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by Patty Blount

  Dude, you heard her. They’re not dating.

  Yeah, I’d heard her. So if they weren’t dating, what was that argument about? I dropped my backpack and slid behind my desk, trying to ignore the biting pain in my chin that was somehow worse today than yesterday. Jeff was already in his seat near the window, and Julie was already in the seat beside mine. I cursed under my breath when the desk shifted a few inches, the screech making me clench my jaw, ratcheting the pain up to maximum. Julie’s head swiveled to me, the line between her eyebrows flashing once while I cradled my head, watching her from under my lashes.

  Her black plastic glasses caught my eye again. As my gaze traveled over her curves, I realized the glasses matched her outfit—tight black pants ending high on her calves, with a skimpy white T-shirt that revealed glimpses of a smooth belly if she moved in just the right way. My mouth fell open. Black-and-white sandals showed off a toe ring. She looked up at me from under a curtain of gold hair, blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

  Busted.

  Kenny laughed when my face got hot.

  “That looks a lot worse than it did yesterday.”

  I glared. “Feels worse too.”

  She made a face. “Aw. Poor little you.”

  It sounded like she was making fun of me. I swore if she told me to keep my chin up again, I would have to extend a finger.

  Kenny choked. Oh, please. Like Saint Daniel even has a middle finger.

  Okay, maybe I wouldn’t, but I would really want to. Kenny was about to retort, but luckily, the teacher walked in at that moment.

  “Okay, people, settle down. Settle down.” Mr. Williams hurried to the head of the class. “Starting here, everybody count off one to four and then repeat. Go.”

  He tapped the guy sitting to my right, who dutifully said “One.”

  By the time the count went up one aisle and down the next, I was a three.

  “Okay, grab your gear and stand up. I want the ones over here by the door, twos here in this row, threes in the back of the room, and fours by the window. Move.”

  Desks screeched on linoleum. Laughing and chattering, we mixed. I noted with a mix of interest and annoyance that Julie was also a three.

  We settled in the back of the room and watched, amused, as Paul Oliva and Lisa McKenna traded their spots with the two girls in our group and made their way to us. The girls joined the other half of their clique at the window and squealed. At the same time.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah. Tell me about it.” Paul caught me and nodded. “I figured they’d be dead weight anyway.”

  I laughed. No doubt he was right.

  My eyes roamed, looking for something that made this classroom different from myriad others I’ve been in since I got out of juvie. The same chalkboards, the same desks, the same sounds and smells. Another Murphy.

  This Murphy was staring at me.

  “What?” I challenged her.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she shrugged. “Nothing. You just look familiar.”

  Irrational panic exploded in me, and I had to run.

  Easy! This time, Kenny pinned me in my seat. Don’t be an idiot.

  With every ounce of strength I had, I stayed put. He was right. Damn it, I hated it when Kenny was right. My father constantly reminded me to stop acting like a guilty man, which was hard to do when murderer is branded over your heart like Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.

  I’d killed a child—not with a gun or a knife or my hands but with words and technology. There were no degrees of guilt. You’re either guilty or you’re not—and I am.

  Julie stared at me as Mr. Williams again called for our attention, but my mind was still spinning. Maybe she’d recognized me. Maybe she was related to the same Murphys. Oh God. Maybe her brother was Liam. How could I find out without divulging that I was the one who’d killed him? I was pretty sure Liam had no sisters. The only relatives ever in court were his parents. Hell, I didn’t even know his name until after I…until after, when it was all over the news. No. No, it couldn’t be true. I’d gone to a school with hundreds of other kids in a New Jersey beach town, and it was there where I’d teased and taunted little Liam. If he had a sister, what would she be doing in a school in a town a hundred miles away? No, I was being paranoid, that’s all. The odds were just too great to imagine.

  Maybe, but that’s just the kind of luck you have.

  True that.

