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table to stop me from tapping my fork against the edge of my plate out of irritation. “I know,” she said. “But you’re just going to have to trust that we know best.”
    I glanced at Priscilla, hoping to convey the can-you-believe-this-crap look on my face, and found that she was hunched over and convulsing with pent-up laughter. Her head was bent so that her hair hid her face, but her shoulders were shaking. I ignored Priscilla and forced a tight smile for my aunt’s benefit.
    “Fine, Meg. If you say so.”
    She squeezed my hand and let go, and then she sighed heavily and told us we could be excused. She got up and began clearing away the dishes. Priscilla got up to help, too, her face red with the effort of not laughing out loud.
    But all I could do was sit there and twist the napkin in my lap and try to figure out what the heck was really going on.
     
    I couldn’t sleep.
    Priscilla and I had set up camp in front of the TV in the living room, and I lay sprawled on top of my twisted blankets, wide awake. The humidity felt like a solid weight pushing down on my body, and I was damp and sticky all over. I grabbed a magazine from the stack on the coffee table and fanned myself, muttering curses under my breath about the heat wave and lack of central AC.  
    But the heat wasn’t the only reason why I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Adrian. I couldn’t help it. Priscilla and Meg and David . . . it was their fault for putting the idea of him and me— together— in my head.
    I turned on my side. Adrian was easily one of the cutest guys in the junior class. All that thick, wavy hair, black as night and super shiny. And his eyes. And those dimples! You could trip and fall into them, and you’d need a very long ladder to climb out. I closed my eyes and pictured the two of us walking into school together, maybe even holding hands. I would give anything to see the look on Katie’s face if that ever happened.  
    I supposed my attraction to him was due, in part, to the fact that we were like each other in a way I wasn’t like anyone else. I’d been the only kid at any of my schools to ever tick the “American Indian” box, but now there was someone else like me. I wanted to know more about Adrian, which meant I’d have to make my move before Katie could sink her catty claws into him and poison him against me.
    Forget what David and Meg said. I was more than old enough to date, and there was nothing they could do to stop me.
    Priscilla coughed once in her sleep and rolled over so that her mop of orange hair covered her face. I watched as she pushed the hair away and then fell into a deep sleep once again. I wished she would wake up so that I could talk to her about Adrian and the very distinct possibility that I might have a crush on him, but no matter how hard I stared at her and yelled Wake Up! in my head, she refused to open her eyes.  
    I groaned out loud in one last-ditch effort to “accidentally” wake her up, which didn’t work, and then I gave up and padded to the kitchen to pour myself a bowl of cereal. I kept the lights off so I wouldn’t wake anyone else, trying to be as quiet as possible as I rummaged through the cupboards and drawers. But the late hour and relative stillness of the house made every sound I made seem loud enough to wake the dead.
    I took my cereal and sneaked out the front door for some fresh air. Unlike many of the newer neighborhoods that had the extra security of street lamps and even a neighborhood watch, ours was older and stood in near-complete darkness. Only the moon and occasional porch light acted as a ward against the things that went bump in the night.
    I sat down on the concrete step, cool and damp with dew, and took slow, methodic bites of my cereal as I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. But my eyes were playing tricks on me, and I kept thinking I was seeing things in the shadows that weren’t really there. It was weird out there in the dark, all by myself. Of