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  The night before school started, my brain was stuck on my conversation with Sonya obsessing over what she meant by "the people can be crappy." I was tossing and turning in bed trying to get some tiny bit of sleep, but my impressive worrying skills made it impossible. I had gone to school with these kids five years ago, but I was by no means popular. Always a quiet student, the never-ending drama of the popular crowd didn’t appeal to me. When Jay and I got together, it seemed like a natural fit. He didn’t care about popularity any more than I did, which left us to our own small circle of friends. But things were different now. Five years had passed by, and while Sonya, Gary, and I were destined to always be close, they had made their own way in the high school world, leaving me wondering where I would fit in.

  When the light began to shine through the thin white curtains illuminating my room, I took it as my personal signal to give up on the possibility of sleep. After a hot shower and a bowl of cereal, I helped Samantha—Jay’s 8-year-old sister—pick out something to wear on her first day of fourth grade. Always a sweet kid, she had happily welcomed my intrusion into her home. Unlike most 8-year-olds, she never annoyed me, never went through my things, and was generally the nicest kid I had ever met. We all called her the "alien child," because, while I loved Jay, he could be a huge pain. For example, this morning he was yelling at his mom about not having his favorite jeans washed. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at Samantha when we heard this. Seriously, he was old enough to do his own laundry—he was a senior in high school for crying out loud.

  I smiled at her yellow dress, white sandals, and matching necklace. "We’ve got you looking absolutely perfect, but what on earth am I gonna wear?" Samantha and I stood there staring at a few things I had laid out on my bed to choose from.

  Authoritatively, she said, "It’s the first day of school so you have to wear a dress."

  "A dress, huh?" Walking over to the closet, I stared at my small grouping of clothes. I had nice things before my parents had passed away. My mom and I loved to shop, but another thing we apparently shared was being a late bloomer. On top of everything else that had changed in the last six months, so did my body as it went from straight and childish to curvy and adult. I wound up having to give away a lot of my clothes since they were too tight or too revealing. I was certainly happy about no longer looking like a stick with eyes, but my wardrobe was seriously lacking. I pulled out the only dress I owned that still fit me. It was a soft pink sundress that used to be bright, but had been worn so many times that it was now a muted version of the color.

  I held it up to Samantha. "I only have this faded dress."

  "It doesn’t look faded, though. It looks like it was made to be that color. And it looks good with your dark hair and green eyes."

  I shrugged. "Okay, you convinced me. You’re very persuasive, you know."

  "I know." She grinned as she bounced out of the room, her light brown curls bouncing along with her.

  Her energy only served to remind me of the exhausting lack of sleep I was dealing with. If only I could siphon off some of her energy, I bet I could live a week without sleeping.

  Jay was still too busy arguing with his mom about something she had failed to do for him to even notice me come downstairs. Not that I had expected some reaction—he had seen me in this dress probably a hundred times—but a little encouragement would have been nice. It was odd to see him in this light. We had been together for seven years and while he wasn’t intentionally hiding things from me, I certainly hadn’t seen his interactions with his family as closely as I was seeing them now. It was difficult sometimes to have any kind of perspective—I mean my parents had only been gone for a little over eight months. I felt myself judging him for not fully appreciating his family, but I had to remind myself that it wasn’t fair. He loved his family and was a very kind and caring older brother. I just couldn’t help but think that he didn't fully appreciate how lucky he was.

  Jay finally seemed to remember my existence when we reached school. As I stared at the intimidating two-story building with its tall white exterior and manicured green lawn, I wasn’t sure what to think. Confident-looking students were all over the place hugging each other and smiling. The entire picture seemed like such a contrast to the vastly spread out schools I’d been to in Northern California. While I knew the population here was much smaller, the school itself seemed so much larger. Jay slid out of the car and reached his hand inside to pull me out.

  "Piper? You okay?" He seemed genuinely concerned, bringing back the Jay I knew and loved. Turning frightened eyes on him, he put his arm around me and squeezed me close to him. "It’ll be fine. I’m here with you. You’re not alone."

