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Well, I wasn’t going to think about him at all I had my own problems: lots of them

Callie ran into me outside the door of my last class of the day and pulled et in the way of things that are actually important Not sure if Aileen is still around, but the two of us can go take care of that little… mission, if you’d like?”

I shook rasp “Maybe another day”

Callie was doing a bad job of keeping her jaw fro clock on this, right?”

I grio ho”

“It’s because you had a fight with Steven earlier, isn’t it?” she said “You need to put all of that out of your head and focus on what’s iht now”

So the gossip had spread to her already It was strange to think of Callie as an endpoint in the rumour mill

I started backing away “Just leave me alone, Callie, please?”

She called after me once as I turned to hurry off, but when I looked back she wasn’t following

I got myself without further incident to Ryan, who never hadthese short lifts at least He hated that he had to do theestion that I could just take the bus like every other norh school student who didn’t have a car of their own yet I, apparently, was not ‘just norave o within myself, to the place I needed to be to calm myself down

By the tiain It had been an upsetting day, but I had done what I needed to do and gotten through it I’d done it mostly on my own too, no need for the variable support of my friends

I looked in the mailbox once I was out of Ryan’s car out of habit now (there was a lock, but Mum never bothered to put it on) and pulled out a bunch offor Mike in a suspiciously nondescript envelope…

And aenvelope for me I didn’t see my name on envelopes very often My bank state slowly depleted The occasional thing froled to catch nificance of as held inside

I picked up a couple of Mus I’d dropped in my surprise, and headed into the house I nearly tripped over Mum three steps in

“Oh thanks, Tamara I’ll take that now” She held out her hands for the mail