“There are a million things you could talk about,” Josie said. “Watergate. Abu Ghraib. Kent State.”

Matt strained beneath the weight of a barbell as Drew spotted him. “Whatever’s easiest, Jo,” he said.

“Come on, you pussy,” Drew said. “At this rate they’re going to demote you to JV.”

Matt grinned and fully extended his arms. “Let’s see you bench this,” he grunted. Josie watched the play of his muscles, imagined them strong enough to do that and also tender enough to hold her. He sat up, wiping his forehead and the back of the weight bench, so that Drew could take his turn.

“I could do something on the Patriot Act,” Josie suggested, biting down on the end of the pencil.

“I’m just looking out for your own best interests, dude,” Drew said. “I mean, if you’re not going to bulk up for Coach, do it for Josie.”

She glanced up. “Drew, were you born an idiot, or did that evolve?”

“I intelligently designed,” he joked. “All I’m saying is that Matt better watch out, now that he’s got some competition.”

“What are you talking about?” Josie looked at him as if he were crazy, but secretly, she was panicking. It didn’t really matter whether or not Josie had shown attention to someone else; it only mattered whether Matt thought so.

“It was a joke, Josie,” Drew said, lying down on the bench and curling his fists around the metal bar.

Matt laughed. “Yeah, that’s a good description of Peter Houghton.”

“Are you going to fuck with him?”

“Hopefully,” Matt said. “I just haven’t decided how yet.”

“Maybe you need some poetic inspiration to come up with a suitable plan,” Drew said. “Hey, Jo, grab my binder. The email’s right in the pocket in the front.”

Josie reached across the couch for Drew’s backpack and rummaged through his books. She pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it to find her own email address right at the top, the whole student body of Sterling High as the destination address.

Where had this come from? And why hadn’t she ever seen it?

“Read it,” Drew said, lifting the weights.

Josie hesitated. “‘I know you don’t think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together.’”

The words felt like stones in her throat. She stopped speaking, but that didn’t matter, because Drew and Matt were reciting the email word for word.

“‘By myself, I’m nothing special,’” Matt said.

“‘But with you…I think…’” Drew convulsed, laughing, the weights falling hard back into their cradle. “Fuck, I can’t do this when I’m cracking up.”

Matt sank down on the couch beside Josie and slipped his arm around her, his thumb grazing her breast. She shifted, because she didn’t want Drew to see, but Matt did, and shifted with her. “You inspire poetry,” he said, smiling. “Bad poetry, but even Helen of Troy probably started with, like, a limerick, right?”

Josie’s face reddened. She could not believe that Peter had written these things to her, that he’d ever think she might be receptive to them. She couldn’t believe that the whole school knew that Peter Houghton liked her. She couldn’t afford for them to think that she felt anything for him.

Even sorry.

More devastating was the fact someone had decided to make her the fool. It was not a surprise that someone had gotten into her email account-they all knew each other’s passwords; it could have been any of the girls, or even Matt himself. But what would make her friends do something like this, something so totally humiliating?

Josie already knew the answer. This group of kids-they weren’t her friends. Popular kids didn’t really have friends; they had alliances. You were safe only as long as you hid your trust-at any moment someone might make you the laughingstock, because then they knew no one was laughing at them.

Josie was smarting, but she also knew part of the prank was a test to see how she reacted. If she turned around and accused her friends of hacking into her email and invading her privacy, she was doomed. Above all else, she wasn’t supposed to show emotion. She was so socially above Peter Houghton that an email like this wasn’t mortifying, but hilarious.

In other words: Laugh, don’t cry.

“What a total loser,” Josie said, as if it didn’t bother her at all; as if she found this just as funny as Drew and Matt did. She balled up the email and tossed it behind the couch. Her hands were shaking.

Matt lay his head down in her lap, still sweaty. “What did I officially decide to write about?”

“Native Americans,” Josie replied absently. “How the government broke treaties and took away their land.”

It was, she realized, something she could sympathize with: that rootlessness, the understanding that you were never going to feel at home.

Drew sat up, straddling the weight bench. “Hey, how do I get myself a girl who can boost my GPA?”

“Ask Peter Houghton,” Matt answered, grinning. “He’s the lovemeister.”

As Drew snickered, Matt reached for Josie’s hand, the one holding the pencil. He kissed the knuckles. “You’re too good to me,” he said.

The lockers in Sterling High were staggered, one row on top and one row on the bottom, which meant that if you happened to be a lower locker you had to suffer getting your books and coat and stuff while someone else was practically standing on your head. Peter’s locker was not only on the bottom row, it was also in a corner-which meant that he could never quite make himself small enough to get what he needed.

Peter had five minutes to get from class to class, but he was the first one into the halls when the bell rang. It was a carefully calculated plan: if he left as soon as possible, he’d be in the hallways during the biggest crush of traffic, and therefore was less likely to be singled out by one of the cool kids. He walked with his head ducked, his eyes on the floor, until he reached his locker.

He was kneeling in front of it, trading his math book for his social studies text, when a pair of black wedge heels stopped beside him. He glanced up the patterned stockings to the tweed miniskirt and asymmetrical sweater and long waterfall of blond hair. Courtney Ignatio was standing with her arms crossed, as if Peter had already taken up too much of her time, when he wasn’t even the one who’d stopped her in the first place.

“Get up,” she said. “I’m not going to be late for class.”

Peter stood and closed his locker. He didn’t want Courtney to see that inside, he had taped a picture of himself and Josie from when they were little. He’d had to climb up into the attic where his mother kept her old photo albums, since she’d gone digital two years ago, and now all they had were CDs. In the photo, he and Josie were sitting on the edge of a sandbox at nursery school. Josie’s hand was on Peter’s shoulder. That was the part he liked the best.

“Look, the last thing I want to do is stand here and be seen talking to you, but Josie’s my friend, which is why I volunteered to do this in the first place.” Courtney looked down the hall, to make sure no one was coming. “She likes you.”

Peter just stared at her.

“I mean she likes you, you retard. She’s totally over Matt; she just doesn’t want to ditch him until she knows for sure that you’re serious about her.” Courtney glanced at Peter. “I told her it’s social suicide, but I guess that’s what people do for love.”

Peter felt all the blood rush to his head, an ocean in his ears. “Why should I believe you?”

Courtney tossed her hair. “I don’t give a damn if you do or you don’t. I’m just telling you what she said. What you do with it is up to you.”

She walked down the hallway and disappeared around a corner just as the bell rang. Peter was going to be late now; he hated being late, because then you could feel everyone’s eyes on you when you walked into class, like a thousand crows pecking at your skin.