  "But you have friends. People know you here. I’m either battling the loser impression they had of me from middle school, or I’m having to make an entirely new impression on them."

  He rubbed my lower back, his brown eyes seeming deeper and happier than they had in weeks. "Either way, it won’t take them long to see how great you are. And if they don’t, I’ll make them conveniently disappear off the roof of the main building."

  "Main building?" I panicked. "This is just the main building? There are others?"

  He laughed softly as he grabbed my hand. "Come on, we’re early enough that I can take you around and show you where all your classes are."

  By lunch, I was ready to hide in a bush somewhere. While the massively large building of the school was what intimidated me the most at first, it became painfully obvious that I was at a small school—a very small school. Used to a spread-out campus of 2,600 kids, it was a culture-shock to switch to a school of only 900. There had been over 700 students in my year alone where now there were only 207. It made me a very obvious fish in a very small bowl. Everyone studied me, everyone whispered about me, and all my teachers made me introduce myself to the class. It wouldn't have been so bad if there were just one other new student, but no luck. I was it.

  No one had spoken to me except Sonya who was in my second period class, but with a seating chart in effect, we could only make faces at what the teacher was saying. While no one spoke to me, I was about to scream if I heard one more word said about me behind my back.

  Sonya looped her arm through mine as we walked to lunch. "So, how is your first day going?" At my answering shrug, she said, "Wow, that good huh? Well, you’ve made an impression, I have to tell you."

  Alarmed, I let my jaw drop open as I stared at her. "What do you mean? How could I have made an impression; no one’s said two words to me all morning?"

  "They may not have talked to you, but there’s been a lot of watching."

  I rolled my eyes at her statement—I mean really, I would have noticed something like that. "Whatever."

  She patted my hand patronizingly. "You’ve caught the eye of several guys in the senior class. I’m sure Jay's been pretty busy trying to stake his claim on you."

  "Oh, please. Stop teasing me." But just as I was dismissing the idea, three tall, dark-haired guys decked out in Abercrombie shirts and shorts strolled by smiling appreciatively at me. "Ugh. They're just obsessed with the shiny new toy that's walked onto campus."

  Sonya chuckled low, tossing her perfectly wavy hair over her shoulder. "I’m serious. Even little miss popularity, Nicole Mitchell, is having a fit because her precious Alex Juarez was staring at you all through English." She squeezed my arm tighter and her voice lost its smile. "You might actually need to watch out for her. She can be a real bi—hi Miss Carter," she waved at a teacher walking past us before turning back to me with an even lower voice. "Well, the polite version is she's a witch."

  I shrugged innocently. "I don’t even know who she is, how can I watch out for her?"

  "I’ll point her out to you."

  When we reached the outdoor quad, Sonya started to educate me on the social facts of the school. The quad was apparently where all the upper classmen sat for lunch when the weather was nice. It was more than a little scary to see so many people in one area a
nd know that they were all classmates you didn’t know. I was beginning to feel like a freshman again. Groups of girls were laughing and eating out of stylish little lunch bags. Even their food looked stylish. They glanced up at me, catching me observing them, and wrinkled their noses like they thought I was beneath them… typical.

  The cheerleaders were, predictably, all sitting together just as they had at my previous school, but they hadn’t gotten nearly as much attention as they seemed to be getting here. Surrounded by guys, several in blue and yellow jerseys, they seemed to be shouting "look at me" with their too loud laughter and hands all over every guy in touching radius. Several others were sitting with them who weren’t in uniforms of any kind, and it was impossible not to notice the red-headed, snotty-faced girl pointing to me with her nose shoved far too high in the air.

