My head was back to normal by Wednesday, but I almost wished it wasn't. It had given me an excuse to skip gym class and hide from large, noisy groups of people like those found in the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, while standing in line for food, shuffling forward inches at a time, there was no more hiding for me. The people around me chatted with their friends, but I remained quiet, minding my own business as I reached for a tray.

The lunch options were less than exciting as I moved down the line. In that moment, I felt that the only difference between the school and a prison was the lack of bars on the windows. The first food option was chicken nuggets that may or may not have actually been chicken. I recalled that some boys in the class did an experiment to see how high the nuggets would bounce if thrown at the floor. It was well above their heads, to say the least. The second lunch option was a sad attempt at nachos. The small circular chips were soggy from being drowned in liquid cheese. Still, it was one of the more popular selections. The final option was pizza that tasted like cardboard and had the consistency of a cooked noodle.

Grimacing, I asked for the nachos and watched as the aging, short-haired lunch lady slapped a malformed mountain of them on my tray. I quickly moved on and grabbed a small packet of apple slices and half of a tuna sandwich that would hopefully get me by until I got home. Then I grabbed a small carton of chocolate milk from the refrigerated display and waited for my turn to read off my ID number to the cashier lady at the end of the line.

In the cafeteria, which was really just the old, outdated gymnasium with picnic tables placed throughout, I looked for a place to sit. It was loud and chaotic. Every little sound was severely amplified because of the room's horrendous acoustics. All of the sound waves bouncing around the room just seemed to blend together and overlap until one sound was indistinguishable from the others. I was glad we had gym class in the newer gymnasium, because if I had to endure the sounds of pounding basketballs and squeaking shoes in this environment, I might actually be tempted to kill someone. In short, it didn't help my head in the slightest.

Most of the tables were already full. Eventually, I spied an open spot, but just as I started to make my way over to it, someone else sat down.

With no other spaces opening up, it was about the time that I'd usually find a place on the floor or go sit outside on the bleachers and eat. A shrill whistle echoed above the din, and there was Holiday Tucker, staring at me. She gestured for me to come closer. I briefly looked around to see if maybe she was looking at someone else before making my way over to her.

Holly was alone, as usual. She was quite an intimidating girl, with a nose piercing, a tattoo, bright-red hair, and a punk rock persona, but she used to be good friends with my sister—before El left this place. They were still friends, but not being together all day every day had dulled their friendship a bit. Though Holly was known to show up at our house every so often, the same rift Eleanor was creating with me because of her focus on her homework was being felt by Holiday as well. Holly hadn't made many other friends since my sister left. She purposefully came off as uninterested in and above everyone here because she hated most of our peers and didn't want to get close to them. However, I knew there was a nice person underneath that outer shell, so she didn't scare me as much as she did other people. Still, I was curious about what she wanted with me.

"Sit," she said as I stood awkwardly beside the table. I slid onto the bench across from her and set my tray down, immediately poking my nachos with a fork to test their consistency. I looked up at her again. She met my gaze. "How have you been?" she asked.

"Good," I told her.

"Good? I heard you were in the nurse's office again on Monday." She raised a single, skeptical eyebrow.

"It was nothing," I assured her. "I hit my head, that's all. It only hurt for a little while. I feel fine now."

She didn't seem all that convinced, but thankfully moved on to another topic of conversation rather than prodding further. "How's El?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. She likes to lock herself away in her room to study all the time. I suspect you've probably had more contact with her than I have recently."

"She can be like that sometimes." She turned her eyes to the laptop open beside her tray and typed in a few things before an outburst of loud laughter across the room drew our attention. Morgan Cook was joking around with a bunch of boys from the football team.

"You know," Holly drawled, her eyes still trained on Morgan, "I've learned some very interesting things about him recently."

"What kinds of things?" I asked, mildly curious.

"Things he would go to great lengths to keep secret," she said cryptically, tearing her eyes from him and looking at me again. "You know you're like a brother to me, right?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"I'm a Tucker. Tuckers protect their family and don't take shit from anyone. I don't like those guys or how they treat you. You say the word and I'll give them what they deserve."

Images of Holly going off on them like a rabid dog had me fighting a smile. She was fierce. She always had been, even before she'd dyed her hair and started dressing in all black.

When we were all little, Ellie and I had been pretty good kids. We didn't make trouble, we were polite, and we stayed out of things that weren't our business. Holiday on the other hand, was mischievous and got herself into all sorts of trouble. When she and El became friends, our lives were turned upside down. She taught El how to have fun, and I had been the subject of more than one of her devious plans during my childhood.

