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Elise said, “he’s crazier than I thought. Hasn’t he ever heard of SparkNotes?”
    Amber laughed absurdly and pulled four Blow Pops from her purse, passing them out to Elise, Jess, and Chelsea, and popping one into her mouth. Michelle’s eyes fluttered in disgust.
    “What’s your problem?” I heard Elise say, and my stomach lurched down to my kneecaps. But Elise wasn’t talking to me; she was talking to Michelle. Becky Fulton’s departure must have left a vacuum in the power system, and somebody had to fill it. “Girls,” Elise said, “the new girl must be lesbo, because she can’t stop staring at us.”
    They all launched into cackling hysterics and walked out of the room with their inner arms linked together, their outer arms juggling Prada purses and iPhones and Blow Pops, like they were some kind of hideous, social-climbing octopus. Michelle bit her lip, looking for the first time like that hardened exterior of hers was about to crack. She left before I could say anything.
    I waited in the classroom long enough to be sure the ferocious foursome had gone, then glanced up to find Gallagher staring at me. It was a perceptive look, a look that suggested he could see right through me. I picked up my books and fled the room like it was on fire.

C HAPTER 3
    I crossed the quad at a run, then headed down the hill to the stables, hoping to spend some time with Curry. Last year, that horse had been my only friend. Curry whinnied when he saw me, so I climbed the slats of his pen and gave him a firm nuzzle along his neck. “How you doing, baby? You miss me?”
    Curry was the mellowest of the horses, with a sweet, compliant disposition and a desire to please. That was why Ms. Loughlin used him to train beginners. He was so gentle I sometimes forgot he weighed over a thousand pounds and could knock me flat with one careless toss of his head. Elise kept her own horse at the school, a sleek black Arabian named Odin. Odin was cruel, just like his owner. I’d heard that horses sometimes take on the personality of their trainers; if the trainer uses a prod and a bit in the mouth, the horse becomes hardened and mean and only responds to fear and pain. While I felt sorry for Odin, I still avoided him. He didn’t respond well to strangers and had been known to bite and kick when the mood struck him.
    I sat down on one of the hay bales and took out my journal, its bright turquoise color putting me immediately in a better mood. I couldn’t help but think about Gray Newman, too, how he’d been so quick to remind me that this journal was his mother’s idea, not his. In my experience so far, all high school boys were immature and shallow, even the ones with soulful hazel eyes.
    So I transferred my thoughts to a more worthy subject: Mr. Gallagher. Now here was a real man—mature, intelligent, and sexy in that brooding poet way. Like Keats or Byron. I imagined him in one of those billowy white shirts, his strong legs encased in leather breeches. Not a bad image, really.
    Why had his wife left him? And what was she like? What had made Gallagher fall in love with her? And in what universe did I think he would ever look at me and see anything other than an unremarkable teenage girl?
    I jotted down all the things I admired about him and contemplated writing a poem, maybe even a sonnet. I’d never tackled a sonnet before, but it seemed like the perfect form for a poem about one’s English teacher. I was completely immersed in the task when I heard a strange noise coming from the loft. At first I thought it was birds—last week I’d discovered a swallow’s nest in the eaves—but the sound was deeper and more guttural. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or crying.
    Setting my journal down, I made my way up the ladder, peering over the edge to find Michelle sobbing in the straw. It was such a personal, intimate moment that my first instinct was to climb back down and pretend I hadn’t seen her.
    Then she looked up at me with