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  "Whoa, someone's got a chip on their shoulder," 'Rad' Boy's companion chortled. I rolled my eyes. "Do you suppose it's PMS or something equally gross?"

  Spinning on my heel, I jabbed a finger in his face – it was a tad easier since he wasn’t quite as tall and skinny as ‘Rad’ Boy. "Just because a girl is in a bad mood doesn't necessarily mean she's on her period, got it skater boy?"

  He held up his hands and backed away. "Gotcha."

  "Listen," 'Rad' Boy said, stepping between me and his companion. "We're just trying to make nice with you - you know, like friends."

  "I don't need any friends," I grumbled, narrowing my eyes. "Not at all."

  "So you say now," he said, seriousness flickering through his eyes. He was kind of cute in that skater-boy-screw-society way with shoulder length dirty blond hair and captivating green eyes. Even though he was tall and lanky he had a slight build, unlike his companion who was a head shorter and a little meatier. "We like Franki - she's cool and since you're related we like you, too, even if you are rude. I'm Damon and he's Shane. If you need something, give us a holler." Giving me a final salute, he strolled casually down the hall.

  I watched them, a little perplexed, and fought a smile while the anger-demon fumed at not being able to control the situation. I shrugged, nearly knocking him loose, and began searching for my first hour classroom.

  Many heads turned as I approached the teacher's desk, Mr. Herman Mayer, and introduced myself. He was an older man with a receding hairline and a friendly enough smile. I stood stoically as he explained where we were in the book and that I would be excused from the quiz at the end of the week. I nodded, took the textbook, and sat at the desk he'd indicated near the back of the room.

  Although I had only attended one high school prior to Dunewood, I had once been a typical teenager and met quite a few people online so I was very much aware how high schools were similar - especially in the clique department. Of course, there weren't many representatives of the various cliques in my Calculus class since it was a little more difficult, but I was certain that by the time lunch rolled around, I'd have them all pegged. It was a very small town and an even smaller school.

  I jotted a few notes, browsed the textbook, and watched two girls pass notes back and forth as if they didn’t have cell phones or the capability to text. Maybe they were old fashioned. I crossed my fingers that they’d get caught.

  When the bell rang, I hurried off to my next class and pretty much endured the same thing. I didn’t pay much attention to the people sharing my classes, nor did I notice if they were in any of my previous ones. I was far too busy doing the best I could to fade into the background. Tough task in a small school when you’re the new person.

  Lunch did perk me up a little, however. I was hungry, for one, but I was also sort of anxious to figure out the caste system – even if I wasn’t particularly eager to join society.

  Selecting a few items from the lunch buffet, I carried my tray to a dark corner and plopped down at an empty table. I opened my bottle of juice, nibbled on a French fry, and watched the ensuing show.

  I was expecting High School Musical without the cheesy soundtrack, but I was sadly disappointed. Sure, people congregated in little groups but it didn’t look as though there was a particular ‘in crowd’.

  I ducked over my tray with a shrug, concentrating only on finishing my food and finishing the day.

  “Rude Girl,” Damon, the ‘rad’ boy, said as he dropped his tray on the table right across from me. “You have the whole school buzzing about you. They’re saying you’re rude and unfriendly.”

  “Dude, he’s right,” Shane, Damon’s buddy, agreed as he parked next to Damon. “It’s scandalous.”

  “It’s kind of hilarious, too,” Damon said with a slow smile. He offered me a pickle spear. “Here – the token olive branch of peace. Or truce, whatever.”

  His easy-going, laid-back smile sort of reminded me of Jared, my big brother, and I had a hard time resisting. I grabbed the pickle and took a large bite. “Thanks. Guess I am being sort of rude, huh?”

  “That’s all right – they’re jealous of you anyway,” said a short girl with a black beanie crammed over her light brown hair. “The fake girls think you’re prettier than they are and they can’t stand it.”

  I jumped and gawked at the girl as she dropped to the seat next to me. I lifted a brow as I appraised her. She wore baggy jeans, a t-shirt with some sort of intricate design, and no makeup whatsoever. She was cute in a tomboy sort of way. “And you are?”

