9781250209153

up with their perfect haircuts and cocky smiles, most of them snickering.
They make their way toward us as I fish my backpack and duffel bag out of
the back seat.
“Yayyy, happy carpool day!” Honey-Belle trills, clapping her hands. She
is impossibly chipper. Her DNA is probably made of cupcakes.
“So whose fault was it?” Gino DiNova calls. “Was it you, Abraham?”
Gino is hard to explicitly hate because he never says anything actually
offensive, but he never says anything nice, either. Right now he’s got his
cell phone out, clearly taking a snap of my car, laughing like it’s the
funniest thing he’s ever seen. I don’t think I’ve even spoken to him before.
“Funny you’re so interested, Gino,” Irene says coolly, “considering you
ran over Brinkley’s mailbox last month.”
That shuts Gino up. The group combusts with laughter and Honey-Belle
pulls Irene into her side. I push past them toward the school entrance,
feeling their eyes on my back. Not one of them says a word to me.
“How’s your car?” Danielle asks the moment we meet at our lockers. I
never texted her about it, but she must have heard through the grapevine.
She looks sympathetic, which means she’s gotten over my poor playing last
night. I grimace and accept the coffee she hands me, while she accepts the
baggie of apple slices I cut up for her this morning. We’ve traded breakfast
like this since the first day of senior year.
“Bumper’s all fucked up. But that’s nothing compared to my ego.” I
take a sip of the coffee and brighten. “Whoa, second day in a row you’ve
gotten the perfect cream-to-coffee ratio!”
“Told you I would,” Danielle says smugly. Then her expression darkens.
“I heard who the other driver was. I hope you smashed the shit out of her
car.”
The great thing about Danielle is that she would never say anything
annoying like Why didn’t you tell me? It’s just not how we work. After Tally
dumped me, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell my friends. It was Daphne
who texted Danielle, and within an hour, Danielle showed up at my house
with a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream. She let me sob for half an hour, and