LITMIR.BIZ

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Like, hurtfully mean. Once in fourth grade we got in a fight, and Madison got all the girls in our class to stop talking to me. Girls who’d been my friends just ‘forgot’ to save me a seat on the bus or invite me to their sleepovers. I’d never forgotten that feeling of not belonging, like wearing someone else’s shoes and feeling the pain all over. Since then I’d made sure never, ever to get on Madison’s bad side.

      ‘What’s in a zit anyway?’ she asked.

      I snickered. ‘It’s pus, you idiot.’

      ‘Eww. God, even the word is gross. Puh, puh, puh-sss.’ She leaned hard on the p sound. I laughed out loud. ‘Puh-ss,’ she enunciated. ‘It’s like an ejection from your mouth. A voiding of puh-ss from a puh-stule.’

      ‘Oh God! Gross!’ I gasped, breathless from concealing my laughter.

      A few rows ahead, Zara turned around. We both ducked below the seat in front of us, laughing hysterically.

      My phone beeped, and I pulled it from my backpack. It was my mom.

       Knock knock

      Who’s there? I texted back.

      Mom: Olive

      Me: Olive who?

      Mom: Olive ya Olivia!

      I laughed and sent her a row of x’s and o’s just as Tyler’s head popped up over the back of our seat.

      ‘Hey, babe.’ His amber-flecked hazel eyes crinkled in a smile.

      My boyfriend was your typical high school athlete. He was captain of the football team, had lettered in every sport he did, and was working toward a football scholarship to UW. He was way popular, and he knew it. Like, in a confident way, not in a dickhead way.

      He leaned down and licked my earlobe, trying to be seductive. I giggled and lurched away from him. He frowned, looking slightly put out.

      ‘God, you guys! Get a room!’ Madison huffed loudly.

      Heat spread up my neck and into my cheeks. Madison could be such a bitch sometimes. Mom told me I should stand up to her. Tyler said I always saw the best in people.

      The truth was, neither of them was right. I was just scared of not being liked.

      Just then Tyler’s friend Peter leaned over the seat next to Tyler. ‘Jesus, you’re the color of a tomato, Liv!’ he hooted.

      He reached out to touch my flaming cheek, but Tyler smacked his hand away, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t touch her, man.’

      My cheeks burned even hotter, but Peter just laughed.

      ‘You’re such a lunatic.’ Madison rolled her eyes flirtatiously.

      Tyler’s eyes tightened and his jaw clenched. ‘Shut up, Madison. You’re just salty ’cause you can’t get a boyfriend.’

      I forced a loud laugh. ‘At least my face isn’t as red as your hair, Peter,’ I joked, trying to defuse the situation.

      ‘Whatever, asshole.’ Madison twisted in her seat so she could scowl out the bus’s window. She popped the earbuds to her iPhone in her ears and turned the volume up until I could hear the tinny beat of pop music.

      ‘Ignore her.’ Tyler tugged me from my seat and sat in my place, pulling me onto his lap and nuzzling my cheek. Tyler and Madison had never really gotten along. She thought he was way too needy.

      With his wavy blond hair and hazel eyes, Tyler was the hottest guy in school. I’d worked hard for my seat at the popular table, but that seat had only been firmly cemented when Tyler and I started dating. And it felt nice being his girlfriend. But it was still mortifying when he tried to make out with me in front of everybody.

      ‘I’ve been thinking about yesterday,’ Tyler whispered in my ear.

      I blushed again, blood pulsing in my ears. I looked around, hoping nobody could hear him.

      Yesterday we’d had a heavy make-out session in my room before my mom got home from work. He got a little too excited, and I’d felt so pressured I burst into tears. He could be like that sometimes: too insistent and intense. But weren’t all boys?

      He leaned away from me and cracked his neck. I shuddered, grossed out by the sound of his bones popping.

      ‘I’m sorry about . . . you know,’ he said. ‘It’s just, I love you. I think we’ve been together long enough to show it that way.’

      ‘Soon, okay? I’m just not ready yet.’

      ‘I was thinking. . .’ He leaned closer and kissed my cheek wetly. ‘Maybe one of these weekends we could make it extra special? Go somewhere, just us? You could tell your mom you’re spending the night at Madison’s.’

      I wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he sounded. What would we do, rent a hotel room for the night? Besides, I didn’t want to have sex yet. I wasn’t going to be one of those stupid knocked-up teenagers – like my mom was.

      But I didn’t say that. Instead I smiled and said: ‘Sure, yeah, maybe.’ I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and if it would make him happy, I’d let him think we could go away for a night.

      The bus lurched to a stop, and I realized we’d arrived at the University of Washington.

      ‘We’re here!’ somebody shouted from the front of the bus.

      Madison pulled her earbuds out and pointed out the window. ‘There’s everybody else!’

      I followed her gaze. A group of about forty teenagers was gathered at the end of the parking lot. Half of them were wearing casual clothes, but the other half were dressed in matching uniforms: the girls in green tartan skirts with green blazers and knee-high stockings, the boys in gray pants and green ties.

      ‘Preppy dicks!’ Peter shouted. A slice of sunlight shone on his red hair and lit the smattering of freckles across his face. He was watching Madison, waiting for a reaction. For his sake, I hoped he stayed away from her. She would eat him alive, and Peter was actually a pretty nice guy. Tyler called her a thot behind her back. If she weren’t my best friend, I’d probably agree. She’d go out with a different guy every weekend, then dump him the next day.

      ‘Fuckheads!’ Tyler’s friend Dan shouted.

      Bold and bullish, Dan was a fat little tryhard, but his overconfidence and arrogance meant nobody stood up to him. Tyler thought Dan was hilarious. I thought he was a jerk.

      ‘Watch your mouth, guys!’ Mr Parks, our PE teacher who was running this little field trip, yelled from the front of the bus. ‘Come on, off the bus.’

      We stepped out into the glorious spring sunshine. It was one of those pristine Seattle days when the rain has finally stopped, leaving behind a scrubbed blue sky. The air had just a hint of warmth in it, a promise that more days like this would soon follow.

      Cherry trees coated in frothy pink and white blossoms peeked from between towering evergreens. In the distance I could see the start of Greek Row, a collection of Tudor, Gothic, and Georgian fraternity and sorority houses.

      ‘Over here, guys!’ Mr Parks waved his arms to us, his beefy biceps rippling under his white polo shirt. We shuffled over, and Mr Parks made introductions: Portage Point High, Ballard High, and Seattle Catholic Academy, the Catholic kids in the uniforms.

      Somehow we’d faced off so we were separated into three groups, but once we’d been introduced, everybody started talking to each other.

      Tyler had an arm draped around my shoulder, tucking me tightly against his body. Madison was just to the right of me. I felt comfortable, safe, secure in my world.

      And then I saw her.

      Just steps from me was a girl wearing the green school uniform of Seattle Catholic Academy. She had long, pale blonde hair, sharp Slavic cheekbones,

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