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worries for anyone.
    Those boys and their father were the only ones that would miss her.
    She could run far away and change her hair and put contacts in her eyes, get piercings up her ears and whisper over a lace-covered table, staring into crystal balls and reading tarot cards, telling real truths and tragedies that only the believers would heed. She could be real and not-real all at once, someone else in the world with a different name and no background because that always drew the people in.
    They didn’t want someone real.
    They wanted illusions.
    Sandra wanted an illusion.
    She stared up at the junior high and slowly walked over to the side-section that would hide her from the arriving students but let her keep an eye on the road. The overhanging roof kept the rising sun out of her face and she slung her backpack off to the wall’s edge, pulled her legs in close, twined her arms around them and fitted her fingers tight. Her worn sneakers trailed over into the rustling grass, the blades curling up around the toes until the hole there was covered. The sky past the roof was light blue, white only here and there, and Sandra tried very hard not to touch her arm where the bruise was blooming up angry blue and purple.
    She’d have to be careful.
    She wasn’t used to hiding these things. She wouldn’t be like Jimmy Mason who continuously fingered the bruises under his shirt until everyone knew it couldn’t be anything else. Jack and Daniel couldn’t know. They could never find out.
    She could only guess at what they’d do.
    Several cars and trucks pulled to a stop in front of the high school across the street, a few junior-highers who had been lucky to bum rides from older siblings piling out. Most of them hurried inside where the air conditioner was working strong. A few headed to the opposite corner where they could smoke without the teachers knowing. The high school kids across the street didn’t even have to pretend, loitering by their cars and the sidewalk and the front yard. Sandra wasn’t sure if the junior high teachers would care either, if it wasn’t for appearance’s sake.
    Some more cars, stopping and dropping kids off, students on foot, and then the bus rumbled up, dropped off its fifteen students before turning into the back parking lot where it stayed parked during school hours, next to the principal’s and the teachers’ slowly rusting cars.
    Then, Lem’s black truck.
    She couldn’t see his face. But Jack and Daniel didn’t look too thrilled when they climbed down. Daniel was already looking for her. Sandra didn’t get up. She saw them say something to Lem, and then to each other, and with another few looks around, Daniel crossed the street, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. His shirt was worn and faded green, molding to his shoulders and back.
    Jack headed slowly for the front door, scowling more than usual, red shirt looking too bright and Sandra looked away. When she looked back, he was gone.
    She waited for the first bell before going inside.
    Sandra avoided her locker, stayed late in each class and ate her lunch in a different hallway than usual.
    She just wanted to be alone. She didn’t see Jack until after school ended. And that was only because Daniel already stood by his lonesome at the curb when she got out the door, and Sandra couldn’t exactly just walk on by without him knowing something was wrong. The sun at her back pressed her on and it was hard to stop and stand still. The change in temperature between the air-conditioned chill inside and the hot-bright air outside was enough to dampen her back.
    Not because of nerves, she told herself.
    She had to play this cool.
    “Hey,” Daniel said quietly, hand reaching for her and stopping halfway, falling back to his side with a tightening of cool gray eyes. Sandra quirked her lips, bottom one feeling chaffed from worrying it. She raised one brow as he stared at her hard.
    He couldn’t know. He couldn ’t . It