“Hey! You’re smiling. Kind of like an idiot.” She poked Sawyer in the ribs and grinned. “Anything I should know about?”

Sawyer shook her head, feeling her soft brown hair tumble over her shoulders. “Nope. I’m just feeling pretty decent today.”

“Good to know.”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Rose strode through the door, hands up as though he were conducting the students’ conversations. “Tone it down now. I suspect you all have been looking over—and loving—our new set list.” He shuffled some papers. “We’re going to start today with the third number first so we can work on everyone’s solos.” His eyes flashed to Sawyer’s and she gulped, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, crap. I forgot my sheet music,” she murmured.

“Huh?” Chloe asked.

“My sheet music.” Sawyer’s hand shot into the air. “Um, Mr. Rose? Can I run to my locker for just a sec? I left my sheet music in there.”

Mr. Rose sat down at the piano and nodded, waving absently toward the door. “Hurry.”

Maggie rolled her eyes as Sawyer shimmied past. “And the whole world waits for Sawyer Dodd,” she muttered just loud enough for Sawyer to hear.

Sawyer pushed into the deserted hallway and, head down, beelined toward her locker. She looked up just in time to avoid a collision with Cooper.

“Oh, hey.” He flushed a blotchy red from exposed neck to forehead and then broke into an uncertain grin.

Sawyer looked from Cooper to her locker—less than three paces away—and back to Cooper again. “What are you doing out here?”

He waved a pink hall pass. “Bathroom break.”

Sawyer bit her lip and pointed over Cooper’s right shoulder. “The boys’ room is in corridor C.”

Cooper’s smile looked uncomfortable, forced. “I thought I’d take the long way. Trig is killing me.”

Sawyer cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “The very long way.”

“What are you doing out here in the middle of class? I mean, besides general interrogation.” Cooper’s voice was light, amused, but there was an edge to it that made Sawyer feel uncomfortable.

“Forgot something in my locker,” she said.

“Oh, your locker is in this corridor?”

Sawyer nodded, unease traveling the length of her spine. “All the junior lockers are.”

“Right. We were all kind of mixed up at my old school.” Cooper dangled the hall pass again. “Well, I should be getting back to class. Someone’s going to catch on that it doesn’t take this long to pee.”

Sawyer said nothing while Cooper hurried past her down the hall. He headed away from corridor C, away from the bank of math classrooms behind them. When she finally turned to her locker, Sawyer spun the lock, feeling a weird sense of calm and dread. If there is a note, Cooper is suspect number one, she told herself.

She immediately thought of their conversations, of the delicious heat that crept through her when his lips were on hers. She thought of the softness in his eyes and felt herself slump. “God, I’m freaking paranoid.”

Cooper would never do anything to hurt me. He—she paused in mid-thought, about to utter the word “loves.” He likes me, she corrected herself.

Even people who like—or love—you can hurt you, her conscience warned her. Sawyer ignored it.

“Prank,” she muttered out loud, as if trying to convince herself. “Stupid prank.”

But there was nothing amiss in her locker, and her sheet music, her track clothes, and her photos were exactly as she had left them. She slammed the metal door, her heart thumping in a way she could barely remember—normally.

She whistled the chorus of her new solo as she skipped back to class.

* * *

“So, I figure I’ll head home and change, and then drive over around five. Sound okay?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I say we do an all-night bad-movie chocolate fest. If I get through chem today, I’m totally going to need it.” Sawyer turned to head to her locker when Chloe laid a soft hand on her forearm.

“Hey, Sawyer”—she licked her lips—“I’m really glad you’re—you’re feeling better.”

Sawyer felt a lump grow in her throat, but this time, it didn’t have the sharp pang of despair that she was now so used to. Instead, she smiled—genuinely—and pulled her best friend into a hug. “Me too. And you too.”

Chloe pulled back, confusion flitting across her face. Sawyer cocked her head, gently brushing her fingertips over Chloe’s forehead, over the still-healing cut above her best friend’s eye.

“Oh, right.”

“Hey, Chloe, speaking of that. Did you—did you ever go to the police?”

Chloe shook her head. “I told you—my mom would kill me. Besides”—she wrinkled her nose—“Ryan was able to get the car towed without anyone being the wiser. His dad owns that garage out on Forest, you know.”

Sawyer nodded. “But someone attacked you, that’s pretty—”

Chloe put her hands on Sawyer’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “It’s over, Sawyer. No big deal.”

