worst behavior

sam

After our weird morning together, I didn't hear from Em for a whole week. I was dying, splitting at the seams full of boredom and self-pity. Each of those days, I laid on my bed (Wow! Now with sheets!) and fiddled with my phone until that got boring, and all there was left to do was to lie there and hate myself. A quality way to spend a week of summer.

"Goddamn it," I whispered at the same crackly white ceiling. "Goddamn it."

It felt a lot like the first day I was here. Boredom was leaving me with a sick feeling that I couldn't shake. I wondered why Em hadn't called.

And then, in a stroke of what was either genius or stupidity, I realized I didn't have to wonder. The girl lived next door.

I tugged a shirt over my head with a new confidence, speeding out of the house and across our two yards in record time. She had to be doing something fun. Not that it mattered. Even cataloguing her magazine collection would be more stimulating than the pure nothing I was doing.

I knocked firmly at the door to Miss Evalina's house, and it swung open almost immediately. There she was, smiling at me behind a pair of huge sunglasses.

"Hi, Sam," Em drawled in her smooth, syrupy voice. "Busy?"

Sheepishly, I shrugged. "I was hoping you were. I've been in solitary for a week."

Em flashed a hundred-watt smile. "I was just about to come get you." As she spoke, I heard a car pull up behind me. "Feel like going into town?"

I looked back, and there were four girls in the same car I'd seen on my first day in Edston. One was the blonde, Cassidy, who giggled flirtatiously when she saw me. The others I recognized from the party. The driver, a girl with thick black hair and olive skin, slid her glasses up onto her head and stared.

Em breezed past me and yanked one of the doors open. "Y'all mind if Sam tags along?"

"Sure," the brunette in the front seat called, giving that hazy grin that most girls around here seemed to have. It wasn't nearly as cool as Em's, but just as slow and gentle. "I'm Allie. This is Karina, Cass and Kennedy." Karina, the driver, was mean-looking, but beautiful all the same, and Kennedy looked simply bored as she appraised me. Clearly, I was not her type. Cass waved excitedly at me when I caught her eye, biting one full, pink lip.

Em and I piled into the little car uncomfortably, and it sped off, kicking up dust in plumes all around us. Town was a ten-minute drive full of blasted pop music and loud chatter from most of Em's friends (except for, of course, Karina. She was pretty stoic).

Finally we arrived to paved roads and street signs, and Karina found a place to park. As a pack, the girls walked into a diner, and I trailed behind.

When we'd piled into a circular booth, Cass fixed her wide blue eyes on me. "So, Sam, you having fun yet? Enjoying Edston?" she asked, prompting a hidden eye roll from Emily.

I was caught a little off guard. "Um, uh, sure," I stumbled, squirming under her intensely suggestive stare.

"Not yet, he's not," Em interrupted. "But we'll show him a good time, yeah?"

Cass flashed her a weird look, then smiled back at me. "Right."

All five of the girls launched into conversation then, and I watched them. Karina's interjections were few and far between, little replies of sparse words. She was interesting, vague and unattainable. I knew I could have Cass or Allie any minute (they flirted like there was no tomorrow), but Karina was like smoke slipping through your fingers. When she spared me a glance, it was usually a blank one.

I stared at her for a while until I felt eyes on me. Emily caught my startled gaze, and she just laughed, leaning into my ear.

"Please, Sammyboy," she whispered, a chuckle lingering in her voice. "You have no chance."