  “That’s Reg,” Damon said, shaking a French fry at the other girl. “She hangs with us.”

  “Reg?” I asked.

  “Regina,” the girl said as she crammed her hamburger in her face. “I hate it. I mean, who the hell names their kid Regina these days? I prefer Reg.”

  “I don’t blame you, I guess,” I said as I pushed my tray away. I drained my juice, not really sure what to say. I knew Aunt Franki wanted me to make friends but I just didn’t want people prodding into my life. Friends wanted to know everything about you and when they found out your deepest secrets or horrendous heartbreaks, they either smothered you with sympathy or ran for the hills.

  “So, Gina and her friends are a little threatened by you,” Reg continued, absolutely beside herself. “I heard them talking about it in the bathroom. They think you’re pretty and are afraid the guys will think you’re prettier than they are.”

  I set my juice bottle carefully on the table so I could roll my eyes properly. I picked at the label glued to the glass and ignored Reg’s comment. Sure, once upon a time, I’d had my fair share of male admiration. Of course, back then, I'd dressed carefully every morning and worked on my hair endlessly. Now, though, I grabbed a pair of jeans and whatever shirt was clean before throwing my hair in a ponytail.

  Shane grunted. “She is,” he said. His eyes grew as his cheeks pinked.

  Damon shot Reg an amused look and the two of them shared a chuckle. I pretended as if nothing happened.

  “What do you have after lunch?” Damon asked, once he rid the chuckles from his system.

  “Creative Writing,” I muttered as I managed to liberate a corner of the label off the glass and tore a thin strip. “Then a free period.”

  “She must take all the smart classes,” Reg grumbled as she mashed the rest of her burger before shoving it in her face.

  “Not really,” I said. Eager to remove attention from me, I nodded at a group of girls laughing at a table in the middle of the cafeteria. “Who are they?”

  “Gina, Grace, Dayna, and Shannon,” Reg said. “They’re the ones that are afraid you might become some sort of beauty queen of the school.”

  “How pathetic,” I said as I watched one of the blondes apply a liberal amount of gloss to her lips. My mouth fell into a frown. Just a year ago I had been exactly like that – center of attention, lip gloss wearing, giggly and flirty. I had had a group of pretty friends who dated handsome jocks. Idiotic, really. “Like I give a crap what people think.”

  Laughing, Reg pounded a fist on the table, attracting the attention of people in the vicinity. “Love this girl!”

  I suppressed a smile and ducked my head, not wanting all eyes on me. It wasn’t my intention to become some sort of freak show nor was it my intention to gain unwanted popularity.

  I lifted my eyes and gazed at the pretty girls from between my lashes and watched as Curly-Haired Dude and his friend paused at Gina’s table, muttering something that made the girls giggle and bat their eyes.

  Curly-Haired Dude was cute, I had to admit, but Gina and her friends had nothing to fear if they thought I’d steal his attention. I didn’t want it, pure and simple.

  Damon glanced at the other table as a wry smile touched his lips. “That’s Ian Finley – everyone calls him Fin – and Grant Cooper. They’re on the hockey team.”

  My brows crunched together as I faced him fully. “This tiny school has a hockey team?”

  “No
,” Shane laughed. “The town does, though. There are two divisions – seventeen to twenty –one and then twenty-two and over. It’s quite popular, really.”

  I nodded, my interest waning. I glanced at the clock and jumped from my seat. I realized lunch would soon be ending and I wanted to run to my locker. “Um, guess I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Sure,” Damon said as he continued to linger over the scraps of his lunch.

  I hurried out of the cafeteria, totally aware of the eyes following my movements, and found my locker. I checked my schedule for the classroom number, found it on the map, and crammed everything in the front pocket of my backpack. The lunch crowd was filtering out of the cafeteria and I was desperate to get to my class before I was engulfed in the horde of students and forced to greet someone.

  Mr. Ellis, the rather rotund Creative Writing teacher, looked up from his desk to smile softly as I crept into the room. He stood and offered me a beefy hand which I shook with only the slightest trepidation.

