunky dory. This compound fracture? It's nothing! I like to let my bones out of my body once in a while for fresh air. It's good for them. This compound fracture? It's nothing! I like to let my bones out of my body once in a while for fresh air. It's good for them.

"I'm fine," I said, trying to give Mr. Harrington the impression that nothing important had happened and he didn't need to call Ms. Estes. She played by the book. She would require me to go to the hospital to make sure I didn't have a brain bleed or anything that could be blamed on her. If there were painful medical tests I would have to undergo, she'd love it even more. With my luck she would insist on sleeping in my room so she could wake me up every ten minutes in case I had a concussion. I took a step back from Mr. Harrington so that he could see I wasn't going to fall over. He pulled a Kleenex from his pocket and handed it to me. He motioned with his hand to my mouth. I touched my lip with the Kleenex and saw a bright bloom of red appear. One of my teeth must have cut my lip. Great.

I looked back to the top of the stairs. Tristan was starting to back away. Joel's mouth was hanging open in shock. He couldn't have looked more surprised if he had found the tooth fairy lying sprawled at the bottom of his staircase. He looked down at me and then over at Tristan, as if he weren't sure what might happen.

"Tristan, wait." I started up the stairs after him, wincing and adding an ankle strain to the list of injuries. I slipped between Kelsie and Joel at the top.

"What are you doing here?" Kelsie whispered as I went past.

I didn't bother to answer. I kept my focus on Tristan, who was still walking away. The two soph.o.m.ore girls were standing in the hall, thrilled to have a front row view of this action. I was surprised they didn't pull out popcorn and Team Tristan T-shirts.

"Stop." I grabbed the back of Tristan's sweater. He whirled around, and I took a quick step back.

"What do you want?" he asked in a hard, flat voice.

"I need to talk to you," I said.

Tristan laughed, and the sound was harsh, nearly barking. "You know what I need? I need to know that I can trust the people in my life. I need to know my girlfriend of four years hasn't been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around on me. I need to know when someone is talking to me that they're telling me the truth."

"I'll tell you the truth."

"Who was the guy?"

"I can't tell you that."

Tristan shook his head, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Well, that's great. This has been a really useful conversation."

"That's not what's important. It doesn't matter who it was. What matters is that it didn't mean anything. It never should have happened, and if I could take it back, I would. I can tell you that it never happened before that night and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been in some sort of crazy state." I whirled my hands around my head to indicate just how nuts I was.

"How do you live with knowing what you did? I would never have done something like that to you. Never."

I looked down at my feet. He was right. He wouldn't have. Given the circles his parents traveled in and the fact that he was both good-looking and rich, Tristan was always surrounded by girls who wanted him. They'd flirt with him when I was standing right there, and he always brushed them off. He wasn't someone who didn't have opportunity; he was someone who didn't have that kind of motivation.

"I am so sorry. I'm more sorry than I've ever been in my life. I don't mind being on restriction and having to clean the school. I can even live with the fact that everyone's mad at me, but I hate that I hurt you."

"Do you love this guy?"

"No! He means nothing. The kiss meant nothing."

Tristan looked me straight in the eyes, his stare pinning me to the ground. "That makes it worse, you know. I know you think that somehow it will make me feel better, but it doesn't. You threw away everything, and it wasn't even for someone who mattered."

Tristan turned and went into his room, shutting the door behind him. I turned and faced Joel and Kelsie, who were standing behind me.

"Wow. The guy didn't mean anything to you? That's good to know," Joel said.

I closed my eyes. I seemed to be incapable of making anything go right. "That's not what I meant. This is complicated."

"You don't owe me any explanations." He moved past me to join Tristan in their room.

"You have a wad of Kleenex stuck to your lip," Kelsie said, breaking the silence. "What's stuck up Joel's a.s.s with the whole thing? Why does he think he deserves a bio on the guy?"

I started to cry. I wasn't making a sound, but my shoulders were shaking from the sobs. Kelsie stepped in and hugged me, letting me bury my face in her hair. My ankle and wrist were throbbing with pain, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

"What are you staring at?" Kelsie said over my shoulder to the soph.o.m.ore girls. "Get a life. Go do something else somewhere else."

I could hear the girls scuttle off, whispering as they went. They would spread the news of my graceful fall down the stairs and my fight with Tristan to the rest of the student body faster than any emergency broadcast system. With the way things were going for me, they would act it out so that everyone could have the full experience.

"I want to go home," I whispered.

"Let's go." Kelsie grabbed her Vogue Vogue off the sofa and started to lead me back to our dorm. off the sofa and started to lead me back to our dorm.

When I'd said "home" I hadn't meant the dorm. I'd meant someplace that didn't even exist anymore. The house I used to have with my mom and dad had been sold. My dad's apartment had never been home to me. He'd never asked me what I wanted. Instead he'd had a decorator design a room for me. It was purple. I hate purple. I was a guest. A guest who didn't even rank having the guest room to myself, since my dad kept his treadmill in there too, as if my room were more of a storage closet.

"This is a nightmare," I mumbled as we walked outside. It was raining, and the wind whipped the drops so that they felt like razors. .h.i.tting my skin.

"I told you it wasn't a good idea to talk to Tristan. He's really upset."

"He's got you to comfort him, though." The words flew out of my mouth. Turns out I was still thinking about her hand on the side of his face.

Kelsie stopped and turned to face me. "What do you want? Yes, Tristan's my friend, and if I can help him feel better, then I'm going to try to do that. I'm the kind of person who tries to think of my friends, which is why I'm standing in the rain with you now instead of upstairs watching the rest of the hockey game. For someone who got caught kissing some random guy, you sound awfully judgmental."