I had thought she hated me at first, but after she stood up for me on the playground when some older kids wouldn't leave me alone, I realized she didn't. She liked to torment me, yeah, but in the end, she always tried to look out for me.

She was still trying to, but this wasn't her fight. It was mine. I wasn't going to have her around forever, so I needed to deal with it on my own.

"Leave it be, Holiday," I sighed, taking a bite out of my tuna sandwich. "I can handle them."

"Whatever you say." She grabbed an apple slice off of her own tray and popped it into her mouth before turning back to her laptop.

"What are you working on?" I asked, taking a bite of a soggy, salty nacho chip and cringing.

"A computer program."

"Hacking into something?" I asked.

"There's not much else to do here. Boring classes with boring people. Only some of them are turning out to be more interesting than I thought they would be."

"Just don't get yourself arrested."

"Don't roll your eyes at me, you know I wouldn't dream of it," she said, smiling and typing away.

The clattering of a tray hitting the table was unexpected. When I looked up, Jordan was standing next to me.

"You lost?" Holly asked.

"No, just wondering if anyone was sitting here," Jordan said, a hopeful but nervous look on his face.

"It's open," I said, though I couldn't hide the confusion in my tone. Nobody ever sat with me or Holiday so why would anyone want to sit with both of us?

"Cool," he said, and slid onto the bench beside me. He appeared to feel awkward for a moment before deciding to address Holly. "I don't think I've met you yet."

"Holiday Tucker. You can call me Holly."

"Nice to meet you. Jordan."

"I know," she said, turning her gaze to her laptop again. He appeared a little unsure as to how to respond. She added, "Everyone knows. It's a small school and you're the fresh meat."

"Sorry about her," I said. "She can be a little blunt sometimes."

"It's all right."

"How do you two know each other?" she asked, looking between the both of us.

"We're lab partners," I said.

"I see," she responded. She grabbed her earbuds off the table next to her laptop and popped them in both ears. Holiday didn't like talking to new people, so I was pretty much on my own when it came to starting a conversation with Jordan.

I was never very good at that. Outside of my sister and occasionally Holiday, I couldn't remember that last time I'd talked to someone my age outside of school. I'd never been the type of kid to put myself out there. The sidelines had always held more appeal for me.

Now that I thought about it, I suppose I did have a few friends back in elementary school. However, we drifted apart significantly when I realized I was the only person putting effort into maintaining those friendships. As soon as I took a step back to see if they would initiate a conversation or invite me to join a game, the friendships dissolved entirely. I was bitter about it for a while, but at some point I accepted it for what it was and concluded that if I couldn't have a real friendship, then I didn't want one at all. I was still nice to people whenever we had to interact, but if they didn't show interest in me, then I didn't show an interest in them. Plain and simple.

That was pretty much how I'd lived my life since then. Unfortunately, being a loner made it easier for people to pick on me. Bullies didn't need much of a reason to latch onto a target, and being alone was enough. It was little stuff at first, like little jabs in passing conversation, but throughout the years it had grown into bigger things. Of course, some things I'd done contributed to it, and I knew that. Even though I wasn't close to anyone here, I didn't like seeing other people being picked on, so when I did see it, I tended to do things to attract the bully's attention toward me and away from the other kid. It made me a bit of a magnet, but to me, that was better than watching other people get hurt.

Speaking of which, Jordan was playing a dangerous game if he wanted to associate with me.

"You know, if you value your reputation at this school, you probably shouldn't make a habit of hanging out with me," I muttered, stabbing absentmindedly at my soggy nachos.

"Why's that?" Jordan asked innocently.

"I'm an outcast here. If you keep being seen with me, you'll end up one as well."

"Reputations aren't important to me," he said, shrugging. He took a bite of one of his chicken nuggets. "Besides, out of all the people I've talked to in the week or two I've been here, you're the only one who seems to be human."

"What do you mean?" I gave him a weird look.

"I'm the new kid. Everyone here is assessing me, trying to figure out whether they want to accept me into their friend groups or not. Every time I talk to someone, they put on fake smiles and overly peppy attitudes to try and convince me that I should be their friend. But I've only met one person so far I actually want to be friends with, and it's the one person who wasn't trying to befriend me."

"You want to be my friend?" I asked with uncertainty.

"I do." He smiled at me. "You're not afraid to say what's on your mind."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," I said, a faint smile tugging at the edges of my lips.

Jordan shrugged again and took a swig of chocolate milk. He swallowed then asked, "What do you like to do for fun?"

"I don't know. Cooking, reading, soccer."

He perked up at that. "You like soccer?"

