[Quinn featured above.]

One

Wow, Someone Got a Makeover

Quinn's POV

I was wearing a skirt.

This is new. Old Quinn would not have worn a skirt on her first day of sophomore year. Old Quinn would have worn a pair of jeans (hole in the knee? even better) and a t-shirt advertising the Providence Prep volleyball team, or some other sports team I didn't play for. Old Quinn would have shoved on some Converse, pulled her hair up into an I-spent-thirty-seconds-on-this ponytail, and slung her backpack over her shoulder and dashed out the door, running late for advisory as always.

But not today.

Old Quinn had been shoved into the background this summer, when New Quinn had gotten her braces off, started actually spending time on her hair, and went shopping with her best friend Julia Reiss to get a brand new wardrobe. New Quinn painted her nails to match her outfits, coordinated her shirts and pants days in advance, and had her own Pinterest board for fashion.

Let me clarify. This is not some story of an incurable tomboy morphing into a girly girl, because I was not a tomboy and am not a girly girl. I just realized that I couldn't go through my entire high school not even giving a second thought to my appearance. Plus, I've actually discovered that I have a passion for hair, makeup, and fashion.

Anyway—I was wearing a skirt.

It was a pretty skirt—coral, high-waisted, and pleated a little, and it swung just above my knees. If I twirled in front of my full-length mirror, it fanned out around me and then came down against my thighs, the cool fabric swishing so delightfully. I'd paired it with a navy blue shirt that I'd tucked in and a pretty silver necklace. Plus, I'd curled my hair.

Note: I have naturally curly hair, but I'd taken the time to actually style it into cute little ringlets using my brand-new Conair curling iron that I'd just figured out how to operate.

So I woke up really early on the first day of school to pull on my skirt, do my makeup, and make sure I ate a really good breakfast. Then, I freshened up, spritzed on some perfume, and headed back downstairs to grab my bike.

My mom was in the kitchen, stacking her textbooks and making sure the oven was off from whatever breakfast she'd made herself. She was working on her master's degree in Finance, and she went to school in the mornings and worked on her homework just like I did (except I complained more about mine).

Recently, though, my mom had been spending a lot more time paging through wedding magazines instead of leafing through her textbooks, and I figured that was because she'd recently gotten engaged to my future stepfather.

You're probably wondering how I feel about this extended family. The dad, I could deal with. He'd never be like the dad I'd had, who'd divorced my mom when I was ten, and who now lived in Chicago. But at least he wasn't terrible, and he took the time to get to know me.

His daughter was another matter entirely. She was from his first marriage which had ended in a similar situation to Mom's (barely civil conversation, upholding relations only for the kids), and if his ex-wife had any of the same genes as his daughter, I understood why. Vanessa Sloane was the epitome of stuck-up and posh, and not only was she model-gorgeous, but she was from New York City (as if that meant something). I'd only met her three times and had liked her less every occasion.

"Did you eat a good breakfast?" asked Mom as I grabbed my helmet and pushed open the garage door. My Collie puppy, Macy, pawed at my leg as I hurried down into the hot garage and grabbed my bike.

"Yeah, a bagel."

She made a sound of agreement, but was too engrossed in whatever she was doing back in the kitchen to pay much attention.

I took the kickstand off my bike and wheeled it out of the garage, then coasted down my driveway, feeling the August breeze whipping against my cheeks. My skirt fluttered in the wind, my hair streamed out behind me, and I was feeling surprisingly upbeat for someone going back to school.

My freshman year hadn't exactly been memoir-worthy, but I'd managed, and I was way more excited about this year. I'd been going to Providence Prep since kindergarten, and I had my fair share of friends, but I was looking forward to meeting more people this year and getting more involved in the school. Plus, one particular face kept popping up in the back of my head at the most unexpected moments...

Andrew Summers was twenty-one months older than me, but because of the way our birthdays fell he was only a grade higher. He was, to say the least, drop-dead gorgeous, extremely sweet, and completely brilliant. We hadn't really spoken a lot last year, though we'd become sort-of acquaintances after I'd arranged situations for us to have hurried conversations, and I was looking forward to spending more time around him. Plus, he probably liked braces-less, I'm-actually-wearing-a-skirt Quinn a lot better than Old Quinn.

By the time I pedaled up the hill to school, my calves were burning. It was only a two-minute bike ride to Providence Prep, but it was almost all uphill, and it gave my legs about the only workout they'd ever gotten. Other than some swimming over the summer and one pathetic attempt to take over the tennis courts, I hadn't exactly been outside much.

I leaned my bike against the bike rack and hitched my backpack higher over my shoulder, then hopped up the steps to the school's door. I'd only made it a few steps before a voice called out behind me, "You forgot to take off your helmet, ya know."

