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The next day during classes my head bobbed every few minutes as I dozed off I actually face-planted on my desk in homeroom which amused Jenny and Annie to no end My eyelids felt like they had tiny but chubby sleep fairies hanging on the lashes and pulling the to that effect while dozing because Nancy Sanders asked gled hysterically Our Literature teacher was not a and took an open seat

"Hi," I said, feeling uncomfortable and unsure if they’d accept ain

"Hey," Crye said and then yawned so hard and wide her jaw cracked Apparently I wasn’t the only one pulling all-nighters Even with the pohite ue in her face

Ash eyed ?"

"Nah Just did a lot of reading" I bit into the soggy square cafeteria pizza and forced it down uys think I’d look better if I cut ed Crye stood up and walked around the table, her black Victorian-era dress rustling as she walked She wound soers and sniffed it I noticed her black fingernails ht into , fiery, and full of life despite the dark bags under her eyes

"Do you wear contacts?" I asked, staring into those a irises

She jerked from her reverie "Yes--yes of course Nobody has eyes this color"

"Looks cool," I said laured that would’ve been over the edge

Crye stared again at my hair as a tarot card reader would look at my fortune "Your hair is a er to my lips and shook her head, so I shutfor advice is actually taking it to heart I’d done thingson a Goth chick for fashion advice

Crye held my hair so it stood on end She looked frorunted like a doctor who’d just found a potentially hazardous anomaly in someone’s brain scan "You have coarse hair I think you should cut it to about six inches and spike it"

"Spike my hair?"

"Her mom owns a fancy salon I’d listen to her," Ash said

Crye wore her long black hair straight with a simple part down the middle like the matriarch from the Addatails If it weren’t for the shrapnel-like piercings all over her face and the deathly white ht actually look cute I could alue studs The hygiene issues those posed et you a friend’s discount," she said

A lump formed in my throat I couldn’t understand what I’d done to deserve a friend’s discount froo I hadn’t done a thing to deserve the kindness of these people except turn myself into a social outcast I cleared ravelly

"Thanks," I said "I’ll do it" I gave her ym I’d passed a million times before on the way ho

"I want someone ill really whip ned me up I hoped he wasn’t a trainer His arms looked like noodles

He pursed his lips and looked ym and spotted several people with the blue trainer shirts on One was a stocky black guy with aruy’s waist "How about hiht now I can put you on the waiting list"

I scanned the area but the other trainers looked just as out of shape as their trainees I wasn’t about to waste money or time I needed results "Yeah, put me on his list, please"

"In the meantime, I’ll put you with one of our best Vic"

Vic sounded like the nauy who could teach et six-pack abs all at the saood, thanks" I paid for two months up front and hoped by then I would knohat I was doing and wouldn’t need a trainer any anyway The cash I’d stolen from my parents wouldn’t last forever, and since neither Dad nor I worked, we had zero inco for the house or utilities He’d been buying enough beer to supply a frat house, and I didn’t have a clue where the s looked bleak All ot kicked into the streets Being homeless seemed like the croel onabout his issues sooner or later

After school the next day I had ym shorts, a sleeveless T-shirt to show off my chubby arms, and examined rabbed a roll of pale jelly belly My belly button was deep enough to store a short stack of died from lack of a y the profile of a low-level thug fro to the trainers’ desk A redhead with ripped abs and enough freckles to forettable face looked up as I approached

"I’ for Vic"