“She’s a freak.” Krista lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows and batted her mascara-caked lashes for emphasis. “I talked to her, like, one time and she bit my head off. Bitch much?”

“Whatever she did to Jake, I hope she rots for it.” Nikki gave the mirror a glare so gorgeously malicious, I was positive she could see me through the stall door and was just waiting for me to come out so she could rip out chunks of my hair and tear the earrings out of my lobes. The hair on my neck stood up, but the look left her face when she popped her lips and checked her cell phone. “C’mon, K, we need to get back to lunch so I can see Jake before class.”

I didn’t breathe until the door shut again, and then the breath rode on the back of a sob. I could pretend that Nikki was an evil bitch all I wanted, but I’d be dead wrong. When I crept out of the stall and looked at myself in the mirror, it was impossible for me to meet my own eyes in my reflection. Nikki slid in where she saw an opportunity. That opportunity would have never existed if I hadn’t been such a life-wrecker.

The bell rang, and I ducked back into the stall to wipe my eyes off in peace while the bathroom clogged with more girls applying cosmetics, elbowing for mirror room, and chatting at ear-splitting decibels about school, life, love.

By the time I’d waited for the last girl to clear out, I was a minute or two late to class, but Mr. Giles waved me to my seat with an understanding nod when I murmured something vague about my time of the month.

I sat across from Jake and kept my eyes glued on my paper. He did, too. When the bell rang I packed up slowly and he rushed into the hall, away from me. It was our new pattern. I exited the classroom and tried hard to ignore Nikki’s giggles and squeals, knowing she got louder when I was around in an attempt to lay total claim to her territory.

“She should just piss on his leg,” I muttered under my breath to myself. Unlike at Frankford, I didn’t have many friends other than Jake at VoTech, and it made my walk through the halls long and lonely.

During our last period Matt, the big guy I’d borrowed many things from solely to drive Jake crazy, turned to me and said, “Hey, I bet you’re going to the Folly concert tonight at The Grange, right? Don’t you design all their shirts?”

Jake looked up at us and glowered.

“I do make their shirts. And yeah, I am. Going. Are you?”

“Sure am.” He leaned his chair back and almost tipped it. He flushed when he let all four legs drop, and Jake smiled meanly.

I glared at Jake. “I think it will be really fun. So I guess I’ll see you there?”

“Brenna!” Our teacher, Ms. Flynn, waved me to the front of the room.

The boys looked down sheepishly as I went up to the teacher’s desk, ready for a lecture about keeping on task.

“I love this design,” she said, pointing to my project specs on her desk, not even mentioning my chattiness. “Your project is amazing, but the shading is off. I’d like to enter this in the county wide Young Business Leaders Design Competition. Jake Kelly seems to have the best handle on the program. Have him take a look and show you how to clean up the shading. And can you ask Matt to come up and bring his portfolio? Thank you.”

Before I could protest or make up some stupid excuse, she was looking back at her grade book intently. I went back to my seat and delivered my message to Matt. He left, and I cleared my throat.

“Um, so, Ms. Flynn said my shading is off on my project.”

Jake stared at me, his mouth a hard line. “Okay?”

This was so completely wrong. This whole scenario was all wrong.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard to keep from breaking down like a huge toddler. “She said you get the program. She wanted me to ask you to help me.”

“Oh.” Jake put both hands behind his neck and took a long breath in, then released it in a whoosh. “Of course. Um, pull your chair over.”

I pulled it over, very careful to avoid his chair, his portfolio, his leg, his arm, him.

Jake opened the program, and I was still functioning on high alert. But, weird as we were together, I loved my work in class, and soon I couldn’t worry about not bumping his arm or touching his hand, because I had needed his help on this project for a week, but hadn’t had the guts to ask him. Now that he was explaining it, I was excited to make everything that had to do with my design better. If the entire world was screwed up and it was all my fault, the least I could do was rock my project and work out every single kink on paper.

By the time he’d run me through it three times, I felt like I could do it better, and I nudged him out of the way and applied all he taught me with some variations.

“Perfect.” He turned his head to me, and the smile on his face was the sun stippling through the trees in the summer, your favorite song blaring on the radio with the windows down, the warm crush of someone you love holding you in his arms…perfect.

And then it disappeared and the temporary reprieve from all the insanity was over. The memories of all that had happened in the last few weeks bulldozed over us, and Jake’s relaxed posture stiffened visibly.

“Thanks. For your help.” The period was almost over, so I closed out of the program, once again careful not to touch him at all.

“So, you’re going to the Folly concert tonight?” He arranged his books in an overly neat stack.

“Yeah. Are you going?” I had to lean across him a little to switch off the monitor, and I could smell the cold, crisp smell that always reminded me of leaves falling off the trees in autumn. How does someone smell like a season?

“I planned on stopping in after work.” His gray eyes cut over to me. “I guess you’ll be getting a ride from Saxon?”

“I guess you’ll be giving a ride to Nikki?” I shot back.

“Nik drives herself.” His voice was hollow.

Of all the crazy things I’d seen and heard and thought, for some reason that one cut me deep, just this idea of him with an independent, older girl. The idea of him with someone who could do things I couldn’t, driving being the least of it. It made no sense, I had no right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it.

I took a big, shuddery breath, tears so close I could taste them in the back of my nose and throat. Jake’s eyes went from cold-shale-in-the-winter gray to oldest-softest-Henley gray, and, just when I was sure I’d ooze into a liquid puddle of sadness on the floor, the bell I’d waited for all day screamed like a miracle.

This time I broke pattern; I grabbed my things and ran, promising myself the longest, gulpingest, most horrifically sobful cryfest as soon as I got home and stepped into the shower. I just had to hold it together for a half an hour, tops. No problem.

I was already down the long hallway and could see the dim winter light through the dirty window squares in the metal door that I was inches away from exploding through, when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Brenna?”

The brakes locked and squealed on all the thoughts rushing through my head, and only one thing propelled full force through the windshield of my sanity.

Jake Kelly.

I held my eyebrows high on my forehead and puckered my mouth as small as I could to keep the tears at bay.

“You left your sketchbook.” He backed up and held out my black book, his arms stretched to maintain maximum distance between our bodies.

I held my arms out and grabbed the book on two corners so that not even one finger from one of our hands would brush into one finger of the other’s hand.

“I’m sorry…” he said.

“Thank you,” I said at the same time, then we both tangled and clumsily bumped words for another minute until he finally said, “Be quiet, Bren.”

I clapped my jaw shut.

“You ripped me up.” There was no malice or accusation in his words, and that made it feel like I had swallowed a bear trap. It was just us in the hall with his words stacked between us, naked strong. “I’m probably still not really over you and everything that happened. But I’ve been doing things, saying things that I hoped would hurt you, and that’s dick. That’s a sad-sack excuse for the way I acted, though. You’ll always be someone I care about and admire. So, I’m sorry. If I hurt you, if I made you upset, I’m honestly sorry, Brenna.”