She wasn’t best friend material, but I was getting used to having her around.

“You won’t believe what Pepper Laird just said to me,” I said. Lydia was quiet for a second. I waited for her to say something sympathetic.

“Ugh,” she said. A fair start. As I drew in a breath to elaborate, Lydia widened her eyes. “Sabrina Woodburn dyed her hair black. Who does she think she is, Morticia Addams? She’s in marching band… What a wannabe.”

“Weren’t you in Glee Club until the middle of last year?” I asked.

Lydia sputtered. “That’s totally different.”

“Sure,” I said. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Now, see, if somebody talked to me that way, I would tell them exactly where they could put their opinion, and then I would assume the friendship was over. But Lydia just pouted and looped her arm through mine.

We started walking toward homeroom together. As we passed a group of cheerleaders, Lydia stuck her tongue out at them and clicked her tongue piercing against her teeth.

They drew back in a scandalized herd. “Oh, that is so mature,” one girl said.

As we kept walking, the crowd seemed to thin a little. I spotted Megan Wiley leaning up against a locker, talking seriously to a girl in a pink cowboy hat who was crying so hard her mascara ran down her cheeks. The girl was Emily Rosen. I had Spanish with her. She was nice.

I planned to drag Lydia right past without stopping, but she saw the tears and came to a screeching halt. “Heeey, Em!” she called.

“What are you doing?” I asked under my breath, as both Megan and Emily looked at us.

“I hear you had a big night with Rory Henderson,” Lydia said sweetly. “Gonna have to give that promise ring back to your daddy, huh?”

Emily’s face froze for a moment, and then she was bawling again. I clamped a hand on Lydia’s arm as Megan shot a dirty look in our direction.

The only thing that saved us was the swaggering arrival of Rory Henderson himself. Rory’s only popular because his dad is a rich lawyer and his mom used to be the weather girl on channel twelve. He’s not really good-looking, and his entourage is made up of goons who laugh at everything he says, even though none of it is funny.

“Hi, Rory, you big stud!” Lydia cooed, and he gave her a half-second of a smile. She dissolved into giggles. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Megan glaring.

“God, Lydia, you’re so obnoxious!” I hissed.

Lydia laughed her I-don’t-care-about-anything laugh. “I know, right?”

“You didn’t have to say that to Emily.” Emily was genuinely sweet, the kind of girl who would offer you her notes if you were absent.

“She deserves it,” Lydia said, all la-di-da. “Look, she’s buddy-buddy with Wiley.”

I turned to look back at Emily and Megan, but the first thing I saw was Rory.

He stood motionless, staring across the hall at something; a second later, I realized it was Megan he was staring at, only it was really the other way around. She was staring at him, and from the look of things, he wasn’t all that wild about it. His ruddy cheeks paled, and he cast a nervous look at the kids around him.

“I don’t know, Rory,” Megan said. Her voice was low, but it carried perfectly. Everyone within twenty feet was watching and listening. “It seems really unlikely that any of what you said is true. I mean, considering what Jessica told us after prom last year…? About things going…downhill?”

Jessica Xiong, an eleventh grader on the varsity squad, smiled brightly and waved.

Then, in unison, the cheerleaders laughed their tinkly little laughs, which made everyone else laugh too.

Huge rosy patches flooded Rory’s face. He ducked his head and practically ran off down the hall, his crew following in disgrace.

Lydia dragged me away. “Oh my God, you should hear what he’s telling everyone she did last night. It’s nasty….I’m sick of cheerleaders. They’re so shrill!”

If there were a shrill contest, the Doom Squad would probably take the gold medal. At least silver. But I didn’t say so to Lydia. She’d just take it as a compliment.

I happen to know that Lydia was not only in Glee Club last year, but she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in eighth grade, and she used to blog under the alias BRDWYDIVA about all the Broadway shows she wanted to see and all the actors she wanted to meet. Then whoosh, she changed pretty much overnight into the spider-veiled Princess of Doom.

That’s the pathetic thing about high school. Everyone tries so hard to be something they aren’t. It’s gotten so I don’t know who I am, so how can I even try to be who I am, much less someone I’m not?

My problem is that I don’t even fit in with the misfits.

I don’t fit in anywhere.

So there I was, walking next to Lydia, who was waving her arms around and telling a story way more dramatically than she needed to, when a door opened right into my forehead and knocked me down.

Just like that. And when I say down, I mean, like, down for the count. I landed on my butt, which I suppose is better than landing on the back of one’s skull, if one has to choose—but it still sucked.

I sat there for a second, thinking I was all alone in a very dark room that smelled like pennies, and then I started to hear voices all around me, and my vision came back.

Lydia crouched to my left, staring at me, and on the right a teacher was trying his best to take charge of the situation, and in front of me was a guy with blond hair and glasses.

My first thought was: he’s really cute. His curly blond hair, his big, worried, blue eyes.

My second thought was: wait, I know that curly hair and those big blue eyes.

I closed my eyes again, and my head started to hurt.

The teacher, a tweed-clad staple of the history department, took hold of my hand and patted it a few times. “Try to stay awake…you could have a concussion.”

Not like closing your eyes helps the pain anyway. I opened them without complaint.

He was still there, looking at me. I don’t mean the history teacher. I mean him.

Carter Blume.

“Do you know your name?” the teacher asked.

Okay, I understand that it’s standard first-aid procedure to ask this question, but if you do happen to know your name, it’s really annoying to be asked. I nodded and started to answer.

“Her name is Alexis!” Lydia shrieked helpfully. “Oh my God, Alexis, are you okay?”

I squinted. “I’m fine.” Her shouting was making my headache worse.

“Alexis Warren,” Carter said.

I stared at him, and after a second he smiled.

“I’m the guilty door-opener,” he said. “Very sorry.” He stuck his hand out, and it didn’t occur to me right away that he actually wanted me to shake it, like we were a pair of old men or something. I just looked blankly at his hand until he laughed and pulled it back.

Lydia tried to haul me to my feet. The teacher helped her, and Carter hovered behind them.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Lydia spat at him. “Why don’t you go back to the Young Republicans?”

He ignored her.

“I am so sorry,” he said, looking into my eyes.

Careful, Alexis. I looked away. Not that there was any danger of me actually liking someone like Carter. I mean, so what if his eyes were really sparkly? And who cared if his blond curls looked as soft as a baby’s hair?

He was not my type. In fact, I didn’t have a type. Not that I was looking to date college guys, but I’d always operated under the assumption that my Prince Charming wasn’t among the available choices at Surrey High.

I realized I’d been kind of staring at him, but thankfully the late bell rang, interrupting the moment.

“You should go to the clinic,” the teacher said. “Check in with the nurse.”

“Can I come too?” Lydia asked frantically. “I’m her best friend.”