used to pillow-kiss when I first knew there was such a thing as kissing and that pillows were for practicing said art.
“Weren’t you psyched?” he presses.
“I guess, yeah.” I sling my backpack over my shoulder, painfully aware that the cool girls carry tiny purses and far fewer books … but they aren’t trying to get a classics scholarship to Columbia. I push aside a lock of my hair with my free hand, a little resentful that my breath is tight and my palms are damp and I didn’t have the foresight to put on some makeup, like Molly.
“You don’t seem very happy,” he says, his casual hand on my shoulder burning through my jean jacket.
“Well, I …” I dig for something other than You leave me speechless. “I kind of wrecked my car last night.”
“Seriously? That blows.”
“No kidding.”
“Congrats, Kenzie!” A girl whose name I don’t know holds up her hand for a high five as she passes.
“Thanks,” I say, brushing her hand. Is this what today is going to be like? Is this the power of the list?
“You going to the game tonight?” Josh asks as we approach a set of wide, trapezoid-shaped steps. Right now, my legs are so wobbly I’m not sure I can navigate what we call the crooked steps.
“The football game?”
He laughs softly. “No,” he says, layering on the sarcasm. “Girls’ volleyball.”
“No, I …” I shake my head. I don’t want to insult him because I know he’s on varsity, but I haven’t been to a high school football game … since Conner played and I was still in middle school. “Maybe,” I say, hedging bets left and right.
“Kylie and Amanda are throwing a list party afterward. You want to go with me?”
Holy, holy—
“Hey, Collier!” Another kid in a football jersey jogs over to us, giving me a tipped chin in greeting. “ ’Sup, Kenzie.”
Tyler Griffith wouldn’t have acknowledged me yesterday, let alone said my name.
“Dude, you’re killin’ my game here,” Josh jokes, with a pointed look at me.
“I’m saving you from being benched is what I’m doing,” Tyler says. “Coach wants us in the weight room for first period.”
Josh mumbles a soft curse, then puts a hand back on my shoulder, turning me away from his friend. “So, see you tonight?”
The list might be incredibly tacky and dumb, but a date with Josh Collier is … rare. Hell, a date is rare.
“Maybe, if I can.”
“I’ll text you.” He leans closer and puts his mouth near my ear. “Fifth.”
CHAPTER III
I don’t get it. Indefinite integrals and Riemann sums make zero sense no matter how furiously I take notes in Calculus. Actually, not that furiously because I’m still getting texts—did my phone number get published on someone’s Facebook page? Every message that’s from an unrecognized phone number gives me a little flutter, but each text is more congratulatory and friendly than the last.
Molly’s right about the royalty factor. It’s crazy and weird and, okay, not completely horrible.
Under my desk, I skim through a few more texts.
Three people text to tell me the girls who got ninth and tenth were calling the voting fixed. And apparently Austin Freeholder is so pissed off his twin sister, Alexia, isn’t on the list that he’s demanding a recount.
“Is it, Kenzie?”
I look up at the sound of my name, a quick squeeze of dread when I see Mr. Zeller lift his reading glasses to get a better look at me. Is what … what?
He angles his head at my blank expression. “Is it a horizontal asymptote in that case?”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “Can I get a hall pass, Mr. Zeller?”
He lets out a typical Zeller sigh of disgust, but he likes me and isn’t going to be a jerk about letting me off the hook.
“Hurry up so you don’t miss the homework assignment.” He tears a yellow slip from the pad and I take it, mumbling thanks as I rush into the silent hall dying for a gulp of solitude.
I’m suddenly hit hard with a memory of what it was like to be on the radar. After my brother died, almost two years ago, people stared at me. Not with envy, but with pity. And, of course, sadness, because I reminded them that one of Vienna High’s brightest lights had been snuffed out in a freak accident. But I’d been a freshman, swamped by grief and overwhelmed by high school. I actually don’t remember much of my freshman year. By the time I became a sophomore, no one