My insides crumpled like a wet tissue. Now I was making the only person who was on my side turn against me.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. Everything I do or say is exactly the wrong thing. From now on I'm going to listen to your advice. Just tell me how to get through this."

"It won't do much for the situation with Tristan, but things would go a lot easier all around if you would spill the ident.i.ty of the guy. One week on restriction isn't that bad. It gives everyone a chance to chill out, but if this stretches into next week, you're going to see people getting ticked. You aren't doing yourself any favors."

"I can't tell. I know it doesn't make any sense, but I can't."

"I hope that whoever he is, he's worth it," Kelsie said.

There was no way to explain that keeping Joel out of trouble and not involving him in the situation with Tristan was the only decent thing to come out of the situation so far. That night scared me. Not because of what had happened but because I hadn't thought I was the kind of person who could do something like that. Doing this one thing right gave me the hope that I was still, somewhere deep down, a decent person.

"Any other advice?" I asked.

"Keep your head down and pray someone else screws up even bigger. Who knows, maybe someone will sell a full frontal naked photo of Mandy and people will find something else to talk about."

"Like her third nipple?" I joked.

Kelsie laughed. "You know what she says . . ."

"It's a MOLE," we screamed together, and for a second I felt just a little bit better.

16.

I was determined to make my Sunday cleaning shift, if not enjoyable, at least more tolerable. Based on how things were going, I wouldn't be separated from this cleaning job anytime in the near future, so I figured I might as well get along with Drew. While I thought it was unfair of him to lump all of us Evesham kids together as rich brats, it wasn't surprising. We were a fortunate crowd. It was the kind of school where the student parking lot was full of Mercedes and BMWs, and on parents' weekend there was more than one limo parked outside. was determined to make my Sunday cleaning shift, if not enjoyable, at least more tolerable. Based on how things were going, I wouldn't be separated from this cleaning job anytime in the near future, so I figured I might as well get along with Drew. While I thought it was unfair of him to lump all of us Evesham kids together as rich brats, it wasn't surprising. We were a fortunate crowd. It was the kind of school where the student parking lot was full of Mercedes and BMWs, and on parents' weekend there was more than one limo parked outside.

The night before I'd even had an idea of how to do something nice for Drew. Maybe if I were nice to someone who annoyed me, the universe would see that I was trying to do the right thing.

We were scheduled to clean the gym, and I was hoping that if I showed him a different side of myself he might let me be the one to run the floor polisher rather than having to pick gum, or G.o.d knows what else, out from under the bleachers.

"Good morning!" I said in a positive singsong voice so he would know there were no hard feelings from yesterday.

"Hey," he said, and then he froze in place when he saw me. "What the heck happened to you?"

I touched my lower lip. My flight down the stairs last night had resulted in quite a few injuries. I was so covered in bruises that I looked like a cheetah, including a giant bruise on my temple that looked like I'd colored a dot on my face with a black marker. My cut lower lip had swollen overnight. It looked like what would happen if Angelina Jolie got her mouth stuck in a vacuum.

"This?" I shrugged, trying to turn the whole thing into a joke. "Bar fight."

Drew crossed the floor and gently cupped my chin, turning my face right and left so he could a.s.sess the damage. The skin on his hands felt rough, but also warm. "Did someone hit you?" His eyes pinned me into place. "That's never okay. If you need help, you can tell me."

"Are you going to beat someone up for me?" I pulled my chin back, even though I had liked it resting in his hands. It wasn't that I wanted him to touch me, but it felt nice to be touched by anyone, given my current leper status. "How gallant."

"I'm being serious. My sister's ex-boyfriend used to hit her. There's a women's group in town that can help."

"They can't help me." I held up my hand to deflect his argument. Who knew that in the chest of a teen janitor beat the heart of a knight in shining armor? It wasn't fair to compare him with Tristan or Joel, given the circ.u.mstances, but they had seen me fall and hadn't offered this much sympathy. "No one hit me. I fell down the stairs."

"Why did you fall down the stairs?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a well-thought-out plan. It was an accident."

"You don't strike me as the klutzy type. Did something upset you?"

"What is this, the inquisition?" I laughed, but it sounded fake even to my own ears. "No big story. I was rushing around and missed the top step."

"All right." Drew looked around the gym. "You look pretty banged up. I'm not sure you should be going up and down the bleachers bending over to do gum detail. Try to take it easy."

"I could sit over there and supervise," I offered. "Keep you entertained with jokes or something."

"Nice try, Prima Donna, but the best thing when you've taken a fall is to keep moving. Otherwise your muscles stiffen up."

"So you have a lot of experience falling down stairs?"

"I usually manage stairs, but I've taken my fair share of falls. I like to ski and s...o...b..ard, and I've wiped out mountain climbing a couple of times."

"Mountain climbing?"

Drew laughed. "You should see your face. It's like I told you I like to swim in sewers."

"I don't see the point in climbing a mountain, just to say you did? It seems awfully risky."

"It's more than bragging rights. It's about pushing yourself. Challenging yourself to do more than you thought you could. Be all you can be kind of thing."

This was a great entry into what I wanted to talk about. I'd even stopped by the computer lab in our dorm to print out a few information sheets I'd found the night before. "It's interesting you bring up the idea of reaching for more." I motioned for Drew to sit down on the bench. "I hope you don't think I'm sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong."

"I find that people who start a conversation like that are just about to stick their nose in the wrong place. It's the same with people who say, 'I don't want to offend you, but . . .'"

I handed Drew the sheets of paper from my jacket pocket. He flipped through them and then looked over at me. "What's this?"

"You're really young, right? You're not that much older than me."

"I'm nineteen."

"There you go, nineteen. That's not too old."