I had forgotten my bike? Where was my brain?

“I guess so.” I felt a little like my head wasn’t fully attached to my shoulders. “We should go. If you want.”

He gave me a long look, his brow knit. “Okay.” He came around and opened my door. That Nessa Celtic girl was singing, her voice beautiful as an angel’s. And grating. On my worn nerves.

I flipped the stereo off. My head was still killing me, and I saw little explosive points of bright light whenever I closed my eyes. I knew that was probably not a good thing.

“What the hell’s up, Bren?” Saxon snapped as he peeled out of my driveway.

“I just don’t want to face today.” I realized that Saxon had no idea how close Jake and I were for hours on end at Tech. Saxon had no concept how awkward this would be, and I had no will to explain it all.

“Relax,” he said, and that was his big comforting speech. “And turn the music back on. If I’m going to listen to a girl bitch, I’d like it to at least be in Gaelic.” His voice was irritated.

I wished I’d insisted on riding in. Nothing would have made me feel better than a few miles of hard riding, but we were already far enough there, and I wasn’t up for an argument with Saxon. Before I knew it, we were in the Frankford parking lot and the haunting Gaelic singing stopped when he switched off the engine.

I got out and went around to the trunk.

“What do you need?” He followed, close on my heels.

“My bike.” Jake had been picking me up for lunch at Tech, but he wouldn’t be now. I needed to ride there again.

“You’re not riding to Tech. It’s freezing.” Saxon grabbed my wrist and held on tight.

“Actually, I am, but thanks for thinking you can tell me what to do,” I snapped and wrestled my wrist free of his grip. “Pop the trunk.”

“Pop it yourself,” he said nonchalantly.

Without another thought, I swung my backpack around, fully intending to smash a dent in Saxon’s trunk, even if I couldn’t open it.

Before my backpack could make contact, he grabbed my arm and my bag swung down and smacked my hip.

“Ow,” I whined.

“Jesus, you’re lucky you’re so damn hot,” Saxon growled. He popped the trunk, and I got my bike out, glaring at him a little.

We walked to the nearest bike rack, and I locked it on, then we walked into school together. I had English first. We were still working on Ethan Frome.Great. Always nice to have an uplifting read; nothing like a doomed Puritan winter love triangle to lift my spirits.

I took my coat off and put it in my locker.

“Great shirt.” Saxon touched a finger between my breasts. I stared him down.

“I made it,” I bit out shortly.

“Obviously. It’s brilliant and ironic. Blixen all over.”

I couldn’t coax a smile, even though he completely deserved one for that.

“I’m done.”He held his hands up and shook his head as he walked backwards down the hall. “Maybe your bitchy mood will have evaporated a little by Government. God, I hope so.”

I watched as he walked away, his one rolled up notebook jutting under his arm. I felt bad for being so weirdly cold to him, but I felt worse for myself. I slumped into English and sat in my usual seat behind Devon Conner, my newest friend at Frankford.

“Hey,” he said carefully.

I smiled a little. “Hey yourself.”

“Your hair looks different.” He pointed and made a circle with his finger. “Curly.”

“You should never just make an observation like that.” My head pounded and it felt like Devon’s face was blurry in front of my eyes. “You should compliment or say nothing.”

“Your hair is pretty,” Devon amended, not a hint of flirtation in his voice. “Did you finish Frome?”

“It’s a novella, Devon. Please don’t tell me you didn’t read it.” I sighed. Devon was brilliant, but chronically lazy. He was always behind in his reading and, annoyingly, he was always freaking out because of it.

“I did. I just really hated it.” He held the book up and stared at it doubtfully. “I mean, it’s normal that I hated it, right? Can anyone like that book?”

“I liked it.” My voice was sullen. “It’s realistic.”

“What? Attempted suicide on a sled? Come on, Brenna. That’s just crazy!”

“No, not the sledding stuff. Although that was probably ordinary back in the day in New England. What else are they supposed to do but be depressed and sled to death?”

Devon looked at me critically. “You also said the love story in Pride and Prejudicewas realistic,” he griped.

I shrugged. Devon got nervous. He had been an outcast since middle school, socially retarded by Saxon’s heartless bullying when they were young. It was easy to make him feel like he had done something socially stupid and get him all antsy. My bad mood was driving him that way.

“Sorry, Devon.” I patted his shoulder. “I had a crazy break.”

“Did something happen?” He looked much more nervous than interested.

“I went to Paris.” I rubbed my temples and spoke through the crush of a headache so intense it felt like my brain was in a vice. “And I wound up messing things up with Jake. And I kind of got involved with Saxon.”

Now Devon shrugged. “Well, that was probably inevitable, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Saxon has been pursuing you since the day school started. And he had all that mystery going on. He must have seemed enticing. If he got shoved in your face so often, what else were you going to do?” Devon looked at me pointedly. “You’re human, after all. And he’s Saxon.” He said it like the name ‘Saxon’ was synonymous with some intense, undeniable deity.

I was positive that he was saying it to be helpful, but it made me sound like a two-timing wandering-eyed slut. My eyes filled with tears.

“Are you crying?” he asked, with none of the panic or sympathy most guys would have shown. He looked confused.

“Yes, Devon!” I sniffled and wiped under my eyes before my makeup ran down my face. “I’m human, remember? When I screw life up, I feel this emotion. It’s called ‘sadness.’”

“But I don’t think you did. Mess things up, that is.” He looked thoughtful. “I just think it would have been easier for you if you’d been with Saxon first.”

“Why?” I wailed.

“Because then you would have gotten him out of your system. But now you put Jake aside. Which was probably not a good thing.” He blinked hard.

“Maybe you’re right.” I contemplated his idea.

“But maybe not.” He flipped the pages of his book distractedly. “If you were with Saxon first, you would have been burned. I mean, you most likely will get burned. Then you’ll be able to judge the two of them from a much better perspective. Like a much higher perspective, I mean.”

“I don’t get it.” My brain wasn’t working on its normal level, and piecing Devon’s logic together was taxing it beyond its limited capacity.

“Well, if you had the worst boyfriend ever first, whatever you had next would seem great. But you’ve had a great boyfriend first. So that’s good, because now you have a really high standard for other boyfriends to live up to. So that’s good,” he concluded awkwardly.

I looked at gawky, socially weird Devon Conner and felt a rush of affection. I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You should write a column.”

“About what?” He blinked quickly, which he only did if he was incredibly nervous or happy.

“Relationships.” The advice he had given me was brilliant.

He snorted. “Yeah. A social pariah would make a great relationship columnist.”

Dawes burst in, late as usual, hardly able to tear himself from the poor German teacher who was too nice to just run away from his old, pervy advances.

He squinted at us unhappily. “So, let’s start with a pop quiz.” He narrowed his eyes further. “Twenty questions on Frome.”

We groaned, because that was expected, but I was glad to have something else to focus on. Granted, Devon’s words were totally accurate and great, but they also brought up a lot of problems.