  I kept sneaking glances at her. She didn’t look familiar. Just as I breathed in relief, Kenny hit me with this: Think about it, genius. All the memories, the heartbreak. They probably moved away to escape it all, start over. You know, like you did.

  I cursed Kenny out loud, but nobody noticed. I hadn’t thought about that. Of course, that was likely. I needed to stay far away from Julie until I could be sure. My parents would know about Liam’s family. They’d had to file a restraining order against his father.

  “Okay, guys, here’s the plan. Working in teams of four, you’ll reach into this hat, pick a bill congress is considering passing, research it, and then present your stance on it—pro or con. The goal is to win support for your position, so even though you are working in quads, you will present to the entire class with the goal of winning their votes.” Mr. Williams approached our group. “Miss Murphy, any idea why this assignment is a good idea?”

  Julie’s eyes popped. “Uh. No.”

  Mr. Williams turned to Paul. “Mr. Oliva?”

  Paul shrugged.

  “Mr. Ellison?”

  I swallowed. “Um. Well. I guess because persuading others to see your point of view is an important skill for someone who wants to be a lawyer?”

  Mr. Williams inclined his head. “One of them.” To the rest of the class, he continued, “The ability not merely to speak but to speak eloquently under pressure cannot be overstated. Just ask former president Bush.”

  The class snickered.

  “In this assignment, you’ll learn how to prepare your facts and respond to attempts to derail your progress.” He clapped his hands. “Okay, examples. Roe v. Wade, legalizing marijuana use.” He ignored the hoots that rang out across the class at that one and tossed a pile of handouts to the student in the first desk, who passed them along. “Here’s the rubric. Now decide who picks.”

  Noise levels rose as the groups complied.

  I turned to Paul, who looked at me in horror. “Not me.”

  Julie’s glacial eyes were still stuck on me. With a lift of my eyebrow, I dared her.

  “You pick.”

  She shook her head.

  “Fine. I’ll pick the damn law out of the hat.”

  I should have known better than to tempt fate. I gulped when I unfolded the slip of paper and read it.

  The Good Samaritan Laws.

  My life sucked.

  Oh, man. This is hilarious, Kenny said. I shot him a glare.

  Sweating, I tapped one of the girls in the group beside ours. “Wanna trade laws?”

  The girl, hot in a common way with the same hairstyle, same clothes as the other girls, exchanged a glance with her teammates. “What law did you pick?”

  “Good Samaritan Laws.”

  The girl stared at me, a bit frightened. “No, thanks. We got the health care reform bill.” She smiled brightly as she turned back to her friends.

  Paul choked back a laugh and caught my eye. “I should play the lottery or something.” His smile faded, and he jerked his chin toward Julie. “What’s with her?”

  She sat frozen, her eyes glassy and fixed on the description of the law printed on our handout, now clutched so tightly in her hand the paper crinkled under the pressure. My own anxiety faded in comparison.

  She’s upset, man. Find out why.

  Screw that.

  When Kenn
y’s eyes—which I suppose were my eyes—narrowed, I caved in. “Julie, you okay?”

  She jerked like I’d slapped her. “Yeah. Fine.”

  Kenny nudged me again. Fix it, make it better.

  I laughed and hastily covered it with a cough. Kenny was not a fixer. He was a breaker. Kenny liked Julie, but I didn’t. Could my life get any weirder?

  “You don’t look fine. You look sad. Something wrong with this law?”

  She speared me with a look so cold I swore I could see my breath as I exhaled.

  We still had twenty-five minutes of class left. Lisa scooted her chair to the computers that lined the rear wall of the classroom and Googled the law I’d picked. The screen showed four million hits. Four million.

  “Hey. Earth to Dan.” Lisa snapped her fingers in front of my face. “How about making yourself useful?”

  “Um. Yeah. Sure. Just thinking.”

  “Freakin’ blonds,” Lisa muttered.

