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asking someone out?”
    Valerie’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t do that.” She shook her head. “No way. I’m too shy.”
    “You just think you are,” Shannon said. “I think you have it in you. You just need to have a little more faith, that’s all. You should only think good thoughts. Then only good things will happen to you. Weren’t you paying attention when Mrs. Abrahams was teaching us about the law of attraction all those years ago? ‘Likes tend toward likes’?”
    “That was a science class. This is my life.”
    “Nevertheless, how can you go wrong with thinking positively?” Shannon nodded toward a boy with fox-colored hair who waited against a tangerine Chevy Nova in the parking lot. “Look, there’s Rick.” She waved to her boyfriend, who grinned back. “Doesn’t he look cute today?”
    Valerie smirked. “He looks like he’s glad you’re wearing a tiny skirt today.”
    Shannon giggled. “Naturally.” She rubbed Valerie’s shoulder. “I’ll talk to you on Sunday, okay?” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe you should call your study buddy Daniel over for a little tutoring session.”
    “Great.” Valerie forced herself to sound enthusiastic as Shannon bounded down the granite steps and into her boyfriend’s arms. She waved goodbye as Shannon climbed into Rick’s car and they drove off, laughing. Valerie could only imagine the weekend ahead of the happy couple.
    Valerie’s aunt had promised her similar weekends by assuring her that a new body meant a new life. The reminder of her aunt’s “guarantee” made her pulse race with a fear that was borderline hysterical. If that were true, why were things still the same?
    * * * *
    Michael gave the steering wheel of his Ford truck a sharp tug to the left, screeching across an empty two-lane highway bridging the gap between Kenton and nowhere, and pulled into the college’s entranceway. He’d spent the past hour driving aimlessly through Kenton, forcing himself to take it easy and just breathe. But his body still burned after his latest argument with Breeze. He clenched and unclenched his fists around the steering wheel. He felt like a complete fool, and not for the first time.
    The engine idled as his gaze drifted to the engraved archway looming overhead and turning black in the fading sunlight. The tops of the metal letters spelling Kenton College stretched to the sky like thorns. He found he still couldn’t identify with the school or call it his own yet. He suspected he never would.
    Thinking about his studies made his stomach coil further, and he fanned the truck in a wide U-turn, prepared to turn around and head back to his house. In his rearview, he noticed a familiar, dark-haired girl crossing the library’s near-empty lot in the direction of a white Volvo. His anger once again faded. He’d recognize those legs anywhere and, as he dragged the shifter into reverse, he figured it was high time he told her so.
    * * * *
    Valerie reached into her embroidered tote bag, fumbling for the keys to the vehicle, when she heard a car door slam from somewhere behind her. She glanced up and, in the murky reflection in the Volvo’s window, saw someone climb out of a truck. She turned around in time to see Michael, wearing his ever-present aviators along with a tan suede coat, cup his hands around a cigarette, shielding it from the wind as he lit it. He breathed out a cloud of smoke as he shook his fist, extinguishing the match. A lump formed in Valerie’s throat as she realized he was heading in her direction.
    She faced the car again and groped for the keys, not knowing what else to do. He couldn’t possibly be here for her. She tried to ignore how her heart thudded in time to the roar of the blood rushing to her head as she heard his slow, relaxed footsteps on the pavement come to a stop behind her. Unable to avoid it, she looked behind her where Michael stood, one hand buried in the pocket of his coat and the other rolling the filter of the