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ISBN: 978-1-101-63131-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
I snag my thumb on the lunch tray’s metal edge, and a crescent of blood appears beneath my cuticle. It oozes into the cracks surrounding my nail, then spills over to one side, forming a perfect red droplet, almost like a tear.
I swear under my breath. The cut stings, but at least I didn’t smear blood across my T-shirt. Nothing says “be my friend” like serial-killer stains on the first day of school. A stack of napkins sits next to the bin of plastic silverware, but the guy in the food line in front of me is blocking it.
“Excuse me,” I say, and the guy turns around. He’s good-looking in that athletic, future-frat-boy way where he doesn’t really have to try. His brown hair sticks up all over, and he wears a loose, wrinkled shirt, as if he’s just rolled out of bed.
Years of being the new girl have helped me perfect my shy half smile. It’s as close as I ever come to flirting. I motion to my bleeding finger. “Can you hand me a napkin?”
“Ouch,” the guy says, grabbing a few napkins from the stack. His smile beats mine by a few watts, and I blush.
“Hey, do you need a Band-Aid?” asks a girl behind me, and I turn. She has platinum-blond hair cut short, like a boy’s. Oversize black glasses without any lenses sit on her nose, and she wears a neon-pink tank top stretched so thin I can see her black bra through the material. A man’s golden ring dangles from a chain around her neck.
“Yeah, thanks,” I say. Next to her, my standard first-day uniform of a gray T-shirt and dark jeans looks comically plain. A few schools ago, I tried layering rubber bracelets around my wrists and coloring on my Converse sneakers with Sharpies, but today my wrists are bare, my sneakers brand-new. It’s time for a change.
“Hey, Brooklyn, what’s up?” The boy nods at her. They don’t seem like the kind of people who’d be friends, but his tone is nice enough. Brooklyn slides her tattered backpack off one shoulder and reaches into the front pocket.
“Hiya, Charlie,” she says to him. “Your brother miss me yet?”
The name Charlie fits the cute, athletic guy, and it makes me like him more than if his name were Zack or Chad. A Charlie helps you find your algebra class when you can’t figure out your new class schedule. Chad burps the alphabet.
Charlie runs a hand through his hair, leaving it even messier than before. “Miss isn’t the word I’d use. . . .”
“Ex-boyfriend?” I interrupt to keep from being left out of the conversation. Asking a million questions is New Girl 101. People love talking about themselves. Brooklyn pulls her hand out of her bag and hands me a clear bandage decorated with a tiny picture of a mustache.
“Ex-boss,” she says. “But he’ll be begging for me to come back any day now. Hey, cool tat.”
She points to the crook of my hand, where I sketched a serpent wearing a headdress made of feathers. It’s called Quetzalcoatl. When I was little and my mom and I still visited the tiny town where she grew up in Mexico, my grandmother told stories about Quetzalcoatl. Grandmother’s too sick to tell the stories anymore, but I sketch the serpent in my journal sometimes. And on my hand, apparently.
“It’s not a real tattoo,” I admit, rubbing at the drawing with the palm of my other hand. I’ll have to wash it off before my mom sees it. She’s never liked Grandmother’s religious stories. My mom got her US citizenship five years ago, and she says Grandmother’s spooky Mexican folktales remind her of all the reasons she’d wanted to move away. “Just Sharpie.”
“Oh.” Brooklyn sounds disappointed, but Charlie raises an eyebrow and nods in approval.
“You drew that? Nice,” he says.
Before I can respond, a dark-haired girl stops in the middle of the cafeteria and clears her throat. The talking, laughing students around us fall silent, as if they’ve been placed under a spell.
“Can I have your attention, everyone?” she asks, even though everyone’s already looking at her. A group of six or seven people crowd behind her, all holding bags and cardboard boxes.
“Jesus.” Brooklyn grimaces, pushing her fake glasses up her nose. Her tone is completely different than it was a second ago, when she offered me the Band-Aid. “Is it time for this shit again?”
“I’m Riley, as most of you know,” the dark-haired girl continues in a clear, peppy voice. “And it’s time for the annual school food drive for the St. Michael’s Soup Kitchen. I hope this year you’ll all help me do God’s work and bring in food for the homeless. Last year alone, we collected over five hundred cans!”
Students around us start to clap. It takes me by surprise, and I join a beat too late. The only time kids at my last school clapped for people was when they tripped and dropped their lunch trays.
Behind me, Brooklyn makes a gagging sound.
“Come on,” Charlie mutters. He’d been clapping with the others, but he breaks off to nudge Brooklyn with his elbow. I bite back a smile. I was wrong; he doesn’t really seem like a frat boy after all.
Brooklyn makes a gun with her hand and points it at Riley’s head, narrowing her eyes.
“Pew,” she whispers, shooting an imaginary bullet. She blows smoke from the tips of her fingers.
I raise an eyebrow as I reach past her for a carton of milk. I’ve hung out with girls like her before, the girls who skip third period to smoke cloves in the bathroom and pierce their ears with safety pins. It’s always exciting for a while, but they never become real friends. I usually spend most of my time trying to prove I’m cool enough to hang with them.