  Sonya pulled me to the table where Jay was seated, his back to me, explaining that she usually sat with a group of friends at a table next to Jay’s. When she waved at some girls at another table with plain lunch bags and ordinary sandwiches, I let out a relieved sigh that I wouldn’t be the only girl at Jay’s table. Gary ran over to us for a moment and gave my shoulders a squeeze before returning to what Sonya told me was "the popular table"—the one with all the cheerleaders and jocks. Of course, this made sense since Gary was a football player on the varsity team, but I had to wonder at the sudden onslaught of girls that swarmed him when he returned to his table. Something told me they were talking about me, and it certainly wasn't vanity.

  After lunch, we headed toward Leadership, and I felt myself relax a bit. I only had Leadership, which everyone promised me would be a blast, and PE, which I was always good at, so I felt like I was home-free. Jay and Gary were busy talking about something football related mentioning rival teams I had no clue about, so I followed behind with Sonya and one of her friends. Just as we were going inside the classroom, I dropped one of the huge bricks they had the nerve to call a textbook and had to bend down to pick it up. Of course, Murphy’s Law took over, sending my backpack down my arm and somehow forcing open the zipper allowing my notebook to fly out.

  Frustrated, I finally got my things back in my arms. But when I tried to open the door, it was much heavier than I thought it would be. Focusing on trying not to drop anything again, I hurried through the small opening I managed to create before it closed. In my rush, I wound up running smack-dab into a very muscular chest. My hand had been doing its best to hold the door open which meant that it was now pressed against his chest in front of me.

  Panting slightly from the oh-so-extreme exercise of opening a door, I drew in a deep breath. He smelled like clean detergent and a hint of cologne. It wasn’t until I pulled back just a bit to look up at him that I noticed his arms were wrapped around me, steadying me. When my eyes finally met his, I was stunned. The most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen stared wide-eyed down at me. But it wasn’t just the color of his eyes, there was something else pulling me to him. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe or make sense of anything. I could feel his heart beating rapidly underneath my palm and knew mine was matching his. His sharp nose and incredibly sexy mouth with its thin upper lip and enticing fuller bottom lip made my heart stall. But his almost black hair and prominent eyebrows made my jaw drop open with the way they complemented his deep-set blue eyes. I couldn't think or process anything as I stood there like an idiot with my hand on his chest. It seemed like the whole world just fell away. I stared at his very noticeable Adam's apple as it moved when he swallowed hard.

  Finally, the bell rang, ending our brief, unbelievable encounter. We pulled away from each other and went to take our seats. Jay had thankfully been oblivious to the whole thing, still talking to Gary about the Spartans—whoever they were.

  Sonya, on the other hand, leaned over and whispered, "What… on earth… was that?"

  She had clearly seen it all, and I knew she knew me well enough to recognize the look on my face. It was like something from the "Twilight Zone" and some cheesy romance movie all in one, and I found myself feeling completely brainless about how to react. I barely heard two words that Mr. Berg said as I tried to figure out what was happening to me. Before I knew it, we had reached the end of class.

  "Okay, everyone," Mr. Berg said loudly. "I want us all to be a good little team. I think it would be great if we all walked to our next classes together. Don’t you agree—good. So let’s separate into groups according to our next class, shall we?"

  The next five minutes were a little chaotic as he called out the classes and got us into our groups. Toward the end of the pile, he reached the tall, black-haired, impossibly handsome and muscular guy I had accosted on my way into class.

  "Vaughn has PE next. Who else has PE? We don’t want poor Vaughn here to walk to class alone now do we? What would that do to his reputation?"

  A little blonde twig in a cheerleading uniform nearly bounced up and down with enthusiasm. "I'm near PE! I can totally walk him there!"

  I wondered why she didn't just carry her pompoms with her cheering for this guy all day long. She seemed a little… obsessed. Somehow, I managed to raise my hand as I pulled together my courage to walk over to him.

  Per Mr. Berg's instructions, he introduced himself. "I’m Devlin Vaughn, but everyone calls me Vaughn."

  I smiled nervously at him, but couldn't get any words out. I felt like a complete idiot, but he had me seriously tongue-tied, staring down at me with those piercing blue eyes.