  I rolled my eyes. The blond was on my mind but not for the reason Lisa suspected. Julie watched but did nothing while her boyfriend almost broke a freshman into pieces. Didn’t even open a cell phone. How could somebody do that?

  “Here. Start taking notes.” Lisa tapped the monitor in front of us.

  I clicked a pen, grabbed my notebook, and did what I was told. We learned Good Samaritan laws varied from state to state and existed primarily to prevent rescuers from being held liable for injury or illness that resulted from the rescue itself. In some states, these laws also included a “duty to rescue,” making it illegal to do nothing while witnessing someone in danger.

  “This is a ridiculous law.”

  My eyes snapped to Julie’s. “Yeah, I guess it’s ridiculous to help people who need it.”

  She shrugged, refusing to meet my gaze. “No. Just, well, ridiculous to force people to help. What if you get hurt too? Or maybe you just, I don’t know, freeze up? Can’t think of what to do, so you do nothing? What then? You go to jail because you panic under pressure?”

  Lisa, Paul, and a few other people stared at Julie, who was totally unaware that her voice was quivering. Her eyes shimmered, and it was hard to miss she was on the verge of tears. But that didn’t stop me.

  “When you stand by and watch someone beaten up just because you think he’s a…a dork, then, yes, maybe you should go to jail.”

  Her eyes popped, and she whispered, “That’s enough.”

  Oh, I was just getting started. “I wonder how many other kids you’ve watched Jeff smack around. This some kind of sport to you?”

  She leaped up so quickly her chair fell over. “Go to hell,” she muttered, swinging her enormous purse over her shoulder and running from the classroom. Two dozen eyes stared at her back. Then two dozen pairs of eyes swung to me, full of “Oh, shits” and “What the hells.”

  You jerk, Kenny screamed. You made her cry. You made her fucking cry. In my head, his raging was so loud I wished I could climb out of my skin to escape.

  Okay. Okay, you win. I’ll find her and apologize. Knock it off.

  The destruction in my head stopped. My eyes slid closed in blessed relief only to fly open when I felt a tap on the back of my head.

  Kenny stood in front of me, hands on his skinny hips. Make it good. You know I’ll be watching.

  So much for staying away from Julie.

  Watching Like It’s MTV

  On my way to my third-period class, I spotted Julie at her locker. Kenny pushed me to catch up. I smelled the beach again, and it pissed me off. Kenny’s crush on Julie was going to kill me. First, I hated her. Second, she hated me back. Third, I didn’t date. Ever. Two reasons for that: first, I didn’t know how long we’d be staying in a particular town, and secondly, nobody could get to know me, really know me, because I couldn’t share anything about myself. Anything that was true at least.

  You want me quiet? Then fix this. He slammed the door to his room and rattled my teeth. I pressed a hand to my aching jaw.

  “Hey.”

  Annoyance flashed across her face.

  Say something, man. She’s not happy.

  “Okay. Look, I’m sorry.”

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes.

  “No. Really, I am. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Yeah, you did.” She took a few steps, whirled, and stalked back to me. “You think I’m an idiot, right? An airhead or something? Cheerleader Barbie?” She pushed at her blond hair like it offended her.

  I hid a grin. Airheads had been the sum total of my assessment of the girls in our speech class but not Julie. She caught my grin and misinterpreted it.

  “From the first second you saw me, I knew you were thinking I was the biggest bitch in the world because I didn’t help.”

  Okay. She was right. I looked at the floor. “Still. It was mean to hit you with that in class.”

  She shook her head, lip curled into a sneer. “You’re unbelievable. You won’t even try to deny it.”

  I lifted my palms. “Why deny something that’s true?” And then I got mad all over again. “Tell me how you could do it. I sat in my car for five damn minutes, waiting for someone—anyone—to stop Jeff so I wouldn’t have to do it myself. You were there the whole time. Just watching.”

  Her eyes turned arctic, and her body tensed. “I may have been there. But if you think I get off on seeing kids bleed, you’re just sick. You were there, you broke up the fight, so what exactly is the big deal here? You break a nail or something?” She did a little dance with her hands waving in the air.

