ADDIE

I WOULD GIVE anything if it meant I didn’t have to get out of this car.

I would cut off all my hair. I would read War and Peace. Hell, I would set myself on fire if only I didn’t have to walk through the doors of Caseham High. I can’t say it enough. I don’t want to go to school.

“Here we are!” my mother says brightly. And unnecessarily, because I can clearly see we are parked right outside the school. I’m not that dumb, in spite of everything that went on last year.

She drove me to school this morning in her gray Mazda, I think because she knew if I took my bike to school like I have for the past two years, there was no chance I would have ended up at the high school. So she took the day off from her nursing job at the local hospital and is babysitting me to make sure that I show up for my first day.

I glance out the passenger side window at the red four-story brick building that has become such a big part of my life over the last two years. I rub my eyes, exhausted because I woke up at stupid o’clock this morning to get here on time. I remember how excited I was on my first day of freshman year at Caseham High. And I liked high school—I wasn’t super popular and my grades were decidedly average, but it wasn’t bad at all.

Until it was.

I spent the entire summer babysitting for my neighbors’ kids and also campaigning not to go back to school in the fall. There’s only one public high school in Caseham though, and the private schools are way out of our price range. We could have tried to go to school in another town, but it would be too far for me to take my bike, and a school bus wouldn’t pick me up. My mother explained this to me with dwindling patience every time I begged her to reconsider.

“Maybe,” I say hopefully, “I could be homeschooled?” “Addie,” she sighs, “come on.”

“You don’t understand.” I clutch my backpack to my chest but don’t make any move to unbuckle my seat belt. “Everyone is going to hate me.”

“They won’t hate you. Nobody is even going to remember.”

I let out a snort. Has my mother ever met a high school student?

“I mean it.” Mom kills the engine, even though we’re parked in a zone where you’re not supposed to leave your car, and someone is probably going to yell at us to move along any minute now. “Teenagers are only interested in themselves. Nobody is going to remember what happened last year. Nobody cares.”

She is so wrong. So totally and utterly wrong.

Sure enough, somebody honks at us. First, it’s a single honk, then a smattering of honks, then it seems like one person has sat down on their horn accidentally and isn’t getting up anytime soon.

“I can pull over somewhere else,” Mom offers helplessly as she starts the engine again.

What’s the point? If we pull over, she’s just going to give me a pep talk. I don’t need a pep talk. I need a new school. And if that’s not going to happen, this is all a whole lot of pointless.

“Never mind,” I mutter.

My mother is calling my name as I leap out of the car, but I don’t stop and turn around. My mom is useless. She says all the right stuff, but in the end, she doesn’t have to deal with this. She doesn’t have to deal with the fallout of what happened last year. Of what I did.

As soon as I’m out of the Mazda, I can almost feel everyone’s eyes staring at me. There are plenty of girls at the high school who dress for attention, but I was never like that. I always wanted to blend into the crowd. Today I am dressed in a nondescript pair of straight leg jeans and a gray T- shirt paired with an even grayer hoodie. There’s a rule at Caseham High that you can’t have any lettering on your butt (a rule that outrages many, many girls), but not only is my rear end free of glittery words, I have made sure that I don’t have any lettering anywhere. Nothing that would call attention to myself.

Yet every single person is looking at me.

The only positive is that my mother was forced to drive away, so she doesn’t get to see the stares and the whispers as I trudge toward the metal front doors, my backpack slung over one shoulder. I freaking knew this would happen. Nobody is going to remember what happened last year. Yeah, right. What planet does my mother live on?

I already know what they’re saying, so I don’t stop to listen. I keep my head down and my shoulder slumped as I walk as quickly as I can. I avoid eye contact. But even so, I can hear them murmuring:

That’s her. That’s Addie Severson. You know what she did, right? She’s the one who…

Ugh, this is just too awful. I can’t even.

And then I almost make it. I almost reach the school without any incident. The chipping red paint of the front door is within sight, and nobody has said something awful to my face. And then I see her.

Her is Kenzie Montgomery. Arguably the most popular girl in our junior class. Unarguably the most beautiful girl in the class. Class president, head cheerleader—you know the type. She is sitting on the steps of the school, wearing a skirt that I am almost one hundred percent sure violates the policy that your skirt or shorts cannot go any higher than the tips of your fingers when your arms are hanging straight at your sides. Other girls have been sent home for such violations, but Kenzie won’t be. You can count on it.

She is sitting with her little posse of friends. The girls surrounding her are like a who’s who of the most popular kids in school. And there’s one addition who would not have been at her side last year, and that’s Hudson Jankowski. The new star quarterback.

Kenzie and her friends are nearly blocking the path to the school, but there’s a little room to get past them. But then just as I am trying to squeeze through the one-foot open area between Kenzie and the railing of the steps, her eyes meet mine for a split second, and she tosses her backpack there to block me.

Ouch.

She has deliberately left approximately four inches for me to attempt to squeeze through. I could go around the other way, but that would involve walking down all the stairs I just walked up and climbing another set of stairs, which feels a little bit ridiculous considering I’m almost at the top. And it’s not like there’s a person sitting there. It’s just a freaking backpack. So while Kenzie is talking to her friends, I attempt to squeeze past her leather bag.

“Excuse me!”

Kenzie’s voice shuts me down midstep. She’s looking up at me with her big blue eyes fringed with long, dark eyelashes. I first met Kenzie in middle school, when she was in my history class, and I couldn’t help but think she was the most perfect-looking human being I had ever seen in real life. Like, I saw pretty girls before, but Kenzie is on a whole other level. She’s tall,

with a lithe figure and silky long golden-blond hair. Every single feature of hers is more attractive than every single one of mine. Kenzie is living proof that life is not fair.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I was just trying to get through.”

Kenzie’s long eyelashes flutter. “Do you think you could not step on my backpack?”

Kenzie’s friends are watching our interaction and giggling. Kenzie could shift her backpack or take it off the steps altogether so that I could get through. But she’s not going to do it, and that is somehow just so freaking amusing to all of them. For a second, my eyes make contact with Hudson’s, and he quickly looks down at his dirty sneakers. He’s been doing that for the last six months. Avoiding me. Pretending like he didn’t used to be my best friend in the entire universe since we were in grade school.

For a second, I fantasize about a universe in which I could take on a girl like Kenzie Montgomery. Where I could step on her stupid backpack with the little pink furry puff hanging off it and spit at her, What are you going to do about it?

Nobody ever stands up to Kenzie. I could do it. It’s not like I have anything to lose.

But instead I mumble an apology and go back down the steps to find another way into the school. Like everyone else, I give in to Kenzie. Because the truth is, as bad as it is now, it could always be worse.