And now that Carey’s missing, I am back at square one.

Calculus sucks. English bites. Third-period Spanish completely blows chunks. Saturday at Bob’s was just the start of things to come. Jamie has fired everyone up into rare form.

Two collisions send my books flying and a shove pushes me into a row of lockers. I never see the culprits. They hide in the crowd. I guess I expected the boys to be awful with their macho, stand-by-our-man posturing. The girls are worse, though. Crueler.

A single seat is left open for me in my fourth-period physics class. Yeah, like that wasn’t planned. Jamie, Nikki, and Angel form a horseshoe around my desk. Jamie’s brown eyes are dark with promised retribution. She’s always wanted Carey, which means she’d like a truck to take me out while I’m crossing the street. Unlike Nikki and Angel, she is neither blond, nor beautiful, nor a cheerleader. Oh no, she’s our future valedictorian, class president, and yearbook editor. I’m fairly certain my picture won’t be appearing in the yearbook this year.

It would be so much easier to hate Jamie if she were vapid, but she’s not. Instead, she is that niggling voice in my head. The one that points out everything I’ve done wrong and all the people I’ve let down during these past few months.

I slide into the empty seat, dropping my book bag onto the floor. Mr. Brolley starts a lecture on the laws of thermodynamics. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jamie shoot Nikki a glance, one brunette brow arching as she tilts her head toward me. Here we go.

Nikki starts the game by throwing a pen at my head. Every time Mr. Brolley turns his back, Jamie or Nikki pulls my ponytail, kicks my chair, or mutters a curse under her breath. Childish, but effective. Others notice but say nothing.

I lose it.

As Jamie reaches for me again, I block her with a vicious swing of my forearm.

“Bitch!” she hisses, cradling her arm.

I smile and resume taking notes.

School should not be this hard, but at least none of them bother me for the rest of the period.

*   *   *

The bell rings.

Jamie hits me with her bag as she walks by, and I almost go after her. A hand on my shoulder stays me.

“Don’t, Q,” Angel whispers. “It’ll only make things worse.”

She’s spent the past hour watching them harass me, and she didn’t say a word. I can’t help wondering why she cares. “Since when did you become her minion, Ang?”

She shrugs. “It’s not like that. Besides, Jamie’s not so bad.”

That’s not what you used to say. I shove my books into my bag and rise. “She’s horrible. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”

Gathering her faded blond waves into an impromptu ponytail, Angel frowns. “And you cheated on Carey before he even left.”

Sudden longing fills me. I miss her. I want one friend to know I’m not guilty of that crime. To have just one person on my side. Carey can’t blame me for that, right?

I touch her arm, and she pauses. Our eyes meet, and in that instant I know Ang would keep my secret—Carey’s secret. She’d hug me and tell me she’s sorry. Lunch, weekends; I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

Angel gives me a questioning glance, and I want her friendship again so badly that my guts twist with it.

“I wish things were different,” I say instead.

She shrugs again. “Me too.”

I let her go to catch up with Jamie. I am spineless. If I tell Ang the truth, she would be punished right along with me, assuming her parents even let her hang with me—her mother is a Marine deployed in Iraq, and I’ve betrayed the code.

Jamie spares me another glare from the door, and I wonder if she got someone to deface my locker or if she did it herself.

WhoresluttrampTRAITOR.

No. I won’t drag another person down into this hell.

Chapter Six

Lunch is an awfully big adventure.

Before Carey left, we used to eat lunch in the cafeteria. When he went off to basic training, I ate with the cheer squad. Last September, though, I started brown-bagging it when I realized the cafeteria offered nothing but humiliation. The attention faded in October when Coach Jorgenson busted Mark Harrison with a nickel bag in his locker. The gossip mill chewed on him for a while. I’ve been wallpaper ever since.

But Carey going missing has put me back in the public eye.

I think longingly of going home to eat, but Principal Barkley had put the kibosh on students leaving campus for lunch after too many seniors ditched their afternoon classes. Which means everyone’s in the cafeteria. I consider hiding in the library, but Mrs. Hall, the librarian I’ve known since I was seven, shooed me out without any sympathy. Her husband served under my father.

Entering the cafeteria with its predictable smells (french fries on Mondays, pizza on Tuesdays, mystery meat on Wednesdays, and so on), I twist the chain of my necklace around my fingers and search for a seat away from the crowd. I wait a heartbeat too long.

“You have nerve, Quinn.”

Jamie blocks my path with one fist on her hip, like a model posing at the end of the runway. She takes up a lot of space for such an average girl. My body language says, Anyone have a rock I can hide under?

The room pops with confrontation. It’s obvious I’m going to pay for defending myself in class.

Jamie’s face glows with hatred and triumph. “I can’t believe you still wear that.” She gestures to the necklace tangled around my fingers. Carey’s class ring dangles from it. “I noticed you weren’t wearing it when you were screwing that other boy.”