"And that's what best friends are for," I said, quickly unstrapping my helmet and looping it onto the handle of my bike. Julia came up behind me and linked arms with me—I noticed she was wearing skinny jeans with an artsy hole down her right knee and a flowy maroon sleeveless top. She, too, was bouncing on the toes of her black ballet flats. "Excited?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, squeezing my arm a little harder than necessary. "Imagine all the opportunities for cute new guys!"

I smiled, but only because I was happy for her—the only guy I was interested in had been going to Providence Prep almost as long as I had.

When we stepped inside the school, the familiar scent of the carpet and whatever kind of cleaners they used overtook me, and I inhaled deeply. It was sort of sad, but I'd actually missed that smell. It was so familiar but so foreign at the same time.

"This is going to be the best year ever," said Julia, for once not no-nonsense and strict. She was actually pulling me down the hallway in the direction of our lockers.

Grinning, I jogged to keep up with her, hoping what she said would turn out to be true.

~*~*~

I'd gotten my schedule online the past weekend, so I already knew that my first class was Chemistry and I had Mrs. Smith. Since the classroom was right across from my locker, I took my time gathering my books and packing my bags, scanning the hallways for familiar or new faces. I hadn't seen Andrew yet, but Julia had come bounding up behind me shortly after advisory to let me know that he was here with his usual floppy blonde hair lightened from hours in the sun, sporting a surfer's tan. She also said there was a super-cute new guy, dark-haired and sort of mysterious-looking, that she hadn't gotten the chance to meet yet.

Smoothing down my shirt and making sure it was completely tucked into my skirt, I swung my bag over my shoulder and braved the crowds to cross the hallway and enter Mrs. Smith's room.

It was my first time in her room, and it was a lot larger than I'd originally thought. There were desks in the front and lab stations in the back, and posters were all over the room saying things like "TH I N K (thorium, iodine, nitrogen, potassium)" and warning us to wear our goggles. One poster warned that not wearing goggles properly could cause blindness—I hoped this class wouldn't be that dangerous.

"Excuse me, I think you're at my desk."

I jumped, startled out of my morose thoughts of improper use of goggles, and looked down at the desks just in time to see that they had color-coded index cards on them by block, and that the desk I was standing at belonged to Cody Marlett for first block.

I'd almost completely forgotten about Cody over the summer, which was sort of sad, but we hadn't hung out at all since school had let out. He was sort of short and sort of scrawny—a twig, to be exact—with dark shaggy brown hair and huge, constantly questioning brown eyes. He'd tagged one step behind me all freshman year, and I'd constantly been the butt of jokes about us going out.

He'd been my closest guy friend, but I hadn't seen him in that way, and I hoped we wouldn't have a repeat of the awkward "we're just friends, sorry" conversations we'd had last year.

"Sorry," I said, scooting out of the way. "I didn't see that the seats were assigned."

I turned around to go find my seat and caught a glimpse of Cute Mysterious Boy that Julia must have been talking about after advisory. He was adorable, to say the least. His brown hair was curly and styled, but not too long, and he had wide, puppy-dog eyes. Not to mention that he was extremely tall and, exactly as Julia had said, mysterious-looking.

When Cute Mysterious Boy sat down at Cody Marlett's desk, I had to do a double-take. It couldn't be, could it?

But it was. I wasn't the only one who'd gotten a summer makeover.

I plopped down in my seat, which I saw was two over, and resisted the urge to stare at him as he bent down and began rifling through his backpack. How was it possible for someone to become so adorable over the summer? He had a tan, had gotten a great haircut, grown like crazy, and was clad in a Vineyard Vines plaid button-down instead of his usual American Eagle hoodie. I wondered how long the preppiness would last.

As I was twirling my pencil around in my hand and contemplating this, I caught him leaning forward in his desk to stare at me. I wondered if he was thinking the exact same thing that I was.

"All right, guys!" said Mrs. Smith, clapping her hands in the kind of way that meant the class was supposed to be quiet. The chatter died down to a quiet rush of whispers as our teacher strode to the front of the room and clasped her hands behind her back.

She was probably in her thirties, with black hair down to her shoulders. She was wearing the kind of pencil skirt and shoes you expected all teachers to wear, and she was holding a pile of papers behind her back. Exactly the kind of Providence Prep teacher you would imagine. There was a mold for everyone here.

"I'm passing around the syllabus now," Mrs. Smith said, handing the stack to Cody and watching as he took two, passed one to the guy behind him, and handed the stack to Elisabeth. As he leaned over to hand her the papers, his eyes flicked up to meet mine again, and I busied myself with taking the stack of syllabi Elisabeth handed me and not paying him too much attention.

