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enough about Seth Hardy personally to have a specifi c opinion on him.” She digs her black nails into her arms. “But that’s not the point— you like him, right?”
    I pull my chin in under my turtleneck. “He’s okay.”
    Christine’s eyes roll back in her skull. “God, Freya, don’t you trust me at all? I just thought you might want to talk about it because it’s not like you have many other people to talk to around here yet but, okay, you’re all right.” She throws a helping of exasperation on the words “all right” before adding, “You don’t need to talk.”
    “Christine!” I erupt in frustration. The two lanky fresh-man guys in front of us turn at the sound of my voice and then quickly look away. My cheeks are warm as I bend my head and whisper, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it’s not about trusting you and that I’m just a private person?
    “Okay, I sit with you and Derrick at lunch but I’ve known you, like, a week,” I continue as we hurtle up the hall. “And you’re not exactly a warm and fuzzy person, you know. I don’t necessarily want to spill about what did or didn’t happen just to have you crap on it.”
    Even as I’m saying it— angry that Christine doesn’t feel like she can talk about things going on in her own life but expects me to blab about my own— I only feel half in the moment and half like I’m looking at myself from a distance, surprised that I care enough to react this way.
    Christine hasn’t looked at me once since I began my rant but when I fall silent she sneaks a peek and I imagine that I see a hint of red in her cheeks bleed through the pale makeup. “I wasn’t going to crap on anything,” she says. Her voice gets smaller as she goes on. “Really … but I get it. I get why you don’t want to say anything. I mean, I never really tell anyone anything either.”
    “What about Derrick?”
    “Some things,” she says, her gaze fi xed stubbornly on the sea of moving bodies ahead of us. “Some things I just don’t tell anyone.”
    I think about her mom being in the hospital last week and the other new wavers she never talks to and I feel bad for the two of us believing we have to keep our secrets to ourselves. Still, that feeling isn’t enough to change my mind about confi ding in her on the most important things— the crazy things inside my head.
    I sigh into my palm and say, “To tell you the truth, the party felt kind of weird. I just wasn’t on the same wavelength with most of the people there.” I fi gure I’m safe to admit that much to Christine, who wouldn’t have felt in tune with Corey’s party either. Because she’s still staring at me, her face returning to its earlier state of paler than pale, I add, “I actually left early, without telling Seth. I bummed a ride home from two girls and haven’t spoken to him since. He’s probably mad.”
    Christine smoothes her lips together like someone who’s just applied lip gloss. “He probably is. But hey, it’s not like he could’ve gotten terminally attached to you this quickly. He’ll get over it.”
    I’m sure he will. I just feel guilty for using him. I’d have been better off staying home and watching Family Ties and music videos, not in danger of hurting anyone’s feelings and not trying to pretend I fi t somewhere that I don’t.
    “If you’re not feeling it, you’re not feeling it,” Christine adds helpfully.
    That could apply to either Seth or the party in general and I say, “You’re right. Thanks.” I wish all my problems could be resolved as easily. It’s on the tip of my tongue to add that Christine can talk to me sometime too, if she wants, but then the second bell goes and we have to rush the rest of the way to math class.
    Seth calls me on Monday night demanding to know why I took off on him on Saturday, never called to explain and didn’t search him out at school today to talk about it either. I guess I let him down three times and I have nothing to