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.It makes everyone look bad and costs the town a lot of money."Brandon's smile was back, but it didn't have his trademark easy carelessness."Now you sound like my mom."We rounded a corner before Brandon could say anything else and nearly ran into Britney."Guys! Did you see the back door?"I could almost see the wheels turning in Britney's head.First she went red as she remembered she'd stranded me at school, then her eyes got a little wider as she realized it was still about five minutes too early for me to have arrived on the bus.Brandon's normal smile was back."Yeah, Adriana noticed it almost as soon as we pulled up to the school."Her suspicions that Brandon had given me a ride into school satisfied, Britney managed a sickly smile and mumbled something about seeing us later as she disappeared around the corner.I managed to make it another twenty feet before I couldn't restrain my laughter anymore.Brandon joined in with a chuckle that was more restrained, but no less heartfelt.We both wound down about the same time, and I wiped a tear off of the corner of each eye."I should feel bad for laughing at her, but she's so transparent.It's nice to see her served with a little justice."Brandon nodded with a smile."It's a little ironic.She threw you overboard because she was worried you'd limit her upward mobility, and then the next day you arrive with the guy she's had a crush on since the day she moved into Sanctuary."I punched him on the shoulder, "You knew all this time?"Another laugh, and a smile at the way I was trying to conceal how much the punch had hurt my hand."Of course I knew.It isn't like I could do anything about that.I've never led her on, but I've always been aware she liked me."There didn't seem to be much else to be said, so I thanked Brandon again for the ride into school, and headed off to my home room.Everyone had pretty much just pretended like I didn't exist before.Now, with Brandon having taken an interest in me I got everything from simple acknowledgment of my presence to obvious dislike, and even a couple of people who looked like they wanted to take Britney's place.I suppose some people would have been thrilled by the chance to join the top of the social food chain, but it mostly just disgusted me.I politely rebuffed the scavengers, ignored the haters, and carefully acknowledged the rest without giving them anything else to go on.It was a rather depressing exercise.By the time Mrs.Sorenson had fired a couple of ridiculously obscure questions at me, I found the good feelings I'd managed to carry away from the mayor's visit the night before had pretty much evaporated.English should have been better.Wuthering Heights wasn't ever going to be my favorite book, but Mr.Whethers had made the characters more real in the last few days and I was actually excited to see what he had in store next.Unfortunately, Mr.Whethers wasn't there.The substitute teacher sitting at his desk didn't even take roll; he just shut the door, told us to keep it down, and flipped open a magazine.While I was sitting at my desk wondering what to do with the next hour of my life, something I'd read in the physics book suddenly clicked.In a perfect world I would've been left in peace to finish reasoning out the answer.Instead, Britney leaned over and smiled."So I was really surprised to see you with Brandon.I thought for sure he'd be pissed after you made Cassie back down like that.""Surprise, surprise, maybe he isn't as shallow and vindictive as you thought." The words were mean, but they felt good.There were a lot of other, even worse things on the tip of my tongue, things I really wanted to say.For a moment, my anger warred with the fear of being completely friendless.I'd always thought I didn't need any friends, that I was fine making my own way.I was starting to realize I'd never really been alone before now.I'd always had the best friend a girl could've wanted.I'd just never recognized how much I'd depended on her.Even that oblique thought was almost too much.I felt my pulse quicken a little as the air seemed to vibrate."Look, I'm sorry about how I reacted yesterday.I shouldn't have left you here like that."Britney's voice was coated with sincerity, but it was the thinnest of layers, one which poorly disguised all kinds of nasty little feelings.On the other hand, it distracted my mind from the string of thoughts I'd otherwise have followed all the way down to a full-blown panic attack.It was a small thing in the grand scheme of the universe, but it was just enough to tilt the balance in her favor.I still didn't like her any more than she really liked me, but I was willing to tolerate her.To pretend we were friends so that neither of us had to face the scary world entirely on our own."Ok, apology accepted.It wasn't very nice, but I suppose everyone makes mistakes."Britney's eyes grew bright, even after such a short acquaintance, I knew she was about to launch into a blow by blow account of the last twelve or so hours."Listen, I don't mean to be rude, but I've got to finish up my physics homework.Can we catch up during lunch?"Britney looked a little crestfallen, but her eyes quickly lit back up, and before I could get my notebook out and start writing, she'd already switched seats to one closer to a gaggle of cheerleaders.It was amazing that I hadn't made the connection between light, the fact that light acted like a wave, and the rainbows on the parking lot puddles, but it was all making sense now.By the time the bell finally rang to release the circus back into the halls, I'd finished up a reasonable outline, and was feeling pretty smart.Alec probably expected me to have been totally stumped, but I'd figured out the exact answer to the assignment, and I was so going to show him.The glow of satisfaction more than made up for the fact that Britney chattered non-stop on our way to Algebra.I felt like I should feel guilty for not liking her, but I was starting to notice how much of her conversation revolved around nasty gossip that made everyone else in the school sound like rejects or sluts.When we finally made it to Mrs.Campbell's class, I slid into my seat with a sigh of relief.This was the one class all day where I could virtually guarantee I wouldn't be talking to anyone.Mrs.Campbell wasn't ever really mean, but she gave off an air that made you absolutely sure she wouldn't put up with any crap.We were still working on statistics, which was nice in that I could follow what was being said and wasn't falling any further behind, but kind of a bummer because it meant I couldn't do a bunch of makeup work during class.It was a relief when Mrs.Campbell finally capped her marker and turned us loose to work on the homework assignment.I was midway through the first assignment when one of the aids slipped into the room and whispered into Mrs.Campbell's ear.There was a kind of muted, collective gasp that made me look up just in time to see the color drain out of her face.Before the aid had even finished whispering, Mrs.Campbell was out of her chair and headed towards the door.Thirty seconds later we were all still looking around and wondering what had happened.It was a testament to our respect for, or in some cases fear of, Mrs.Campbell that nobody spoke in anything above a whisper for an entire five minutes.Every terrible thing that could possibly happen to a person seemed to flow through my mind, and all I could do was hope I was overreacting.Mrs.Campbell had scared me a little that first day, but she'd been pretty nice since, and she'd always been fair
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