Chapter 4: I Hate School

I'm the only person I know who is fine in the early morning. My mom says I've been like this since I was a baby. I get the impression she says that with a bit of bitterness.

On the school bus, I sit looking out the window, when a ball of flowing flowery skirts, skinny brown-skinned limbs, and jangling bracelets cannons into me.

"It's too early," Esmeralda groans as she nestles her curly head in my lap. "Sophie, kill the sun."

I extend my finger and poke her cheek, making her squirm. "Did you spend the night talking to the moon?" I ask, because that's exactly the type of thing Esmeralda would do.

She giggles and then sits up, her halo of dark-brown curls lopsided from squishing it in my lap. Raising her eyes heavenward, she sighs, her face growing serious. "The moon," she says dreamily, "or maybe a star."

"Has this star got a name? Does she go to our school?"

She flashes me with a bright smile and presses the palms of her hands together before lifting her bare feet onto the vinyl-covered seat, crossing them beneath her skirt.

"Maybe, and maybe not," she announces in a cryptic whisper.

Esmeralda Reynolds has always been a wild child. When I was five, she and her mom moved into the house next door. I didn't know what to make of her at first.

She was just so strange, but that very strangeness was something I found fascinating, even mesmerizing.

She was almost always barefoot. In my world, shoes were something obligatory. Unless at the pool, one was never, ever to step outside without some kind of footwear.

The first time I saw her, she was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, a bright green tutu, no shoes, and she had four thick braids on her head, each pointing in a different direction and with a differently colored hair tie.

She was so colorful that I thought she was some kind of fairy.

The next day, I asked my mom to make me similar braids. But we had hair ties only in two colors: pink and purple, and no matter what, my braids wouldn't stick up like Esmeralda's.

Then there was Esmeralda's mom, Tina, who came over with chocolate-chip cookies she had baked. She had a turquoise scarf wrapped around her head and matching turquoise eyeshadow. Her fingernails were a vibrant yellow, and she wore a pastel-pink dress that hugged her amble hips and emphasized the deep mahogany of her skin. I didn't know moms could look like that.

Had I not been five, and had Esmeralda not been as weird as she was, we would never have become friends. As it was, the impossible happened, and I successfully created a lasting relationship with another human being. We're stuck with each other.

Maybe that means I'm not as much of a sociopath as I think I am.

We talk very little on the school bus—talking isn't one of Esmeralda's morning functions. Eventually, she falls asleep as she always does. She sleeps everywhere, like a cat.

Then we arrive at school. We're just two girls among hundreds of others. The familiar disgust creeps over my skin as I see them in the corridors. So much insecurity in one place. It's painful to watch.

It's the first day of school; therefore, people are still excited to see each other. The social rot of the year has not yet risen to the surface. All the familiar faces of my classmates are basking in the feeling that they've grown and matured and are ultimately better versions of the people they were two months ago.

It's a phenomenon that's hard to avoid. Even I go through it every year. Right now, I merely feel a fathomable amount of dislike toward them, but in a couple weeks, after encountering their faces day in, day out, my true feelings will ripen and burst.

I hate them.

Esmeralda and I part ways as we each head to our respective homeroom to collect our schedules. School orientation in the auditorium isn't until tomorrow.

Ten minutes later, I claim my seat in the middle of the AP English classroom and pull out a book as I wait for the lesson to start. I'm always one of the first in class since I walk fast and don't have to stop every minute to say hello to anyone.

People shuffle in, conversing in low voices. I like to pretend they're rocks, but in fact, they're the most popular kids in school.

In my school, the crown of popularity doesn't go to the cheerleaders or the preppy girls who have their own brand-new Mini Hardtop at seventeen. It goes to the overachievers: the ones who take every AP course possible and participate in school clubs.

The same crowd flocks all my classes. If I had the right type of personality and the ability to stomach their ridiculous drama, I would rule over them.

But I don't talk to them, and they don't talk to me. We have an unspoken deal.

"There she is," someone behind me mutters, "the one with the red hair."

There's only one person with red hair around right now—that's me.

"What? Her?" another voice pipes up in reply. "Shawn's into that?"

"Shhhh . . . she can hear you."

Of course I can hear them. That's the whole point of talking about me in my presence. I turn my head slowly and fix them with a look. What the look actually means is up to the person receiving it. I'm so good at not showing what I feel on my face—and not feeling anything in particular, for that matter—that, as it turns out, people misunderstand my expressions on a regular basis. My parents complain about this all the time. The two girls whose names I don't recall are joined by Ashley.

For Ashley, I smirk, and that's enough to light up her face with an ugly sneer.

I won't lie; I'm a little frustrated. It's always such a shame when a good, mutually beneficial arrangement goes to waste.

"Circles in a Forest?" a voice asks beside me. That's the title of the book I'm currently reading. It's by Dalene Malthee.

So far, everything that happened this morning was predictable and expected. I knew Esmeralda would go on about a new crush of hers before falling asleep on the bus. I knew I would struggle against the idea of being in school again. I knew Ashley would strike sooner rather than later and that anything she thinks she's doing to me would turn out feeble and meaningless.

But that voice, I don't expect, or more specifically, I don't expect what it does to me.

You know that feeling you get when you're extremely hungry and take a bite out of something delicious? Every cell and particle in my body trembles and says, "Thank you."

The sound travels through my blood like molten honey. I never knew a person's voice could have such an impact. It's deep, but not too deep, and has the slightest touch of hoarseness.

And then there's the accent. Whether British, South African, or Australian, I can't tell, but to an American, anything spoken with one of those accents instantly sounds more sophisticated and attractive. I put down my book and look at the owner of the voice.

My heart gives a weird little hiccup, as if it lost its balance and is about to fall into my stomach.

As far as appreciating beauty goes, I'm extremely picky. Most people repulse me. There are a precious few I find attractive.

But what's happening to me right now is on a totally different scale, because the boy sitting next to me is like no one and nothing I have ever seen before.

It's not possible to fathom how hot he is. Yes, there are the superficial details: locks of curly sun-bleached hair, smooth bronze skin, that kind of straight and narrow nose that makes you appreciate noses, lips that look somehow both hard and soft, and eyes that are like two amber suns, bright, big, and burning.

Are you kidding me? I want to ask. But instead, I say, "What?"

"Your book," he says, pointing at it. "What's it about?"

I look at my book. It's one I picked up at random in the library. It's actually pretty good. "A forest in South Africa . . ." I mumble.

Then I pick up said book, open it, and pretend to read, making it very clear that this conversation is over.

Most girls would jump at the chance to talk to a hot guy in their class. All I see is an unnecessary headache. I don't know him, never saw him before, which means he didn't go to our school last year.

And that means he's new, and nothing good could come out of being the first person to talk to the new hot guy.

Others aren't so fast to shut out and ignore Mr. Hotness. His existence becomes known to the students surrounding me. They make excited introductions. Hotness fits right in.

And I learn that his accent is Australian and his name is Landon Pearce. After class starts, he keeps checking me out when he thinks I'm not looking.

I file all that in the back of my mind just in case someday it'll be important.