The Divide Page 0,6

Diana when really you're just like me?"

"No. Because I'm nothing like you."

Faye let out a deep, throaty laugh and took a step back.

She'd accomplished what she'd intended. Cassie was significantly rattled.

"Better hurry up," she said. "You don't want to be late to the assembly." She pulled a tube of lipstick from her bag and applied another slash of dark pigment to her lips.

"Want some?" She held the bloodred tube out to Cassie. "I think it's your color."

In a flash of anger Cassie thought to swat the lipstick right out of Faye's hand. But that would be giving her exactly what she wanted. She was trying to push Cassie into giving in to her lowest impulses, to be as brash and reckless as she was.

But Cassie wouldn't do it. She wouldn't give Faye that satisfaction. Instead, she turned her back on her, and when she did, she caught sight of someone she hadn't seen before. A boy. Faye noticed him, too.

Together, they watched him walk up the hallway. He was tall and muscular with light brown hair, and he must have just finished working out, because he was wearing warm-ups and sneakers. He carried a gym bag in one hand and a lacrosse stick in the other.

"That boy is gorgeous." Faye capped her lipstick and stuffed it into her purse. "You know how I love those sweaty jocks."

Cassie rolled her eyes.

Faye immediately approached the boy to stake her claim. "Are you lost?" she called out to him. "I can help you find your way."

His head shot up when he realized he was being spoken to. Cassie saw that his eyes were green like emeralds, as beautiful as Diana's.

"No, thank you," he said, in a voice both rugged and cocky. "I know where I'm heading."

"To that boring assembly?" Faye wasn't about to give up that easy. "In that case, I can help you lose your way." That got a smile out of him, but he directed it at Cassie.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Max."

"This is Faye," Cassie said, returning Max's grin. "She's glad to meet you."

Max dropped his gym bag onto the floor and shook Faye's hand in a way that made it obvious he was used to girls fawning over him.

"Cassie," Faye said, still holding Max's thick hand in hers. "Won't Adam be waiting for you at the assembly? You should probably get going."

Cassie nodded. "She's right. I should."

As Cassie turned away, she heard Max call after her,

"See you in there."

Cassie made it into the auditorium just in time for the welcoming ceremony. She was relieved to find Adam waving her over to where he was seated in the last row. The auditorium was more crowded than she had ever seen it.

Groups of students were crammed in the back and up each exit row. The humming excitement Cassie picked up on in the hallway had carried over here, where it heightened like rough water constrained by a dam. But once Mr. Humphries tapped on the microphone to quiet the crowd and make some announcements, that restless energy died down to a low-level boredom. Assemblies were always fun until the assembly part.

Cassie let her eyes roam over the crowd. She found Diana all the way up front, seated with her AP English class. Melanie and Laurel had joined Suzan, Sean, and the Henderson brothers in the center rows about midway from the stage. And Deborah and Nick were just a few rows behind them. Cassie noticed that none of them looked concerned. They appeared as bored and apathetic as the rest of the school. Was she the only one still reeling from the last assembly they had to welcome a principal? Were they all just faking it, trying to put their best faces forward?

Or was everyone really that much better at moving on than Cassie?

Sally Waltman and Portia Bainbridge were sitting in their cluster of cheerleaders. Sally's rust-colored hair stood out from the rest of her mostly blonde friends, so she was easy to spot in their crowd. She was laughing at something Portia was saying, probably making fun of someone, like she always did. The Circle had come to an uneasy truce with Portia and her brothers, but Cassie still didn't like her.

"You okay?" Adam asked when Cassie settled into her seat. "You've got that I-just-had-a-Faye-encounter look."

"I'm fine. Faye was getting up in my face, but then a hot boy walked by, and she forgot all about me."

"That's our Faye." Adam took Cassie's hand in his and squeezed it. "Who was the