Some things change. Some things don’t, I guess.

Everybody notices my hair. Of course. I was hoping that they’d notice in a quiet way, a few whispers, some gossip for a couple days, then it’d blow over. But I’m two minutes into first-period French when the teacher makes me take off the hat, and then it’s like a nuclear blast. “So pretty, so pretty,” Miss Colbert keeps saying, an eyelash away from coming right up and stroking my head. I stick with the story that Mom and I came up with earlier about Mom finding an amazing colorist in California this summer and paying some astronomical fee for her to transform me from orange nightmare to strawberry fabulous. Saying all that in high school–level French while pretending I don’t speak the language perfectly is an especially fun part of the morning. I’m ready to go home before nine a.m. Then I duck into AP Calculus, the bell rings, and it’s like the whole fiasco starts all over again. Your hair, your hair, so pretty. Then again, in third period art class, like they could all start drawing me and my amazing hair.

And fourth period, AP Government, is worse. Christian is there.

“Hi again,” he says as I stand in the doorway gawking at him.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. There are only around six hundred students at Jackson Hole High School, so the odds are in favor of us having a class together. Tucker’s supposed to be in this class too, last time I checked.

Where the—heck is Tucker this morning? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Wendy either.

“You going to come in?” Christian asks.

I slide into the seat next to him and rummage around in my bag for my notebook and a pen. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, roll my head from one side to the other to try to release some of the tension in my neck.

“Long day already?” he asks.

“You have no idea.”

Right then, Tucker breezes in.

“I’ve been looking for you all day,” I say as he claims the desk on the other side of me. “Did you just get to school?”

“Yeah. Car trouble,” he says. “We have this old crap car that we use around the ranch, and it wouldn’t start this morning. If you thought my truck was junk, you should see this thing.”

“I never thought Bluebell was junk,” I tell him.

He clears his throat, smiles. “How about that? We’re in a class together, you and I, and I didn’t even have to bribe anybody this year.”

I laugh. “You bribed somebody last year?”

“Not officially,” Tucker admits. “I asked Mrs. Lowell, the lady in the office in charge of scheduling, real nice if she could get me into Brit. History. At the last minute, too, I mean like ten minutes before class started. I’m friends with her daughter, which helped.”

“But why . . . ?”

He laughs. “You’re cute when you’re slow.”

“Because of me? No way. You hated me. I was that yuppie California chick who insulted your truck.”

He grins. I shake my head in bewilderment.

“You’re crazy, you know that.”

“Aw, and here I thought I was being sweet and romantic and stuff.”

“Right. So, you’re friends with Mrs. Lowell’s daughter? What’s her name?” I ask with mock jealousy.

“Allison. She’s a nice girl. She was one of the girls I took to prom last year.”

“Pretty?”

“Well, she’s got red hair. I kind of have a thing for red hair,” he says. I punch him lightly on the arm. “Hey. I kind of have a thing for tough girls, too.”

I laugh again. That’s when I feel the surge of frustration, so strong it wipes the smile right off my face.

Christian.

This kind of thing’s been happening lately. Sometimes, usually when I least expect it, it’s as if I’m allowed access into other people’s heads. Like now, for instance, I can perceive Christian’s presence on the other side of me so keenly that it’s like he’s boring holes into me with his eyes. I don’t get what he’s thinking in words so much as what he feels—he notices how natural it is for me to fall into this easy conversation with Tucker. He wishes that I would joke around with him that way, that we could finally speak to each other, finally connect. He wants to make me laugh like that.

Knowing this, by the way, totally sucks. Mom calls it empathy, says that it’s a rare gift among angel-bloods. Rare gift, ha. I wonder if there’s a return policy.

Tucker looks over my shoulder and seems to notice Christian for the first time.

“How you doing, Chris? Have a nice summer?” he asks.

“Yeah, fantastic,” answers Christian, and his mind suddenly retreats from mine into a wave of forced indifference. “How about you?”

They stare at each other, one of those high-testosterone stares. “Amazing,” Tucker says. There’s a challenge in his voice. “Best summer of my life.”

I wonder if it’s too late to get out of this class.

“Well, that’s the thing about summers, isn’t it?” says Christian after a minute. “They have to end sometime.”

It’s a relief when class is over. But then I have to stand at the doorway of the cafeteria and decide what to do about lunch.

Option A: My usual. Invisibles table. Wendy. Chitchat. Maybe some awkward talk about how I’m dating her twin brother now, and maybe her asking about what exactly happened out there in the woods the day of the fire, which I don’t know how to answer. Still, she’s one of my best friends, and I don’t want to keep avoiding her.

Option B: Angela. Angela likes to eat alone, and people usually give her a lot of space. Maybe, if I sat with her, they would give me a lot of space. But then I’d have to answer Angela’s questions and listen to her theories, which she’s pretty much been bombarding me with for the past few days.

Option C (not really an option): Christian. Standing casually in the corner, deliberately not looking at me. Not expecting anything, not pressuring me, but there. Wanting me to know he’s there. Hopeful.

No way I’m going in that direction.

Then the decision kind of gets made for me. Angela looks up. She tilts her head to indicate the empty seat next to her. When I don’t hop to it, she mouths, “Get over here.”

Bossy.

I go over to her corner and sink into a seat. She’s reading a small, dusty book. She closes it and slides it across the table to me.

“Check this out,” she says.

I read the title. “The Book of Enoch?”

“Yep. A really, really, ridiculously old copy, so watch the pages. They’re delicate. We’re going to need to talk about this ASAP. But first—” She looks up, then calls loudly, “Hey, Christian.”

Oh. My. God. What is she doing?

“Angela, wait a second, don’t—”

She waves him over. This could be bad.

“What’s up?” he says, cool and composed as ever.

“You’re going out to lunch, right?” Angela asks. “You always go out.”

His eyes flicker over to mine. “I was considering it.”

“Right, well, I don’t want to mess up your plans or anything, but I think you and me and Clara should have a meeting after school. At my mom’s theater, the Pink Garter, in town.”

Christian looks confused. “Um, sure. Why?”

“Let’s just call it a new club I’m starting,” says Angela. “The Angel Club.”

He glances at me again, and yep, there’s betrayal in his green eyes, because obviously I’ve gone and blabbed his biggest secret to Angela. I want to explain to him that Angela is like a bloodhound when it comes to secrets, virtually impossible to get anything by her, but it doesn’t matter. She knows. He knows she knows. Damage is done. I glare at Angela.

“She’s one too,” I say simply, mostly because I know Angela wanted to spring it on him herself, and it makes me feel better to ruin her plans. “And she’s crazy, obviously.”

Christian nods, like this revelation comes as no surprise.

“But you’re going to be there, at the Pink Garter,” he says to me.