I took a slug of milk, set the carton back in the fridge, then plastered on my don’t-worry-about-it smile. “I haven’t decided, okay? Seth assumes I want to go with him, but I don’t know what I want.”

“Okay,” Leah said. “No pressure.”

No pressure. Right. So why was I on the verge of explosion?

“You want to come with me to tell Kirsten about Connor?” Leah said. “We shouldn’t leave her out. You know how she gets.

I didn’t really want to go. It was late, I didn’t feel well. “Sure. Let me get my shoes.” I padded over and gave Leah a hug. What are friends for?

***

Thursday Cece reappeared, huddling in front of her locker with her coffee and donuts and earphones, the baseball cap on her head. She wore a T-shirt that screamed: OUT! AND PROUD!

I was so glad to see her, the hall lights grew brighter.

Her eyes were closed, but she blinked up at my approach. Hi, I mouthed.

She removed the earphones. Leaning forward a little, she reached around and shut her locker door.

I dropped my duffel. “Oh, my God.” Both hands rose to cover my mouth. “My God.” Someone had spray-painted down the length of her locker: DIE DYKE.

“Not terribly artistic, were they?” Cece cocked her head upward. “I mean, the letters all run together. There’s no style at all. Really amateurish. Not to mention extremely unoriginal.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Didn’t realize tears were streaming down my face until Cece shouted, “Don’t!” She rushed across the hall and pinned me against my locker. “Don’t cry. Don’t you let them see us cry.” Her eyes pooled with tears. She retreated and gathered her stuff.

I stood frozen, stunned. Her words echoed in my ears: Us? What did she mean by us? She was fleeing down the hall.

I gaped at her locker. How could they? Anger burbled up from my core. How could they?

I found out soon enough she wasn’t the only one targeted. Brandi’s locker had the same massage, and three guys got the more obscene FAGS FUCK OFF.

It spurred a hurried assembly. Mr. Reynardi threatened the entire student body with legal action for what he called “this deliberate act of vandalism, this marring of school property, this criminal mischief.”

Criminal mischief? He made it sound like a stupid prank. What about destruction of people’s lives? What about destroying their trust in others?

Reynardi ranted on and on about prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law, blah, blah, blah. He wanted names and he wanted them now.

Get real. Like someone’s going to stand up and confess? Rat out their friends?

After the assembly I was so irate, I stormed to my locker. Cece was there. The others who’d been tagged were hanging out at her locker, too. One of the guys had a videocam and was shooting a tape of Cece, as if she were starring in a silent movie – making the discovery of the hateful message, tearing her hair out. She was funny. Made me want to laugh. I couldn’t laugh. I felt too angry, too numb. I heard her ask for a copy of the tape because it’d make great PA.

What’s PA? I wondered.

I was so intent on watching her – them – that I didn’t notice the crowd forming. A dozen or so people had circled around and were closing in on Cece and the others. The guy with the videocam lowered it slowly. There was this prolonged moment of silence, tension so thick you could taste it. Oh, my God, I thought. It’s a lynch mob. They’ve come to finish the job. Say something, my brain commanded. Speak up.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry this happened to you,” a voice carried in from the rear. I recognized it. “I hope you don’t think we’re all this way,” Leah said.

There was a general murmur of agreement. Cece and the others didn’t respond. Most of them cowered against the lockers, looking freaked. They looked to Cece for direction. She clapped once and said, “Okay, let’s get this on film. You guys can be extras. I want to see moral outrage here, and fury. Like this.” She shook a fist at the crowd to demonstrate. “Anyone got a beer? We could do foaming at the mouth.”

Laughter filtered through the crowd.

Cece cued the camera, and the extras really got into it, hamming it up and acting out. Across the hall, Cece’s eyes found mine. They spoke the truth; she wasn’t enjoying this. She was humiliated. Hurt. Afraid. Her fear was so palpable it made my blood curdle. I wanted to find whoever had done this to her and kill them.

Chapter 10

“Did you finish your essays on those two applications?” Mom asked at dinner. “They have to go out next week.”

