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long as you aren’t using it to call me.”
    His mother broke into tears and dropped the phone.
    Jonathan smiled.
    But none of that happened. He didn’t even get up from his desk. He remained in front of the computer screen, staring at the icon for the song he wanted, knowing it had not had time to finish downloading. His palm still ached from the slap he’d given the desk. His stomach roiled with acid, and his head throbbed.
    Screw this , he thought. Screw it all .
    Â 
    Bitter night air cut through the collar of his jacket as Jonathan wandered the streets of Warren. He walked past the new housing development theywere building next to his apartment complex. More rich people. More kids with high-tech gadgets and high-brow attitudes. Another wave of jerks to shove him or kids like him into lockers. It didn’t really matter. Pretty soon Jonathan’s family would have to move. The rents would go up like they had in Pierce Valley, and his dad would make them pack up and relocate, this time probably to a smaller apartment. They already lived in Crossroads, the total low-rent section of town. They weren’t likely to find anything cheaper unless they moved way out into the sticks. Great. Then he’d never see David. He wouldn’t be able to get to work, either. He might have to change schools.
    Then he wouldn’t even have Emma’s smile to get him through the days.
    Jonathan turned up the volume on his cheap MP3 player so that music overpowered the depressing voice in his head. Cars raced by. He felt the wind of their passing but couldn’t hear them. He didn’t want to hear anything but feral singing and brutal guitars: a soundtrack for his anger.
    He walked through the intersection of Crossroads Boulevard and Periwinkle Street. Five blocks down on the right was his school, a nest for idiotslike Toby Skabich and Ox and Cade. Burn it down , he thought. Break it apart with an earthquake and grind the rubble under with bulldozers. He didn’t know of whom he made this request. It didn’t matter. Nothing would change. The school would be there tomorrow and the next day and the next. It was like a temple to evil. Even if it fell, the world was full of them.
    And evil tastes like candy. Everyone wants a lick.
    Twenty minutes later, Jonathan stepped onto the brightly lit sidewalk of the Northside Mall. It wasn’t one of those big multi-layered malls like they had in Bellevue or Seattle, subterranean bunkers for the generals of retail. It was flat and quaint with covered walkways lined with shrubs. The mall had a DVD rental shop, a bunch of clothing stores he could never afford, an ice cream parlor where a single scoop cost three-fifty, and a coffee shop, Perky’s, the upstanding suburban equivalent of a crack house.
    Jonathan peered through the window of Perky’s, knowing he didn’t have enough change in his pockets for even a small coffee, and he wasn’t touching his college-escape money for such aminor pleasure. If he wanted some bean, he’d have to buy it at the Super Stop convenience store down the street.
    Inside, Emma O’Neil sat at a table with three other girls. They were in the middle of a really serious conversation, probably about Mr. Weaver. Jonathan imagined walking in and having Emma call him over to the table, but the thought made him suddenly angry.
    Why am I wasting my time? She hardly knows I exist. I’m like an extra on a CW drama, and she’s the star, and no way are they calling me back for a second episode. It’s a stupid crush. Pointless. God, why can’t I obsess on a teen pop diva or something? That way, I wouldn’t have to see her every day, in the flesh, in the now, in the ridiculous fantasy my stupid head keeps building.
    He grew angrier with himself. He couldn’t be angry with Emma. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She wasn’t mean to him. It wasn’t her fault she was perfect and Jonathan was