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sayin’.” She continued through the crowd to the center of the room, where I was beginning to suspect a trap. “Anyway, some guys think it’s cool that you know how to use a gun. It’s very Bond girl.”
    I stopped. Suspicion confirmed. “Is that Liam over there, also admiring your work?” It was a rhetorical question—Liam was hard to miss. He was like a man among boys, at least in stature. His face was different, though—somehow fresh, innocent, clear. Like all the extra light in the room found its way to him, and to his light-brown, sun-bleached hair hanging over those big, bright eyes.
    Regardless of the light, I didn’t like entrapment. I felt my fuse ignite—my highly flammable, dangerously short fuse.
    “What? He likes good art.” She stopped to face me with puppy-dog eyes and a guilty conscience. “Rue! He likes you, all right? He asked me to set this up. He feels like you’re unapproachable. Sort of the story of your life!” She reached out to grab me by the shoulders, and I quickly deflected both hands. She knew better. After all, that’s how we met. In fourth grade, when she moved to Huntington Beach from Hawaii, I found her in the corner crying while a couple of fifth-grade girls made fun of her tattered shorts and old flip-flops. I couldn’t help myself—I had to tell the girls where to go. And when one girl tried to push me into the corner with Alana, I broke the girl’s nose. Alana and I had been best friends from then on, and she’d seen my quick reflexes get me in trouble a few times since.
    “I’m kind of going through something right now, OK?” I said under my breath so half the student body didn’t witness the public confrontation. Extra would just love to interview Big-Mouth Taylor over there, who never stopped staring at the bleeding, withering Ruby Rose, now having a tiff with her best friend. Oh, how Taylor loved competing for the limelight and gaining the upper hand. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was behind the whole LeMarq incident just to ruin me. “I’m begging you, Alana, I just need some space right now.”
    “Liam wants to be your friend, Rubik’s Cube. It’s not like he’s asking you to marry him,” she argued, not under her breath. I could feel the crowd start to take notice. Deep down I knew she was only trying to help me. Under different circumstances I wouldn’t have minded her matchmaking efforts.
    “I don’t need any more friends right now,” I countered. “Not ones that don’t understand boundaries, anyway.” I clenched my jaw and stormed off.
    Alana never stopped. It wasn’t that I didn’t still feel wildly drawn to Liam. It was that there was no room in my life for distractions.
    “If you’re not careful, you might not have any friends left !” she yelled after me as I disappeared behind a papier-mâché bust of a deformed alien. I almost reached out and punched that stupid warped head for staring at me like I was the weird one.
    I wandered aimlessly until I found myself in the least populated corner of the cafeteria and slumped against the wall. The sticky linoleum floor was full of dust bunnies, long-lost Cheetos fragments, and other unsanitary droppings I tried to block out.
    I concentrated on my shoes instead—a useful strategy I busted out from time to time. Oh, how I loved the strappy, black-leather Calvin Klein wedge heels hugging my feet. Classics. Always loyal, always kind. These little beauties would never surprise-attack me in the middle of school, would never care more about their careers than my happiness, would never die and abandon me to a life full of more questions than answers. Wait. A scu f f ?
    “Damn it,” I mumbled. I tried to wipe it clean with my thumb and a little spit. But it did no good. I’d have to wait until I got home and found my Kicks Kleaner.
    Just great. Here I was, stuck in the proverbial corner of life—and not just because of the ever-sticky linoleum I was sitting on. Now I didn’t even