Read Rule of Thirds, The for Free Online Page A

what’s a Code Yellow?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    He raises his eyebrows. “As in . . . really?”
    “Number one. The tissues were to block the smell.” We move into the checkout line.
    “Interesting tactic. Did it work?”
    “Kind of. But the embarrassment factor might be worse than smelling someone else’s urine.”
    “Just be glad it wasn’t a Code Brown.”
    “Code Br—” I shake my head. “No way. Is there such a thing?”
    He shrugs. “Guess you’ll find out.” He looks me up and down. “Cute uniform.”
    “Hey Dyl.” Dylan turns and I follow his gaze to the cashier, who’s looking over at us. Let’s be real. She’s not looking at me at all. She’s totally focused on Dylan. Dyl, actually. DYL? Why is she calling him DYL? Ugh.
    “Oh hey Callie,” he says, giving her a little punch on the arm.
    Greaaaaaaat. He knows her name. And she gets skin-to-skin touching.
    I study her, as she flips her long black hair over her shoulder. Even though she’s wearing a green apron she has on a low-cut white tank, and her perky boobs and tiny waist just kind of announce themselves. It’s like, Hi! Here we are!
    Why can’t I look like that in my uniform?
    “How are you?” she asks Dyl, putting her hand on his.
    Dylan looks at me and then back at her. “Great, thanks,” he says. “Just great. Grabbing a drink.”
    “The usual?” she says, as he puts a bottle of cranberry juice on the counter. He has a usual and she knows what it is?
    I open my mouth to say something—anything—but no sound comes out. I try again but end up making a weird half-cough noise.
    “Oops, sorry. You go ahead of me. You’ve got a lot of drinks to deliver, and I don’t want to hold you up,” he says.
    Ugh. Why did I have to buy so many drinks? I try to do a nice thing and it totally backfires on my love life. “Oh, that’s OK. You’re not holding me up.”
    “Well you’re kinda holding the line up,” Callie interjects, giving me one of those annoyed, fake smiles, and Dylan laughs, as though she’s made a joke, but she really doesn’t look like she’s kidding. Dylan hands her a five for his cranberry juice.
    “It’s on me, Dyl,” Callie says, refusing to take the bill. “I owe you from Friday night.”
    Friday night?

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 12 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
    “So what do you think about Callie? Do I need to worry?” I ask Dace as I toss my bag in my locker and pull out my books for first period.
    Our lockers are in the main hallway—and it’s no fluke they’re side by side. It took three days and seven chocolate bars to get Hanif Jaffer to trade me lockers. Hanif’s a sophomore, and he loves Dace. But not more than he loves Kit Kats.
    “Cafeteria Callie,” Dace says sympathetically, clucking her tongue. She grabs a tube of Kiehl’s lipgloss from the organizer on the top shelf of her locker and stuffs it in her pocket. “Gorgeous black hair? Curvy in all the right places? Good nail beds?”
    “Yes, yes and really? I hadn’t noticed.”
    Dace shrugs. “I always notice nice nails.” She inspects her own for a moment, then snaps her fingers. “Callie Garcia. You know Breanne with the glasses, on the basketball team? Callie’s her older sister. She graduated the year before we started. Yeah, she’s hot.”
    “That really makes me feel better.”
    “Who cares if she’s hot? He has good taste. And you know he’s not gay.”
    “Part of me would rather he was gay than straight and not like me.”
    “That’s ridiculous. As long as he likes girls, you have a chance. And who cares if she’s his girlfriend? That’s nothing that can’t be changed.”
    “Oh no. Remember the rule about stealing boyfriends?”
    THE RULE ABOUT STEALING BOYFRIENDS
Don’t.
    “That’s your rule, not mine,” Dace says, fixing her hair in her locker mirror. “And anyway, this isn’t at all like last time.”
    Oh, the last time. Thanks for bringing that up, Dace. So my only (sort of) real boyfriend so