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a problem,” I stammer, even though on some level it really is. “Now I feel like I should say I’m sorry.” And I hate that word.
    I turn and then force myself to organize my books for homework tonight. Shards of hurt grind in the knuckles of my right hand with every movement. Great. Mom will be in a tizzy over this. Probably drag me to the med clinic, too. I hate that place, always crowded, people coughing, and at least one baby screaming.
    “No worries. I’m new here,” Alex says, spinning his lock once after closing his locker. “And God knows if Carrot Top was always hounding me, I think I would want to open that locker and climb in it.”
    A little snicker sneaks from me. “Josh is annoying.” And probably hates Alex already.
    “What’s up with him, if I can ask?”
    “Long story.” I wince when my knuckles throb with heartbeats of their own as I sling my backpack over my shoulder. “Ouch.”
    Alex’s eyebrows furrow. “May I?” he asks at the same time he takes my right hand in his.
    The touch is soft, hardly a murmur of contact, but the hair on my arm stands like I’m stroking a plasma globe. Little electric shocks zing from each of his fingers. Speech dries in my throat. I can hardly think when he’s touching me, like everything’s on short circuit in my brain. Alex turns my hand, tingles following his fingertips as he gently probes my knuckles, already darkening and swelling. His index finger glides across my hand up to the pale broken heart, then back to my knuckles.
    “These look broken,” he pronounces, and releases my hand. “I can drive you home.”
    No way . Say it, Emma. I can’t spit it out.
    “Drive me home?” I turn and walked toward the side door, putting needed distance between us. I don’t need to look to know he’s following. I feel him over my shoulder. My short question drags him along behind me like bait. “You asked me to save you a seat at lunch, then you don’t sit there. If I accept the ride, you’ll just leave me hanging.”
    “What?” He bursts out, a hint of incredulity in his voice. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
    I push open the side door. Clouds litter the sky. Wind gusts rattle the skeletal branches above us. Rich leather scent whisks past me on the wind as Alex shrugs into his jacket he’s carried since I walked away from the lockers. Rueful regret fills me, and I long for the sweatshirt Daniel had draped over my shoulders minutes before the accident.
    “Makes perfect sense to me.” I can’t accept a ride from Alex, despite the deepening hurt in my hand or the chill biting at me. Something’s off with him. Something’s off with me around him. “Besides, I need to go to the library and check out a book for my English Lit class.”
    “Okay fine. You have homework.” He huffs a little breath. “It’ll be hard to write with a broken hand.”
    “What do you think you are?” I shoot him a look over my shoulder and instantly regret it. He’s tall, ridiculously handsome with concern softening his features. I jerk my gaze forward. If I stumbled walking and talking at night, I don’t want to see what walking and looking at Alex Franks could do to me. “You some kind of doctor now?”
    “Nope.” He stops walking by the side of the gym, an invisible tether between us pulling me to a halt. “My dad is though. He took care of me after...after I got hurt this spring.”
    “Oh. Sorry,” I offer out of reflex. A pulse of hurt minces in my knuckles when I push strands of blond from my eyes. “I’ll have my mom take me to the clinic when I get home, okay?”
    “Then let me give you a ride.” His hood slips from his long shaggy hair with the next gust of wind. His left eye pinches a little tighter as he squints against the sunlight. “You’ll get your hand taken care of quicker.”
    “Persistent, aren’t you?”
    His smile is sudden, and wicked. “I can be.”
    “So can I,” I say and motion for him to move along. “It’s definitely a