I could. It was so Kari Kingsley, but I didn’t say it.

"Hey, I bet the day after finals Theresa will dump Trevor flat-out,” Lori said. "I think she’s only dating him because he’s smart—you know, geek-farming. He'll be ripe for some consolation.”

I smiled at her, but really, the thought of Trevor did nothing for me.

Eventually it grew late and Lori left and I got ready for bed. I stayed up later than I should have. I was still on California time. It didn't have anything to do with phone calls that never came.

* * *

Monday morning was abruptly depressing. First of all, I was tired. Second, it was gray and rainy, and I was still used to blue California skies. Third, instead of a driver, I had to get out my one-spoke-is-broken-but-it-still-works-anyway umbrella and dodge puddles and worms on the sidewalk going to school. Then I had to explain to the office that I'd returned for the rest of the school year.

Hector waved when he saw me, but didn't do anything odd or stalkerish, so I assumed he was back to normal.

Besides a few of my friends, no one in the hallways even commented on the fact that I'd been absent for so long. It should have felt nice to be invisible for a change, but it didn’t. It was almost heartening when Theresa looked me over while I walked to third-period English and said, "You're back. I guess we’ll need to watch for flying books in the library again.”

Zoey, one of the Cliquistas, said, "Theresa, you’d better keep an eye on Trevor. Alexia has got some temptress hair going. Maybe she’ll try to steal him.”

Theresa laughed and said, "What did you do to your hair? I mean, really."

I ignored her, though, glad for once I could chalk it up to sour grapes. Between Peter and the salon, my hair still looked great. I also ignored Trevor when he tried to make small talk in physics class. He practically draped himself over my desk, but I figured if he could dump me without explanation before the Sadie Hawkins dance, then I wasn’t required to respond to his flirting. And besides, what sort of guy flirted with me when he was going out with Theresa? They deserved each other.

At lunchtime Trevor sat at Theresa’s table and they both looked at me, lowered their voices, and then laughed.

This was the sort of thing I was going to have to endure until graduation. Even though I tried to fight it, my mind kept replaying memories of Grant. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The lilt in his smile when he saw me.

There's something really depressing in knowing that the happiest moments of your life have all come when you were pretending to be someone else.

I dreaded last period, when I’d have to see Trevor in world history, but at the end of fifth period, the principal came on the loudspeakers and announced a school-wide assembly. We were to go immediately to the gym. "And I caution you not to skip out,” she said. "Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.”

Which went to show you how out of touch school faculty was, because I had never been to an assembly that wasn’t worth missing. Still, I found Lori and filed into the gymnasium with the rest of the school.

Bleachers lined the wall, but the middle of the floor had been partitioned off by gym mats turned on their sides to create a screen. These were being held up by teachers so no one could get a look inside. Our only clue to their content was several electric cords that snaked across the floor. The kids sitting behind me spent their time guessing what the assembly would be about. "Definitely a drug assembly” one said. "We’re going to hear how we'll die penniless, emaciated, and covered with sores in some crack house if we ever try them.”

"Car safety,” someone else said. "I bet some idiot crashed during lunchtime and now we get a lecture on wearing safety belts."

I flipped open my calculus notebook and concentrated on my homework. I’d done two problems when the screaming began.

At first I thought something was wrong. Like maybe the bleachers were collapsing or the gym had caught on fire. Then I saw what everyone was gaping at. The teachers had pulled away the mats, revealing a drummer, two guys on electric guitar, a guy on keyboard, and in front of them, rock sensation Grant Delray.

CHAPTER 18

I didn’t blame the girls for screaming. He looked that good. He wore white pants and a tight white shirt that emphasized his broad, muscular shoulders. His hair had been gelled back, which accentuated his striking features and square jaw.

I watched him, unable to breathe.

Grant looked up at the bleachers, but if he was searching for me, I couldn't tell. He held up one hand and said, "Hey, everybody, how’s it going?”

He might have said more, but since nearly every girl in the gym, including Lori, screamed again, I didn't hear what. Even his microphone headset couldn’t overcome that kind of volume.

After the sound died down, he said, "I came to Morgantown to pay someone a visit, and I thought I could stop by and give you a short concert—’’

More screaming. Even louder this time, if that was possible.

He smiled and called out, "Let’s get it started!"

And just like that, he and the band moved on cue. He wasn't a person now, he was an entertainer, fluid with the beat. When he sang, the music vibrated through me and I couldn’t think of anything else. I watched him song after song, mesmerized.

Why had he come here? It seemed like a long way to come to pay a visit. Did it mean he'd forgiven me for lying to him, or was it something else?

As I stared at him, I tried to catch his eye, any little shift of his gaze that would show he saw me. Sometimes when he did more singing than dancing, his eyes seemed to rest on my section of the bleachers, but then the next moment he’d look somewhere else, so I couldn’t be sure. Maybe he had trouble picking me out of the crowd with my brown hair.

After about forty-five minutes of performing, he said, "We’re going to slow things down now. This is a song I wrote for someone who means a lot, and it would mean even more if she sang it with me.” Then he looked directly into my eyes; he’d known where I was all along.

"Alexia," he said, "do you want to come down here?"

En masse, every pair of eyes turned and looked at me. Grant smiled, and I felt myself blush bright pink. Lori nudged my arm. "Oh, my gosh!" she whispered. "Go!"

I stood up, still blushing, and made my way down the bleachers. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. I told myself I shouldn't be so rattled. I'd been up in front of bigger crowds than this during the last month. But this was different. I wasn’t standing up in front of an audience as Kari Kingsley. I couldn’t hide behind her image here—I was facing them as me.

As I made my way across the floor, Grant said to the crowd, "I sent Alexia the music to this song a week and a half ago. We’ll see how well she’s practiced it.”

I went and stood beside him, feeling his blue-eyed gaze resting on me. I couldn't read his expression. Grant smiled, but there was a stiffness to it, making him look more angry than happy. He handed me a copy of the sheet music. He shouldn’t have bothered. I'd memorized the words on the first night he’d sent them.

I didn’t glance at the crowd. I couldn’t. Instead I gave him a nervous smile and whispered, "I can't believe you're doing this to me.”

He reached up to his headset and switched off his mike so the audience wouldn't hear him. "That makes us even, since I can't believe what you did to me either.”

The intro started. I glanced down at the paper in my hands to give my eyes someplace to look besides at him. "You know, you’ve never heard me sing. You're going to be sorry if I’m horrible at this.”