Patch stood over me, and a drop of rain slid from his hair, landing like ice on my collarbone. I felt it slide along my skin, disappearing beneath the neckline of my shirt. His eyes followed the raindrop, and I began to quiver on the inside.

Dante said, “I tried talking Nora into a ride, but she keeps blowing me off.” “That’s because she has a hard-A boyfriend. He must have been homeschooled, because he missed all those valuable lessons we learned in kindergarten, like sharing. He finds out you took Nora for a ride, he’ll wrap this shiny new Porsche around the nearest tree.

It was a smile that spelled trouble. With a promise.

Have you finished your column for tomorrow's headline?" It was Vee. She came up beside me, jotting notes on the notepad she carried everywhere. "I'm thinking of writing mine on the injustice of seating charts. I got paired with a girl who said she just finished lice treatment this morning.

Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't.

I had to lull Mom and Hank into believing I was in the right frame of mind to be taken into public. If I exited my bedroom foaming at the mouth and dressed in black LOVE SUCKS tee, my plan would never get off the ground.

A feeling of violation swayed inside me, making me feel as if Id been shoved off a high platform without warning. I was falling, and I feared the sensation far more than hitting bottom. There was no end; just a constantsense of gravity having its way with me.