I knew all I had to do was wait until I saw Andrew Summers and everything would be back to normal.

We spent Chemistry going over the syllabus and the class procedures. Mrs. Smith also spent time talking about safety measures—she had a waiver for all of us to sign and give our parents to sign.

"I didn't know chem was so dangerous," said Elisabeth as we headed out into the hallway for our next class. Elisabeth and I were acquaintances, just like I was with most of the girls in my grade—she was nice enough, but we hadn't really connected. "I hope nobody's going to get some chemical in their eye or something."

"Based on who we have in our class, I'm betting someone will," I replied. The array of students in our class ranged from one or two star students to those who goofed off more than anything else. I was sort of in the middle—I wanted good grades but I wasn't going to freak out about a B.

Elisabeth rolled her eyes lightly, nudging me. "Cody was totally staring over me at you the entire class," she said. "He's grown so much over the summer, jeez. I barely recognized him."

"I know," I said absentmindedly, but I wasn't really focusing on the conversation anymore. Cody and I had been glancing at each other out of the corners of our eyes the entire class, and I was pretty sure the rest of the class had noticed because Mrs. Smith had raised her eyebrows at us once or twice and Elisabeth had scooted her desk backwards so that we had a clearer view of each other.

Not like I needed one. He was just as attractive in profile as full-on.

My next class was Theatre, so I grabbed only my aqua CamelBak water bottle and left my backpack in front of my locker, figuring I wouldn't need it. Providence's honor code was crazy—everyone left their stuff thrown all over the school because there was this belief that "no one will steal; we're all family here". Still, it was sort of convenient because I didn't have to worry about a locker combination or leaving my stuff in the library if I wanted to go grab a snack. I had a hard time believing it was any different in other schools when I'd grown up this way.

It was hot outside, and my skirt was plastered to my legs by the time I'd made the trek to the school's auditorium. Recently built, it still had that new-paint smell and was clean enough that the pictures going into admission pamphlets didn't have to be touched up that much. I'd actually never been further than the lobby, which had brand-new wood flooring and was showcasing artwork from our high school's painting summer program.

Several other students were piling into the theatre, and a tall guy with a buzz cut held the door for me as I hopped up the steps. The air-conditioning blasted into my face as I stepped inside, immediately chilling my legs down to my Converse (yes, I'd worn Converse with a skirt—nothing wrong with that).

As I was finger-combing my hair to get out the tangles the air conditioning had so kindly provided, the door opened again. I didn't really turn around to see who it was until a voice said, "Andrew, dude, you taking theatre?"

I whirled around a bit too quickly, bits of my hair sticking to my lip gloss, and saw Andrew Summers standing in the lobby of the brand new auditorium. My stomach lifted up into my throat as I studied him. I hadn't seen him since school let out other than Instagram pictures, but he looked just the same. Floppy brown-blonde hair, intense blue eyes; tall and tanned and staring right at me. The corner of his mouth flicked up into half a smile, and I could already see a dimple.

This was going to be an interesting year.

"Nah," Andrew said, switching his gaze from me to the buzz-cut guy behind me. I bit my lip and turned back around, hitching my backpack back up onto my shoulders and tucking my hair behind my ear. Andrew Summers was still talking. "I'm in Yearbook, but we're meeting in here."

He and the buzz-cut guy—Trevor—exchanged a few more sentences of the basic "how was your summer?" and "good, man, I went to the Caribbean and surfed". Typical Providence boy. I busied myself with checking my schedule and then my text messages, waiting for Andrew to leave. Finally, he went into the greenroom, and Trevor and I went into the main auditorium. It actually wasn't as large as I thought it was, but it was pretty, and it had fancy lighting and a curtain like we hadn't had in our old place.

I climbed up onto the dusty stage and sat down cross-legged, forming a circle with the other kids who were onstage. Mr. Vann, the head of the theatre department and our teacher, was standing in the wings and flipping through papers attached to a black clipboard.

"All right, guys!" he said, once he'd finished looking through his papers. "I know some of you, but not all of you, so we're going to play a fun getting-to-know-each-other game for a while here."

The rest of the kids who had been milling around the stage joined the circle; Mr. Vann sat down, too. One girl pulled out her phone and began texting as he went around the circle asking each of us for our names for attendance.

"Quinn Ramirez," I said when he reached me. I could practically see the confusion on his face as he jotted down my name, but when he looked up again there was a hint of recognition. "Oh, Quinn," he said. "I almost didn't recognize you!"

I'd auditioned for the school play last year and had received a tiny part in the ensemble, so the only thing I could attribute to Mr. Vann's uncertainty was my new look.

I hadn't changed that much, had I?