  He lifted his dark eyebrows at me then stared at the floor. "I, uh, I’m sorry about running into you earlier. Are you okay?"

  He was dreamy and nice? This was bad. I found myself nodding as my only way of responding. He chuckled, moving his Adam’s apple and making me lose control over my ability to glance away.

  "Do you have a name?" He leaned down to look me in the eye—he was at least a head taller than me.

  "Uh." I cleared my throat before continuing, "Piper, my name is Piper."

  "Piper?" he asked. "Piper what?"

  "Oh, Kenley."

  "Piper Kenley." He paused and seemed to be processing the information. "Don’t take this the wrong way, but do I know you from somewhere?"

  I smiled at that. I had the same feeling that I couldn’t shake. It was the only logical explanation for my reaction to him. Maybe I had known him in elementary school. I knew I hadn’t gone to middle school with him because I certainly would have remembered him.

  "I don’t know, I—" The bell rang, interrupting my train of thought.

  As everyone left the room, Devlin gestured toward the door, and I managed to make my feet move in that direction. "You’re Jay’s girlfriend, right?"

  I nodded again. I certainly wouldn't blame him for thinking me a moron incapable of speech. Pulling myself together, I spit out something that sounded like, "Ilivedherebefore." I wanted to hide for how stupid I must have sounded. I slowed down and explained, "I grew up here, not far from Sonya."

  "Oh." He seemed disappointed for some reason as his gaze fell to the ground. "I grew up on the east side of town toward the orchards. That’s probably not where we know each other then."

  I nodded in agreement, trying to think of something to ask. "Uh, have you lived here all your life?" Maybe he had been up north at some point.

  "Yeah, barely been out of the area except to play away games."

  "You play sports?" It seemed like a stupid question as soon as it left my mouth. Of course he played sports, he was huge and athletic and wearing a school jersey. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, and yet still, there I was, asking the question like a moron.

  He held up a very large hand and counted with his strong-looking fingers. "Football, soccer, track, cross country, basketball, wrestling, and I might do golf if they have it again this year."

  "Wow, that’s a lot of sports. How do you find time for it all?"

  He shrugged his solid, wide shoulders. "I like sports. They’re more fun than most of my classes. I make time.
"

  "So you probably don’t get much time for a girlfriend?" Oh I was and idiot. Did I seriously just ask that out loud? I could feel all the blood rush to my face as he stared at me with his eyebrows raised. I wanted to hide under something, but the only options were the bodies walking in my direction, so I settled for keeping my eyes to the ground. "I mean, you sound busy, you—"

  "It’s a fair question." His low chuckle made goose bumps spring up all over my arms. "And no, I haven’t had time for a girlfriend."

  Why was I so giggly over the fact that he didn’t have a girlfriend? I took a deep breath trying to let it refocus my energy on the conversation. "Why does everyone call you Vaughn?"

  "It's a sports thing, I guess. Coaches always call us by our last names, and since I do a lot of sports, I get called by my last name a lot. They used to call me Devlin when I was a freshman, but when I started playing sports, it just sorta stopped. Do you play sports?"

  "I, um, I do track and cross country. I used to play basketball when I was younger, but I’m not tall enough to keep up with them anymore." Self-consciousness crept into my brain as I kicked myself for mentioning my very not-unique height. Then I kicked myself for worrying about impressing him. Why was this guy making me so shallow? Why couldn't I seem to control my own reactions or what came out of my own stupid mouth?

  "Well, tall girls can be annoying—trying to be all tough—and really short girls always act like they need to be protected or something. You’re just right." His smooth cheeks turned pink, but he kept eye contact with me, even winked at me. "I mean your height, that is."

  I thought I might pass out over the speed my heart jumped to. I tried to focus on something other than the way he made me feel when he winked at me. We reached the outside of the gym, and I paid close attention to the people around us. Guys were heading to one side and girls to the other. I was relieved this tension-filled craziness was coming to an end. But instead of separating there, he placed his hand on the small of my back making my breath catch in the back of my throat.