“Yes,” I said.

Mom eyed me. Cece was right, I was a terrible liar. “I’ll do them tomorrow.”

“You keep saying that.” Mom passed the bowl of creamed corn to Neal. “You’re running out of tomorrows.”

Running out of tomorrows, I repeated to myself in my room, sprawling across my bed to begin another midnight marathon of homework. Sometimes I felt as if there were no tomorrows, that everything, my whole life, was crammed into one long day. A continuous stretch of meaningless time. Sometimes I even wished there was no tomorrow, if this was all I had to look forward to.

I opened my econ text, then shut it. I scrounged in my pack for my sketchbook instead. So far it included a full-page, cross-hatched drawing of Cece’s head, a side shot of her ear, a drawing of her right hand on the art table with the assortment of rings she always wore. I wasn’t close enough to get details of the patterns in the rings.

On the next page was a picture of the light switch – wow, that was exciting. I flipped to a blank page. With a half-moon shadow from my study lamp, the basement rafters would make a stunning still-life. Ugh. I needed inspiration. What was it Mackel said? “Let it come. Don’t force it. Just free-draw.” Which, to me, meant free fall. It was at time like this I wished I did drugs.

Okay. I got up and searched through my CDs. Didn’t get too far. I cranked up the volume on Dixie Chicks and lay back, closing my eyes, to “let it come.”

What came was her. The way one side of her mouth cricked up a little higher than the other when she smiled. That freckle, or mole, right above her lip. The sparkle in her eyes, the warmth. The fire, too, when she was pissed. Her skin, how it seemed to glow. I positioned my pencil and began to transfer the image of her from my mind to paper.

The CD ended and I focused on what I’d drawn. Her head, sporting a baseball cap, not a bad likeness. Her face was wrong, though. Out of symmetry. I could see her so clearly in my mind’s eye, hear her laughing. That sound, the music in her voice.

The sensation was stirring. It aroused me in a was… almost as if…

As if I was falling for her.

Okay, that didn’t shock me. I’d had crushes on girls before. I mean, who hadn’t? I’d see a girl in the mall or at swim meets and think, Wow, would I ever like to meet her. I wouldn’t act on the impulse or anything. I’d stop myself.

That’s what it was with Cece. An innocent crush. I admired her. She was strong, self-confident. So damn cool. Attractive in a way only another girl would see.

What did I see? I didn’t know exactly. Couldn’t capture it on paper. It – she – wouldn’t stay still.

I lay the sketchbook aside and scrambled to my feet, ejecting the CD and tossing it in my bag. At the top of the stairs, I ran into Mom and Neal in the kitchen, necking. “Ooh, caught ya,” I said, waggling an accusatory finger.

Mom actually blushed. Removing my parka from the coat rack, I informed them, “I’m going out for a while.”

“In this weather?” Mom looked aghast.

“I’m wearing clean underwear. Just in case.”

***

Washington Central was farther than it seemed. I’d printed out an Internet map at the computer lab during study hall today. The legend was misleading; it had to be more than twenty-five miles away, and the streets were sheer ice. A stoplight changed unexpectedly and I slammed on the brakes, skidding through the intersection. Horns blared and an SUV narrowly missed me.

Shit. My heart hammered against my ribs. What was I doing?

Had to see her. Talk to her. Apologize about the locker incident. About the assholes in our school. Try to make it right. Even though the janitors had painted over the lockers by the end of the day – covered up the crime so we could all pretend it never happened – she had to be freaked. I wanted to quell her fears.

Depressing the gas pedal slightly and swerving away from the curb, I inched along toward town. After circling the block a couple of times, I spotted it: Hott ’N Tott Donuts.

Ten minutes later I was still huddled in the parking lot, shivering from cold. Not only from the cold. “This is stupid,” I muttered. “Get out already.” What was I afraid of?

Her, that’s what. This had nothing to do with the locker incident. I wanted her to like me. Wanted to find out if she did. Was that important enough to risk my life over? Apparently.

So cold. I started the engine again and cranked up the heater.