"A bit."

"I used to play soccer at my last school."

"Are you planning on joining the team here?"

"Nah." He shook his head. "I went through it once before. I don't think I'll be going through it again."

"Probably a wise decision."

"Besides, it's senior year. It's probably time to try something a little different."

"Any interests?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know." He sighed, stirring up the cottage cheese on his tray. "I don't even know what's here that I could think of joining."

"Soccer, football, basketball, Chess Club, Drama Club, Book Club, Guitar Club, Comic Club, Quiz Bowl, Science Olympiad . . ." I listed off what I could by memory, counting them off on my fingers.

Jordan laughed. "And which ones are you a part of?"

"I'm not really involved in anything school related," I admitted.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to be trapped here with these people any longer than I have to be."

"That's valid." He grinned.

"What do you like to do? Apart from soccer," I asked. "I actually like science quite a lot. I used to be in

Science Olympiad."

"What events?" I asked, curious, as I had read through

a few of the event summaries during the brief period of time that I had thought about actually joining.

"Forensics, Mousetrap Vehicle, Wind Power, and Electric Vehicle, to name a few. I got first place in the first three and third in the fourth. That was my freshman year, I think."

"Cool," I said. "Where'd you go before you came here?"

"Hanover High in New Hampshire. It was a bit bigger than this school, but still small enough that you had a decent idea of who everyone was. It was pretty much on the border with Vermont."

"Why'd you leave?"

Jordan was silent for a moment. He stared down at his tray. "It was time for a change, I guess." He glanced up again. "What about you? Have you always gone here?"

"Unfortunately, ever since I was five. Thank goodness it's senior year. I don't know how much more of these people I can take. Thirteen years is enough."

"It'll be over before you know it," he said. "Any plans for college?"

"No solid ones," I said honestly. "I'm looking into culinary programs at some of the universities close by. Hopefully I'll get into one of them. Otherwise I'm considering not going to college at all, but if I decide to go that route, my parents definitely won't take it very well. What about you?"

"Engineering, hopefully. I'm thinking about chemical engineering, but I heard that's one of the toughest disciplines."

"My mom's a mechanical engineer," I said.

Holly chuckled at something on her laptop, which made Jordan and me briefly pause to look at her. When we realized it was nothing important, Jordan picked the conversation back up.

"Where'd she study?" he asked, genuinely interested.

"Michigan Technological University."

"I heard that's a good school. For engineering, especially."

"It is," I agreed. Right then, the bell rang.

"Well, see you in chemistry," Jordan said, and threw his crumpled napkin onto his nearly empty tray.

"All right," I said, doing the same. "See you then."

I stood up with my tray, briefly glancing at Holly as she closed her laptop and slipped it into her backpack. She met my gaze and smirked knowingly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

She heaved her backpack up over her shoulder and walked with me to the tray return. "Oh, nothing," she said, though the way she said it didn't make it sound like nothing.

"If you say so."

ø

"Wow, it's really coming down out there," one of my classmates, Aiden, muttered as he leaned closer to the window to watch the rain pouring down.

I didn't have to look to know—I could hear it battering against the window like full buckets were being thrown at it. It brought with it an eerie sort of feeling. The sky was dark, the wind was howling, and the rain was drenching everything in its path. My mind wandered away from the lesson and got caught up in the sounds of the storm.

"You okay?" Jordan asked softly, nudging me with his elbow.

"Yeah, why?" I whispered back.

"You haven't written anything down." He gestured to my blank notebook page with a slight nod.

I glanced at his. He had nearly a full page of notes, and from the brief glance I got, it looked like pretty important stuff. "My mind was elsewhere," I admitted. "Do you mind if I take a picture of yours?"

"Not at all." He slid his notebook closer to me.

I rummaged in my pants pocket for my smartphone, but when I finally got it out, I couldn't get it to turn on. "Damn," I muttered. "Must be dead."

"Here," Jordan said, and pulled his own phone out of his pocket. "Give me your number and I'll send it to y—"

"Mr. Hughes," Ms. Dailey said sternly. "I don't know what you've been told, but I do not allow cell phone use in my classroom. They are a distraction."

"Sorry, Ms. Dailey, I wasn't aware. It won't happen again," he said with a charming smile.

She easily forgave him, merely giving him a warning before continuing on with her lesson.

"Sorry," I said in a hushed tone. "I should've warned you that she doesn't like them."

"No harm done," he replied. "I'll just get your number later."

I nodded in agreement, finally tuning into the sound of Ms. Dailey's voice and trying to fit the rest of her words onto paper.