Teachers prattled on about hydrogen and mercury, and then their voices morphed into mind-numbing discussions about complementary angles and trigonometric functions. Normally I wouldn’t have minded, but today it was all I could do to stop from snapping my pen in two. For the first time in my whole life, school held no appeal. I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. I didn’t care about chemicals and angles and numbers. Sam asked me what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. I already felt terrible for using him, whether he realized it or not. I owed him an apology as much as I owed one to Ryan. Why had I behaved like such an idiot after English? I’m sure there was a perfectly understandable reason why Ryan was holding Gwyneth Riordan in the hallway, right? It was just that it hurt so much seeing them together like that, so intimate. At lunch, I walked quickly into the school cafeteria. The room buzzed with student voices, chairs scraping across the floor, trays slamming.