  “You must be Rena,” he said. “I have a book and a journal for you, but you’ll need to purchase a thesaurus.”

  “Okay,” I said as I took the materials, shifting my backpack strap up my shoulder. “Where should I sit?”

  He gave me a wink that didn’t creep me out – much. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a corner. “Last seat in the joint. Maybe we’ll redo the seating chart or something…”

  “It’s fine,” I said as I practically ran to the desk. I hung my backpack on the back of my chair and perused the textbook as the other students wandered inside. I didn’t bother looking at them as I didn’t really care who was in the class, but my shoulders suddenly stiffened when I felt a presence at the desk next to mine.

  “Well, well, well,” came a lazy voice. “It’s the rude new girl.”

  “Shove off,” I said, proving his point.

  He chuckled and I caught a glimpse of his long legs stretching out beneath his desk. “Sorry, sweetheart, but this is my seat. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Oh, joy,” I muttered, eyes firmly set on the pages of my book. I didn’t need to look up to know exactly who it was – the curly-haired jock that had been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of my utter rudeness this morning. Bully for him.

  “Why the harsh attitude? I saw you conversing with the skaters at lunch just as polite as can be,” he said.

  “How do you know I was being polite?” I asked, finally looking at him. He was stunning, to say the least, with green eyes – a darker shade than Damon’s – and dark curly hair. A slight prickling of stubble was present on his strong jawline that only added to his outward charm.

  He shrugged. “It didn’t look to me like you told them to shove off.”

  Sighing, I tore my gaze from his handsome face and dropped it on my book. “They know my aunt – I didn’t want to embarrass her.”

  “So, if I know your aunt, you’ll be nice to me?” he asked.

  I snorted. “Not particularly.”

  “Hmph,” he said, folding his arms on top of his desk as the final bell rang. “You sure are a hard one to crack.”

  “So stop trying,” I said as I focused my gaze on Mr. Ellis and studiously ignored the boy next to me. Fin – was that his name? I didn’t remember nor did I want to be reminded.

  Mr. Ellis called the class to order and began gently chastising his students for the poor quality of the essays they’d turned in before the holiday break. He roamed the room, handing back the papers, while lecturing on the importance of expressing feelings instead of stating them.

  I listened with half an ear as I hadn’t done the assignment, but straightened as the class wound down and Mr. Ellis announced that we’d be working in groups if the quality of work didn’t improve.

  Fin, or whatever his name was, smiled smugly as he gathered his things. I crammed my books in my backpack and nearly fled his smarmy attitude but he followed, much to my dismay.

  “Hang on,” he said, snatching hold of my arm. I stopped and inhaled slowly and deeply, clenching the anger-demon’s lease. “I’m just trying to be friendly, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t need any friends, thanks anyway.” I wrenched my arm free and melted into the student traffic, leaving Fin to gape at me stupidly.

  I arrived in my Free Period/Study Hall early enough to introduce myself to the monitor and be assigned a seat. I quickly slid in a desk and opened my Calculus book, eager to finish the assigned problems so I wouldn’t have to worry about them later.

  Giggling interrupted my train of thought and I didn’t have to look up to figure out who was drifting into the classroom. I'd spent enough of my high school years acting the same way to know it was the pretty girls from lunch.

  Their hardly veiled whispers reached my ears and I made out words like “new girl” and “snob”. I rolled my eyes as I furiously scrubbed a wrong answer off my paper, blew the crumbs away, and started again.

  A shadow fell over my desk and it took all I had to hold back the anger-demon as I stiffened.

  “You’re Rena, right?” the lilting voice asked.

  “That would be me,” I responded, copying the next problem to my paper.

  “I’m Gina Moore and this is my friend Dayna Bennett. Would you like to sit with us? We can fill you in on what goes on in this school,” she offered in a saccharine sweet tone.

  “No thanks,” I said, finally lifting my eyes to her face. She was pretty with big blue eyes and dainty features. Her blonde hair sparkled in the fluorescent lights and I wondered why she would think guys would prefer me over her. “I really need to get these problems done.”

