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befriending me, but it sure as hell felt like I was the one jumping off a cliff.
    “There’s a party at Steve’s next weekend,” he said slowly. “Would you like to go?”
    I looked at him, wondering whom he thought he was talking to. Now, I was almost positive the flower had been a joke. He wanted me to go to a party full of people that would rather trip me than talk to me and treat me like a normal human being? He wanted me to go to a party that I wasn’t even invited to with people that I couldn’t stand.
    “Are you serious?”
    “Very.”
    “Why?”
    “Are you going to stop asking me that question anytime soon?”
    “Are you going to stop giving me cause to?”
    He sighed, exasperated once again. “So that I can get to know you, and so that we can hang out a little.”
    “You want to get to know me at a crowded party with people that, as a rule of high school hierarchy, don’t like me?”
    “It’s not like that.”
    “Really.” I eyed him. “So everyone isn’t going to look at me like they do when I’m here and say the exact same things they do while we’re here, right? Things are going to magically change because we’re not at school anymore?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe.”
    “You’re not stupid, Evan,” I said, my voice quiet. The door opened, and his head immediately snapped in that direction, and I clenched my jaw. “So stop thinking the best of your friends because different scenery won’t change the things they say to me or how they treat me.”
    He looked at me, shifting uncomfortably and fidgeting as Brittany walked into the classroom.
    “Hi, Ev!” Brittany squealed, prancing over to him and leaning against the edge of our lab table. “You know, I was thinking that maybe we should go out tonight.”
    She popped her gum, flipped her sleek blond hair over her shoulder, and giggled in a way that reminded me of an over-excited chipmunk. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, leaning an elbow on the table and resting my chin in my hand. I stared out the window, disappointed at how quickly I seemed to disappear from his radar.
    He didn’t want us to be seen talking, that much was obvious, but he wanted to get to know me somehow. This whole thing only solidified my thoughts about the orchid being a complete joke. I didn’t understand why he would invite me to a party to “get to know me” but couldn’t seem to bring himself to let the same people that were throwing the party see us talking at school.
    I listened to Brittany and Evan flirt with each other, my heart sinking further in my chest when I realized that no matter how many times I told myself that I didn’t like him anymore, I still did. I was as stupid as the rest of the girls in this high school, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it.
    I didn’t notice when my other classmates started piling into the room, barely listened when Mr. Streeter called us to attention, and definitely didn’t look at Evan the entire forty-five minutes that I had to be there. When the bell rang, I realized I had no idea what went on, and didn’t know what we had to do for homework. I mechanically got up from my stool and gathered my books. Staring straight ahead, I walked out of the classroom and into the hallway.
    At lunch I sat with Christina and Vince. I’d been sitting with them practically since kindergarten. They both had study hall first thing in the morning and had taken the option to have their parents write notes to get them out of it. We barely saw each other in the halls before lunch. They didn’t know about the orchid—at least, they didn’t mention anything to me if they did—and I wasn’t ready to tell them the whole story just yet. I needed more time to work it out on my own before I brought my friends into it.
    Plus, pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary almost made me forget that the opposite was true.
    Dad was home when I got there, and I automatically made dinner for us. He wasn’t a very good