I wanted to think that Rick was mad at Tanner for insulting Adrian, but I wasn't sure. "What?" I asked.

Rick shook his head and laughed at me. "You're the kind of girl that likes it when two guys fight over you. Well, I'm sure it wasn't the first time for you, was it?"

Uh, what planet was he living on? When had guys ever made it a habit of fighting about me? It's not like there was a line forming to ask me out or anything. Especially since his stupid "Dangerously Blonde" had become the school's unofficial theme song.

Rick took a step toward me so he was nearly touching my locker, and lowered his voice. "This is your way of spreading more joy in my life, isn't it? It's not enough that you made Adrian break up with me, you had to make my brother hate me and my grandmother insist that I play the classical guitar."

Which was really too much. "I didn't do any of that," I said. "You did." I slammed my locker door, hard. So hard that it bounced back open and hit Rick right in the face.

His glasses flew off, now in two pieces. He staggered backwards, groaned, and put his hand over his eye.

"Oh no," I said, and then, "I'm so sorry!"

He kept his hand pressed over his face. "Sure you are."

"You don't think I did that on purpose?" I stepped over to him, trying to check for bleeding or swelling. "Are you all right?"

He didn't move his hand away from his eye. "I'm probably blind now."

"Let me see it."

"I don't want you to see it."

"Stop being a baby, Rick. Let me just check to see if you're hurt."

With one eye he glared at me. "I'm pretty sure I can tell on my own if I'm hurt. It got me right where the ceiling fan did."

I pried his hand away from his face and held onto it with my own while I peered at his wound. It did look worse, more swollen, and his eye was red and watering. "Can you see me?" I asked.

"Adrian," he said.

Which meant it was bad if he couldn't even tell who was standing in front of—wait a minute. I spun around and saw my sister, her hand on her hip, staring at us.

Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head disdainfully. "I can't believe you." Then she spun around and stalked off down the hall.

Rick pulled his hand away from mine like my touch burned. "Thanks," he spat out, and trotted down the hall after her. I watched him catch up to her. He tried to speak to her, but she hurried on, not looking at him.

Yeah, this was all going to translate into another great evening at home.

I walked slowly out to my car, and even waited for her, but Adrian never showed up.

Chapter 14

When Mom came home at 5:30 Adrian still hadn't appeared. I had to tell Mom what happened. She looked at me skeptically after I'd finished the story. "Were you flirting with Rick?"

"No," I said. "I don't usually do that by smashing my locker door into a guy's face."

"But it looked like you were flirting?"

"Well, maybe if you consider me examining a guy's facial wounds while he's crying flirtatious . . ."

"But you stood close together and held his hand," Mom accused.

"I was checking his vision. I said, 'Can you see me?' Those aren't words of endearment or anything."

Mom tapped her fingers against the counter and looked off in the distance. "Adrian might have thought you meant, 'Can you see me' as in 'Let's start seeing each other.''

What? I threw up both hands. "Why would I want to see Rick? She knows Rick and I don't like each other. It's been months since Rick and I said two civil words to each other."

Mom turned back and stared at me, her gaze accusing again. She didn't say anything else.

"Don't bring that up," I said. "This isn't the same."

Mom turned her gaze from me to the phone. "I'll try her cell phone again."

I'd already tried it a dozen times, but I didn't argue.

When I'd finished up the dinner dishes and Adrian still hadn't come home, new waves of worry spread over me. What was she doing? Why was she so mad? Certainly Rick had explained what happened. She had to know he wasn't lying. He had the welt to prove it.

I shouldn't be so concerned.

But I was. To look at Adrian you wouldn't think of her as fragile. Fragile people didn't wear black leather. Yet Adrian seemed to continually run along the edge of destruction, to always be putting one foot far enough over to feel the air on her toes.

I took my cell phone into my bedroom and fingered it while I paced back and forth between my bed and dresser. Finally I called Tanner. Our fight didn't seem important now, and he'd know Rick's cell phone number. Rick probably knew where she was.

Tanner answered the phone, his voice cautious. "Hi Chelsea."

"Hi Tanner." I couldn't just blurt out that I wanted Rick's phone number, and besides, hearing his voice made my heart skip in an unexpected and aching way. I decided to start at the beginning. "Rick apologized to me at school today. He said you told him to. I wanted you to know I appreciate it, even if immediately afterwards I did smack him in the face with my locker door. That was an accident. It really was."

Tanner's voice turned incredulous. "You hit him with your locker door?"

"Accidentally. And um, have you seen Rick since school? I mean, I couldn't tell how badly he was hurt. Do you have his cell phone number?"

A hint of suspicion crept into Tanner's voice. "You want my brother's number?"

"For Adrian."

"Adrian already has his number."

"No, I mean, Adrian walked up while I was checking Rick's face and she thought . . . well, I think she thought that Rick and I were doing something."

Tanner's suspicion turned to alarm. "Exactly how were you checking his face?"

I let out a sigh. Not this from Tanner too. Were Rick and I the only ones who'd noticed that we didn't get along? "I was just looking at his eye. That's all. But I had to pull his hand away from his face first, so I was sort of holding it in mine, and Adrian saw us and stomped off. She hasn't come home yet." My throat clenched and I could only get the rest out in a whisper. "I'm worried and I need to talk to her. I need to explain."

Tanner's voice turned soothing. "I can give you Richard's number. That's easy enough, but if he is with her, wouldn't he have explained everything to her?"

"I guess, but she doesn't trust me. She . . ." My voice came out in an uneven rhythm. "See, there was this thing with this other guy . . . " I didn't want to tell him. I knew he'd think less of me for it, but at the same time I wanted him to understand why Adrian acted the way she did. In halting phrases I explained about Travis.

He listened quietly and I wished I could see his face to judge his reaction, to judge how awful he considered my confession to be. What did he think of me now that he knew I'd stabbed my own sister in the back? Perhaps it was better that I couldn't see him, after all.

"I just thought you should know," I finished up, "so you'd understand why I got so mad at you yesterday. Adrian isn't white trash. She wouldn't be this way if I hadn't messed things up for her."

"She's told you that? She blames you for the state her life is in?

"Not exactly in those words, but yeah."

He paused for a moment to let out a grunt. "That must be a power trip."