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the side of the truck and smiles the tight bitchy smile she’s known for; Dylan used to do an amazing impression of it.
    “I wish I could say that all of you clean up nicely, but . . .” Michaela and her double both laugh.
    “Bitshhhh,” I slur like an idiot. Michaela laughs again.
    “Don’t try to talk, sweetie. You’ve got a lot of liquor inside you still . . . although it does look like some of it’s in your hair. Oh, and the cough syrup we poured in your beer is probably messing with you a little bit too.”
    Furious, frightened, and more than a little betrayed, I try to take a swing at Michaela, but only manage to painfully connect my fist with the side of the truck. Michaela—and now with the clarity of pain, I can see the second girl is not a double, but Blake’s girlfriend, of course—gets another giggle out of this. I hate them both, but my eyes are so heavy, and if I let them close for a minute . . . just long enough to gather my thoughts . . .
    I wake again, still groggy as hell and now dizzy too. At first I think I’m alone because all I can hear is my own heavy breathing. But there’s a hand wrapped around my ankle, and another slowly sliding up my bare leg. The heavy breathing isn’t mine. It goes along with the owner of those hands. I squirm, trying to shake him off.
    “Don’t be like that, Lennie.” This voice I recognize instantly.
    Walsh Weathers Junior. Otherwise known as W2, which is a nickname his family gave him when he was a baby. They own Weathers Chevrolet, and W2 comes to school in a brand-new pickup truck every month. That explains whose truck bed I’m lying in. The car wash too. Damn.
    W2’s goal of feeling up every girl in our class is well known. Hell, he even brags about it. “The dykes, the fatties, the nerdies, the Jesus-lovin’ super virgins. I want ’em all.”
    It’s gross. And parties full of drunk girls are his main hunting ground.
    I know all of this, but for some reason it hadn’t even crossed my mind that he might try to cross me off his list tonight.
    Because I thought I’d owned that party. I thought that maybe things had finally changed.
    I’m an idiot, that’s for sure.
    Most people would say that right now I’m getting exactly what I deserve. They said the same thing about Dylan when she went missing. That she’d hung out with trash like me and I’d led her to the biker bar where she was last seen. They didn’t know that the big fight we’d had was over me telling her to stay away from there. That the uncs had told me that place was bad news, and if they thought so, then it definitely was. Or maybe if people knew that, they’d blame her more. They would say she’d been looking for trouble. But I knew Dylan better than that. We were both looking for the same thing, and it wasn’t trouble. Despite her big house, beautiful mother, and heroic dead father, what Dyl and I both longed for was escape.
    When she was still missing, I overheard a group of teachers whispering about how she might be “dead or worse.” I don’t know what’s worse than dead. Even now with W2’s hand slithering north of my kneecap, I wouldn’t prefer death. And I’m not going to lie here like I’m dead while he gropes me as if I’m his own personal blow-up doll.
    Filling my lungs, I scream. One of his hands quickly covers my mouth. I wiggle and thrash until he removes it. For an instant I think I’m winning, until W2 squeals. “What the hell, Smith?”
    I look up to see that Smith has W2 in a headlock.
    Smith has come to my rescue. My eternal flame of hope flares to life once more.
    And then Smith . . . laughs.
    Laughs at me, lying there soaking wet and helpless.
    “Not the plan,” he says, releasing W2.
    All hope is fully extinguished as W2 whines, “But I didn’t get to the boobies yet. Come on, bro, ya know I need the boobies for the list.”
    Smith and I were never friends, but he always treated me kindly. He probably knew I had a crush on him. One too many