She wasn’t even here. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of her through the plate glass window in the year I’d been stalling, freezing my butt off. I was safe. Just came to check the place out, buy a cup of coffee. Reasonable, rational. Only one customer had braved the weather – a cab driver who was hunched over one of the tables, nursing a cup of coffee while thumbing through the newspaper.

“Just go get a donut. What’s the big deal?”

Okay. I bolstered my courage. Opened the Jeep door and got out.

“Evenin’, Help ya?” the older man behind the counter asked. He smiled kindly. Was this Cece’s uncle?

I smiled back. “I’ll, um, have one of those.” I pointed to a glazed cinnamon twist. “And… do you have hot chocolate?”

“Sure do. What size?”

I skimmed the cup display. “Medium, I guess.”

“For here or to go?” He stoked up the cocoa machine.

My eyes searched the interior. No sign of her. “To go,” I answered.

He finished my order and rang it up. “Is Cece her?” I asked, handing him a five.

“Cecile!” he shouted through a rear door.

“What?” she shouted back.

My heart raced. Exploded.

“You got company.”

Cece appeared out of nowhere, wiping her floured hands on an apron. The top of her head was covered in a blue bandanna, tied gypsy style. When she saw me, she stopped dead in the doorway.

Well, finally, I’d managed to shock her. “Hey.” I hitched my chin. “I was in the neighbourhood.”

The hint of a smile cricked her lips. “Unc, okay if she comes back?”

He eyed me up and down. “Sure, I guess.” He opened the counter top, which was hinged on one side. “No funny business.” He pointed at Cece.

She blew out puff of air at him.

What did he mean by that? No funny business.

Cece walked across the room to a long butcher block table. I followed. “You can pull up a stool if you want,” she said over her shoulder.

I set down my cocoa and twist on the table, then dragged over a high-backed stool and climbed aboard.

Cece lifted a rolling pin and ran it over a circle of dough. “What are you doing here really?” she asked.

“Like I said –”

“In the neighbourhood.” Her eyes cut to me and she grinned. “Let me just get these in the proofer. It’ll only take a minute.” She sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the dough, rolled it into a snake, and sliced it into identically sized wedges, as if she’d been doing this all her life.

“I’m sorry about what happened today,” I said.

“Forget it. It’s not your fault. Grab me that pan.” She pointed.

I flinched at her sudden movement. I pulled out a large, aluminium tray from the rack behind me and handed it to her. With a spatula, she flipped the wedges onto the tray, then carried it to a glassed-in case where racks of similar pans were resting. Proofing, I surmised. I’d never seen the inner workings of a donut shop. It was all shiny metal and spicy smells. Sparkling and sweet and warm. So why was I trembling?

Cece returned, exhaling a weary breath, and leaned against the cutting table, arms folded.

“What?” I said.

She smiled and shook her head at the floor. “Nothing.”

“You work here every night?” I sipped my cocoa.

“Why don’t you drop by and find out.” She lifted her eyes and held mine.

Two could play at this game. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

She set down the spatula. “What do you think?” she said.

I think I couldn’t breathe.

“Cecile, when you’re done with the rolls would you mix a batch of egg batter for the morning?” her uncle called through the door.

“Slave driver,” she called back.

I liked that, the banter. I liked everything about her.

“What?” She zeroed in on me again.

I blinked away, realizing I’d been staring at her. “I don’t know.” My eyes skimmed the floor tiles. Checkerboard.

“If you don’t know, then I can’t help you.” Cece moved past me, almost grazing my arm. Almost.

“Okay, so I’ll just help myself,” I quipped, retrieving my cinnamon twist off the table and chomping off the end.

She disappeared into a back room. A few seconds later she stepped out, lugging a bag of flour. “Look,” she said, dumping the bag on the table. “I really have a lot to do, okay? And I don’t like playing games.”

Heat fried my face. “I’m sorry.” I slid off the stool; stumbled. Dropped my twist on the floor. “I’ll go.” I picked it up. As I staggered for the open doorway to flee, escape, I heard her curse and pound the table with a fist.