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Prologue

Zoey

“You kissed hi down next to me at the cafeteria table The bench that was attached to the table wobbled a little when she moved Anna wasn’t heavy The bench just sucked This kind of table should have been outlawed or replaced about a hundred years ago, yet here ere We were in high school, and ere getting our hopes up for pro on the world’s stickiest, wobbliest bench

“Yes,” I said

Eric kissed like he had nothing to lose, and it was kind of nice We’d been sort-of dating for about teeks, which felt like an eternity As a senior, he had a lot more experience than I did It wasn’t until we kissed that the “going out” part felt real My stomach was still in knots over the kiss

“So, hoas it?” Anna asked She reached for her backpack and pulled out her lunch She always packed her own lunch fro: a turkey-and-cheese sandith carrots My lunch was identical, except that I always brought cucumber slices instead of carrots

“The kiss?”

“Yeah”

“Wet, I guess” I shrugged, unwilling to talk about how it had really oofy, like itto let her know that I was really enjoying Eri

c, and I was falling for him hard Maybe he’d even take etting ready The entire school was bustling about prepping, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about which dress would look best on me

“Really?” Anna asked, raising an eyebrow “Because Sareat kisser”

“What does she know?” I asked glu a bite out of irlfriend She was a senior, unlike me, and she was a cheerleader She wasn’t the captain of the squad or anything quite so predictable and stereotypical, but she was drop-dead beautiful with a butt, not that I’d noticed Still, it was hard not to compare myself to utter perfection

“Seriously?” Anna asked “What does she know? Uh, everything They only dated for a year”

“A year?” I stilled “I thought they only went out a few times”

Anna laughed and shook her head

“I always forget you transferred in,” she said “They were the hot item all of last year Iyou”

“They were?” I whispered, suddenly eh irls after they date cheerleaders They just don’t If he’d gone nerd-to-nerd, that would be one thing That would be having a type Datingelse It made me a prop, or a bet, and I didn’t want to be either one

“Yeah,” she said “I ured Eric would have told you”

“Nope,” I said He hadn’t said ht My older brother, Felix, and I hadup in the htyears away from Kansas in every way, but we’d both been excited about the er felt like ho felt like home Our dad had happily taken a transfer to anywhere-but-here, and we’d ended up in Kansas

For me, it was the end of my sophos got a littleLuckily, he’d done dual-enrolle for le roos done

“What about Felix and David?” She asked, taking another bite of her food “They didn’t say anything?”

“David?”

“Yeah, I ht?”

“We’ve only been here a month,” I said “How do you knoho Felix’s best friend is?”

“Word travels fast,” she shrugged “Besides, David was happy when you and Felix decided to move here”

David and Felix had been best friends since forever Our ether They’d been roommates all four years, and then they’d stayed best friends through weddings and babies and the whole thing We’d spent every suether our entire lives David was like a second older brother to ested relocating to Kansas At the very least, David’s ure in our lives