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“No offense,” Samantha echoed, and smiled a sickly smile and strained with all her will to keep her hands at her sides, not to touch

All of the at her, expectant, waiting on the signal to laugh at her

“How’s youruot the uplift this time, in a way that clearly cast doubt on the possibility that there was such a book

“Okay, I guess I have to get to class”

“Aren’t you done writing it? You said in Mr Briede’s class you were done”

Saht doave of anxiety Mark Briede was the teacher who had ed her to write But she didn’t want to talk about the book, or think about the book, or think of how she wanted to touch her face She had to begin the count again, had to make it three times The book was just stupid She would probably just be a huge failure—ere the odds of so?

And if she did? She had revealed bits of herself in the story One of the characters would be blindingly obvious as herself, as a prettier, cooler Samantha, an aspirational Saet, she would have painted a bull’s-eyeNo, a targeting map, like the military used—strike here and here and here to inflict e

“I’ll see you guys later,” Sa it Touching it again Relief

I looked at Kayla rather than Samantha now

“Is she doing it on purpose? Does she know she’s being cruel?”

“Is that ier asked

“Yes,” I said

“Listen to her thoughts,” Messenger said

And I heard the In fact, when I looked, I saw her lipsbut not to the others around her It was iven her a truth serum that caused her to explain herself honestly

“I don’t like Samantha She’s very smart, but so am I And I’m prettier by a mile and also much more popular I pick on her because she’s weak It’s that si I say can make