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nothing. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Life just worked out that way.
    Jonathan looked away from her. The next face he saw made him feel no better.
    Toby Skabich sat at a small table on the left with Tia Graves. Naturally, she was beautiful in the most predictable of ways, and a cheerleader. They held hands around their massive coffee mugs. Tia was all dreamy eyed, and Toby just kept talking. The perfect teen couple, living the American dream.
    Toby never had to worry about his grades, because no teacher would let a star of the football team fail, plus every girl in the school was willing to do his homework if he just flexed his arms or flashed a smile. The tool already had everything—a nice house, a cool Mustang his dad had given him, the best-looking girl in school—but that wasn’t enough. Toby wanted more and more. He figured he deserved everything and didn’t have to do anything for it.
    Must be nice.
    Unable to deal with any more bad feelings, Jonathan turned away from the window.
    She sat on a bench in front of the ice-cream parlor. A neon sugar cone glowed above her head, casting her face in shadow. But even with the veil of darkness covering her features, Jonathan recognized Kirsty Sabine.
    She wore a long beige trench coat and distressed jeans, nearly white on the thighs. Her head was lowered, chin on her chest, so that her hair draped down either side of her face like frayed curtains.
    Had she been there the whole time? Had he somehow missed her when he walked by the shop?
    The chill on his neck fanned out over his shoulder blades, and he began to seriously shake. A gust of wind raced down the mall, chasing the sensation, adding to it.
    â€œI couldn’t go in either,” Kirsty said, not raising her head. She sat thirty feet away, and her voice came to him like a whisper.
    A bit creeped out, Jonathan smiled nervously and tried to think of an excuse for why he didn’t go into the coffee shop. He didn’t want to sound totally low rent by saying something like, “It’s too expensive,” but he also didn’t want to admit his cowardice over entering territory already claimed by Toby Skabich.
    â€œI was just seeing if some friends were inside,” he said.
    Kirsty nodded her head, a slow movement thatlifted her chin only an inch from her chest before again resting against it.
    â€œI looked in too,” she said. “I didn’t really like anyone I saw.”
    â€œYeah,” Jonathan said. Even though he’d seen Emma, he knew what Kirsty meant.
    Kirsty stood, the shadow on her face growing longer as her slight body eclipsed the purple tubes of the neon ice-cream cone. Her beige coat fell neatly on either side of her body, and she brushed the fabric with her hands, smoothing it further. She took a step toward Jonathan and paused. Kirsty looked over her shoulder, into the ice-cream shop, then down the long walk beside it.
    Jonathan stepped forward to cover the distance between them.
    â€œHey,” he said, as if they’d just walked into each other a second ago.
    â€œHi,” Kirsty said, smiling and quickly looking away.
    Something about her face seemed different tonight, Jonathan thought. Maybe it was the light or lack of it, but her features seemed more finished, seemed almost pretty, something he never would have thought when he saw her in daylight.
    â€œWhat’s up?” he asked, the chill now centered in his stomach. He wasn’t used to talking to girls, and it had to be totally obvious to Kirsty. Knowing this only made him more nervous.
    â€œJust out for a walk.”
    â€œYeah, me too.”
    â€œMy mom’s on one of her let’s-spend-every-minute-together kicks,” Kirsty said. “I couldn’t deal, so I bailed.”
    Jonathan had no idea what it must be like to have a parent insist on spending time with him, but he laughed and nodded his head. “Parents are a pain.”
    â€œTotal water