I draw this man, concentrating so hard my head starts to pound.

This wasn’t the man who gave me the scar, but I know Jackson assumes it is. Truthfully, there were a dozen men I could have pictured here, and that’s only the cops.

Jackson draws a man with blue eyes and a smile, holding out his hand like he wants to help you up or something. He puts a badge on the cop’s chest that says “hero.” He takes my lead and colors the background blue, like the sky, but leaves it completely cloudless, and then colors in a slight yellow-white haze around the man’s body, like he has light behind him. Like he’s glowing.

When we erase the penciled-in line down the middle, you can’t see the exact place where each of our own visions start, and it almost blends together.

We actually finish the project a week early and decide to turn it in on Monday at the risk of looking like total geeks. Actually, that was my idea. I’m too eager to show Mr. Harkins to wait.

Mr. Harkins takes about thirty seconds to look over the canvas, then smiles. “This is fantastic.”

“Really?” I ask, even though I already know. Or at least, I already know what I think, and really, anyone else liking it is just icing.

Really thick, delicious icing.

His approval feels better than I imagined.

We explain the concept to him even though he seemed to get it without any explanations. Then he asks to talk to Jackson alone for a few minutes. I walk back to my seat, glowing with pride and happiness that I helped create something like that. Something beautiful.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jackson is smiling too when he comes back to sit with me.

“Good news,” he whispers. I raise my eyebrows, wondering what he means. “I’m in charge of helping decorate for homecoming, and Mr. Harkins wants me to invite you to join the decorating committee.”

I blink. “Really? He wants me to help?”

He nods. “And since we both finished our projects early, Mr. Harkins said we can go to the theater and work on the decorations during class. And after school, if you want.”

“That sounds awesome!”

“Then come on.”

I grab my books and follow him out of the class and down the hall. We go through the double doors that were once my escape from the rumors and prying eyes, down the stairs, and all the way behind the stage.

“So who’s in this committee?”

“Me and you.”

I stop. “What?”

He laughs. “Homecoming is in the gym, so there’s only so much you can do to make it look good with our budget and, well, people kind of give up on it. The prom committee is like the entire senior class.”

“I thought homecoming week was like huge here.”

“It is, but the dance isn’t a real priority. The pep rally, which I’m not really into, will have more people helping.”

“So…me and you are going to decorate the room for the homecoming dance all by ourselves?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oookay.”

“So first, we need to come up with a theme,” he says.

“Are you serious? I…wouldn’t even know where to start.”

He pulls something out from behind a big plywood set. It’s a folder labeled Homecoming. “Earlier this year we asked students to put in ideas for the theme, and we got a few answers. So we at least have a starting point. I took out the ridiculous ones, and here are some I think we could probably do. Las Vegas. Secret Garden. Under the Sea. City of Light. Wild Wild West.”

“What’s ‘City Of Light’?”

“Paris is known as the city of light, so it would be Paris themed.”

I take a few moments to think. We’re under a small budget; that’s the biggest problem. We can’t make a gym look that great without a huge makeover, which we can’t do.

“I like City Of Light,” I say. Paris is okay, whatever. It’s the light part that I’m into.

“Okay, what are you thinking?”

“White Christmas lights. We can get them cheap, even borrow them. I bet my family has enough to cover the gym. My dad freaks out about decorating for Christmas.”

“Covering the gym with strings of light?” He stares at me for a second, then he beams with excitement. “We could actually make it look good this year.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“I like it. So if we’re doing that theme, we should have a sign or something with the Eiffel Tower, too. Think we can draw or make a big Eiffel Tower or something?”

I shrug.

“We’ll need two big signs, I think, one a welcome sign for when you walk into the school that says Welcome to the City of Light, and the other a poster of the Eiffel Tower. With the lights, the gym won’t really need anything else.”

“Sure,” I say. I’m glad I was able to suggest the lights, because I feel a bit oblivious about everything else.

“I’ll talk to Mr. Harkins after school to get his okay on it all, then we can figure out exactly how to do it.”

“One more thing,” I say. “We’ll need more help, don’t you think?”

He blinks. “Who?”

“Think Jen and Alex will be down?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jen agrees eagerly when we ask her to help us decorate for homecoming. Alex is harder to convince.

“That’s seriously lame,” she says.

“It’ll be fun!”

Alex shakes her head. “No way.”

“You know, we’ll probably need to work during school,” Jackson says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I can get you out of some of your classes.”

She pauses, her hot dog midway to her open mouth. “Even French?”

Jackson smiles. “It’s Paris themed. I might be able to get you extra credit for skipping French.”

Alex sighs. “Fine.” Then she smirks and I smile. How could she say no to that?

“Yes!” I say.

But after lunch, apparently word is already out about who’s decorating for homecoming, and someone isn’t happy about it. I hear her voice before we even clear our trays.

“Oh my God, you’ve got to be kidding. Homecoming is going to be horrible this year.”

Marissa and Liz are staring straight at us, arms crossed

“The freaks are decorating. What’s the theme? Sexual dysfunction?” Marissa says.

I actually laugh at that and turn to Jackson. “That’s a good idea. What do you think?”

“Yeah. We can put cardboard cutouts of Freud and Viagra bottles everywhere. Serve hot dogs and doughnuts.”

“Ugh, I’m so not going,” Marissa says. Her friends roll their eyes, which I kind of find amusing. Then a boy walks up from behind her and wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“Oh, you’re going,” he says.

I narrow my eyes.

“Brandon, it’s going to suck,” Marissa whines.

He whispers something into her ear, and she looks to the ground, defeated. Is it normal that I feel sorry for her? Even a nasty girl like her deserves a choice. Still, I turn and walk away with Jackson, Alex, and Jen.

“Come back here, bitch,” Marissa calls to me, but I don’t stop, and neither does Jackson.

We walk down the hall, ignoring the jeers they send our way. Halfway down, Alex and Jen go right while we turn left. I think we’ve avoided more jabs from Marissa and Brandon—

Until a hand grabs my upper arm and pulls me toward them.

I pull back. “Don’t touch me.”

Marissa crosses her arms, and her boyfriend grins beside her.

What’s their deal?

Two more girls stand there with worried looks on their faces. Her friends from the bathroom. I remember the blank looks.

“I wasn’t done talking to you,” Marissa says to me with a sneer.

“Marissa, just drop it,” the dark-skinned girl says. “It’s not worth it.”

“Yeah,” the brunette next to her says. She leans in and starts to whisper, “She—”

But Marissa whips a hand up and swats her away. “This is my business. Cool it.”

Her business? What business could she possibly have with me? She just wants to make someone else feel worse than she does.