  The skin around her lips tightened as her eyes narrowed slightly. Still, she managed to maintain a friendly demeanor as her friend gawked at me as if I’d told the President that nah, I’d pass on dinner at the White House.

  “I see,” she said. “Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be sitting over there.”

  I nodded and ducked my head over my book again as she moved to a distant table. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and caught her shooting dark looks my way.

  So what? I thought. She’s just a self-centered little girl swimming in a sea of conceit among her peers who probably think they’re better than everyone else. Shallow, selfish people – just as I once was.

  I did the best I could to ignore them while I finished my Calculus homework and started conjugating verbs for Spanish. When the bell rang, I gathered my books thankful that it was the last class of the day.

  By the time I reached my locker, I was more than ready to flee that building and return to Aunt Franki’s quiet little house. I was tired of the mumbling and curious looks around me.

  I bundled up and trudged through the slush to my car, avoiding snowballs and screaming freshman. Just as I unlocked the door, a voice sounded near my ear.

  “See you tomorrow, Rena.”

  I clenched my fists so I wouldn’t be tempted to swat him like a pesky fly. I jerked the door open instead and tossed my backpack on the passenger seat. I turned slightly to face the curly-haired hockey player and glared.

  “Bite me.”

  I flashed him a sarcastic smile, hopped in my car, and darted into the line of traffic moving toward the exit.

  Chapter Three

  My newly emerging routine varied little over the next few days except that I had managed to obtain a cashier position in a tiny convenience store. That job wouldn’t start until the following Monday and I’d only get about twenty hours a week, but it was enough to put gas in my car and pay my insurance. I had little need for money other than that.

  I managed to alienate over half of the student body by Thursday – which was fine with me – except for the weird, little band of skaters that insisted on sitting with me every day at lunch. I didn’t talk much, just listened to them ramble about snowboarding and how eager they were for spring to try out a new skate park in a neighboring town.

  I wasn’t sure if they were my friends
, per se, but I did appreciate the fact that they were gracious enough to let me sit stonily, pondering my own thoughts, while they railed about certain students, nasty teachers, and rad snowboards.

  I hadn’t realized how damaging to egos my self-isolation was until Thursday at lunch. Damon and Shane were excitedly discussing a snowboarding session they had planned for that evening and invited me along.

  “Sorry, I have a prior engagement,” I said just as Gina, Dayna, and Shannon strolled by our table. Gina snorted in disbelief, loud enough for me to raise a brow at her. “Problem?”

  “Yeah,” Gina said as she studied her candy apple red nails. “What sort of engagement would you have? No one likes you except these guys and no one can figure out why. That is, unless you’re sleeping with them or something.”

  My anger-demon strained at the end of his leash and I was oh so tempted to cut him loose mindless of any irreparable damage.

  Damon laughed, his green eyes shining. “Rena ain’t sleeping with either of us. We like her because she’s real – not fake like you.”

  I deliberately pushed my tray away as I rose to face her, standing between her and Damon. Folding my arms, I gave her a very sarcastic smile. “Listen to me, princess – I know how people like you work so don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you. I didn’t come here to steal your glory or your boyfriends or your friends. I’m just here to finish school, that’s all. So mosey along now and drop the indignant act – nobody is buying into it.”

  A small smile cracked her stony façade as she leaned closer. For one horrifying second, I was afraid she was going to press her glossy lips to mine. Instead, she belted out a dire warning: “Watch yourself, new girl.” She spun on her heel and left.

  “You should have punched her,” Reg said as she walked over, munching on an apple. “I’d love to do it for you but if I get suspended again, my parents will freak.”

  I shook my head slowly as I watched Gina saunter over to her usual table where my Creative Writing desk neighbor, Fin the Hockey Freak sat, smirking in my direction. He shot me a wink and I ignored the wiggle in my heart as I sat back down, not responding. But I was aware of his eyes constantly boring into the top of my bowed head for the rest of the lunch period.