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with an elbow. “Oh sorry, dude, didn’t see you there!”
    I rolled my eyes. “I’m so flattered.” The halls opened up around us as people wandered into classrooms, calling back over their shoulders, giggling, sighing. A gross goth guy pushed a skinny, pale girl up against the cold concrete brick, stealing one last black-lipstick kiss before the bell rang.
    Brian Sorenson turned to scold Chris. “Paige is an eleven, at least!”
    “Thanks,” I said flatly. Sometimes I got tired of putting up with Jake’s friends, but I knew I needed to keep their favor if I wanted to be on homecoming court at all, much less become queen. I kissed Jake goodbye and walked to take my seat. I wasn’t even supposed to be in this class. I had planned to take film appreciation as my elective, but Jake and his boys heard that creative writing was the easiest A and talked me into switching. So I did, reluctantly, only to find that over the summer Lacey had talked Jake into switching out of creative writing to be in class with her — in film appreciation!
    “She was so nervous about taking it alone,” Jake explained after I’d sat through an entire class without him. “She didn’t know how people would react to her, you know, now. She was worried they might make fun of her.”
    “So you ditched me?” I pulled on a strand of my hair, wrapping it around my finger. Over at our usual table, Lacey was laughing and threatening to hit Chris with her cane.
    “Babe,” Jake said, “I knew you’d be fine on your own.” He kissed me on the nose and I gritted my teeth. “You’re such a strong woman, you don’t need me.”
    “But Lacey does?”
    “She would do the same for you or I if our places were switched.”
    “You or me,” I muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    He frowned. “Are you mad? Don’t be mad.”
    “We should have just signed up for film appreciation in the first place. I don’t know why I listened to you.” I had already tried to switch back to film appreciation, but the guidance counselor wouldn’t let me. Apparently, it was a very popular class. As was creative writing, she reminded me. I was lucky to get in at all, she said, but she could always switch me into another elective if I wanted: business math, or ag.
    “Because creative writing is easier,” Jake explained patiently. “That should make you feel better! I’ll be busting my ass while you coast through.”
    “Watching movies,” I said, but dropped it. I already felt like Jake and I were fighting all the time. I didn’t need to add to it.
    And that is why I was now wasting seventh period watching Mrs. Mueller chatter and flirt with the football players when I could have been slouched in the back of film appreciation, napping to the sound track of
Citizen Kane.
    Behind me, Randy whistled. “Now there’s a ten.” The boys around him erupted in laughter as a tall freshman hurried into the classroom. He ignored them, keeping his gaze on the girl he always sat with, as if he were so intent on talking to her that he didn’t even notice the guys hassling him. At the base of his hairline and just before his ears, though, his skin turned slightly pink, giving him away.
    “You wanna come to our kegger, Freshman?” Chris asked loudly, laughing before he even finished the question, as if the idea of the Freshman coming to the kegger was just too, too hilarious.
    Randy drawled lazily, “Dude, he can’t come. He probably has a date with his boyfriend.” More snickers.
    The class was a joke. Every day, Mrs. Mueller fluttered her hands as Randy and the guys did whatever they wanted. According to Nikki, all they’d done so far in film was watch some black-and-white movie where soldiers stabbed people with bayonets, and a bunch of Ku Klux Klan members galloped around on horses. All Nikki could think as she watched it was,
What if a KKK guy rode under a tree with low branches? Wasn’t he worried he’d lose his hood?
Other than that, she said, it was