Sawyer wished she had an ounce of her best friend’s bravery. Maybe then she wouldn’t nearly jump out of her skin every fifteen minutes or scrutinize cute guys who were just trying to be nice to her.

“I worry about you, Chloe.”

Chloe began to annunciate. “No. Big. Deal. Car is fine.” She pointed to her forehead. “Noggin made of stone or some such other hard material.”

Sawyer laughed. “I guess. And hey, I guess with the car at Ryan’s dad’s, you two got to spend some extra time together, huh?”

Chloe’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and a sly smile formed on her lips. “A lady never tells…”

“Which is why you should be spilling everything.”

“Nothing to tell, S. Don’t you think I would have given you every sordid detail by now if there was?” She winked. “Best friends don’t keep secrets.”

Sawyer felt her smile falter, just for a second. “Yeah. You’re totally right.”

“All right, gotta run. See you later, sweet cheeks.” Chloe skipped through the double glass doors on her way to P.E. while Sawyer spun her locker combo and yanked out her chemistry book.

“You!”

Maggie’s voice cut through the din of students in the hall.

“What’s Maggie going on about now?” Sawyer murmured to herself.

“I’m talking to you!”

Sawyer felt a bony finger jabbing below her shoulder blade. She gripped the sides of her locker and breathed in what was supposed to be a calming breath. Maggie poked her again.

Sawyer spun around, eyes in mid-roll. “What do you—” Sawyer stopped when she saw the note clenched in Maggie’s hand. It was the same pale-green paper, the same size and shape, and judging by the fury in Maggie’s eyes and the flush on her cheeks, Maggie had read it.

“Where did you get that?”

“You shoved it in my locker, you bitch!”

Before Sawyer had a chance to process what Maggie had said, she felt Maggie’s palms against her chest, giving her a hard shove that landed her against the cold metal of her locker. Her lock stung the back of her neck, and Sawyer winced.

“You think I’m a whore?” Maggie continued without missing a beat, waving the note in Sawyer’s face. “You think I’m a slut? Kevin only left me for you because he heard you were easy. He heard you were blowing half the guys from here to your stupid new housing tract.”

Maggie’s face was inches from Sawyer’s, and her voice had reached a frenzied pitch. Her eyes were wild, her nostrils flared, and that was what Sawyer was focused on when Maggie hit her.

The slap was clean and stinging against her cheek, and for the second time in her life, Sawyer felt cornered, threatened. Her eyes watered, and she pressed herself against the cold metal lockers.

“You don’t know the first thing about me and Kevin!” Maggie spat. “He cheated on you with me!”

A tiny bubble of anger percolated low in Sawyer’s stomach. She stopped listening as Maggie went to slap her again. She grabbed Maggie’s wrist, feeling the heat roiling into a full fire in her gut. No one was going to hit her again, not ever.

“Don’t you touch me,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t send me those damn notes,” Maggie screamed back. When her other hand came up against Sawyer’s head Sawyer grabbed that too, and gave Maggie a hard shove. Maggie stumbled over her own feet, over the group of kids who had ringed them to watch, and fell hard on her butt on the linoleum. The note slipped out of her hand, and Sawyer watched its graceful arc as it slid behind Maggie and came to rest against the bank of lockers.

Maggie’s fury was palpable. “You bitch!”

“What’s going on here?”

Principal Chappie’s baritone voice made the kids scatter like marbles until only Sawyer and Maggie were left, Sawyer pressed against her locker, Maggie looking like a wounded dove on the floor. Sawyer watched Maggie’s chest pulse as she blinked hard until huge mascara-colored crocodile tears slid over her cheeks. “Sawyer attacked me! She pushed me down!”

“No, I didn’t,” Sawyer protested. “She came after me!” She stepped closer to Principal Chappie and Maggie stayed put, throwing an arm over her forehead as through she feared a blow from Sawyer.

“Oh, get up!” Sawyer barked at her. “You know what happened. You fell over your damn self trying to hit me. Tell him!”

Maggie blinked innocent, doe-like eyes. “I don’t know what happened. I was walking down the hall and Sawyer threw herself on me like some kind of animal.”

“No, I didn’t! And you spray-painted my locker and tore up my clothes!”

Maggie’s poor-girl façade didn’t crack. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Principal Chappie. She’s crazy. She sent me a threatening note. I’m just…” She sniffed, and Sawyer watched Maggie’s small shoulders shiver, her face crumble under another torrent of tears.