  Grinding my teeth, I ignored the last part of her attack. “You were watching the whole thing like it was MTV.”

  She slapped a hand to my chest, tried to shove me back a step. “Stop it. I was staring, but I wasn’t watching.” Her eyes glared with outrage.

  “Oh, that clears it all up.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, you’re right about that. I don’t understand at all.” I took a step forward, and she took a step back, pressed against the lockers. “Enlighten me. Tell me what you were staring at but not watching.”

  Knock that crap off, man. She’s not a threat. Stop trying to intimidate her.

  I’m not!

  You are.

  I could see myself reflected in her glasses. She pressed her lips together, swallowing hard, and a new wave of self-disgust washed over me. Kenny was right. I’d scared her. I took a step back, put some space between Julie and me.

  “I…I can’t. You’ll think I’m crazy,” she finally said.

  A laugh escaped my lips before I mashed them together. “Crazy’s kind of a relative term for me.”

  She stared blankly, and I didn’t bother to explain it. “I wasn’t seeing Jeff and Brandon. It…it just reminded me of…something else. From when I was in eighth grade.” She shut her eyes, shivered.

  Leave her alone, man. No more. Kenny squeezed my arm in warning. You’re not the only one with scars.

  I ignored him. “So you’re saying you had a flashback? You…froze up?” She’d said the same thing in class, and I hadn’t believed her.

  She nodded, waiting for me to say something more, something less jerky. But I had nothing. She stiffened, and her eyes went back to full cold. She took a step away.

  “Wait.” I found my voice. “Okay. If this assignment bothers you this much, maybe we can go to Mr. Williams this afternoon and, like, pick again or something.”

  Julie shook her head. “No, it was a long time ago. I think it’s time I finally did something.” She showed me that patented mocking grin. “I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  I lifted a shoulder. Who was I to judge how long it should take to heal from a trauma? “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “Good. Thanks. I was starting
to think you were a bigger bully than Jeff and—”

  My blood boiled over at her words. I slammed a palm against the locker next to her and stalked off, bowling through a trio of kids in my way.

  Jesus, dude! Are you crazy? All you had to do was apologize, but you totally messed things up. You scared the hell out of her. She’ll never talk to us again.

  Good.

  Who needs her.

  Racking Up the Points

  At lunch, I’d spotted Brandon at his locker in the south corridor. I stopped at a water fountain, watching from under my lashes as he swapped books. He hunched down into himself like that cloaked him in invisibility or something. A chubby girl at the next locker edged away like he had an infectious disease. He gave no sign that he cared or even noticed until she slammed her locker and walked away. His eyes tracked her for a few seconds, and even from across the hall, I could see his pain.

  Don’t bother. It won’t help.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kenny.

  Oh, please. You can’t lie to yourself, bro. Kenny tapped his temple.

  I ignored him and followed Brandon down the hall, watching him sidestep the foot that tried to trip him and dodge the hand that tried to knock the books out of his arms. The corridor was a battlefield. No, it was a hunting ground, and Brandon was in season.

  Dude, if you help him, you become him. Get it? You’ll be hated.

  Hated.

  I considered that. With a grandfather who wouldn’t talk to me, a gang of childhood friends who abandoned me, it was pretty clear I already was hated. What was a few more names on such a long list?

  Kenny made a sound of disgust. You are so slow. Come on, man, see the light! He threw his hands in the air. If they hate you, they will target you. They will look for the things that can trip you up. And they’ll find them. Jeff Dean is already sniffing.

  My hands clenched into fists. Damn it! Why was this so hard? Anybody could see Brandon was suffering. Anybody who bothered to actually look, that is. Five years back, I’d have been one of the people sticking out his foot as the kid passed me. A flush of repulsion passed over me, and my skin crawled. I wasn’t proud of my past.