A disaster. That’s what I looked like. I’d stayed up all night working on a heap of homework (Can you believe that? After only one day?) and doing student council stuff (I was the president this year) and went to bed at nearly the crack of dawn. My parents were both out of town and my idiot cousin didn’t wake me up so here I was, running late yet again.

I was still mentally cursing my cousin when I rounded a corner and—

And ran straight into something.

I tripped over it— him— whatever— and went sprawling on the floor, my binder flying over my hands and scattering papers everywhere.

“Goddamit! This is just what I need,” I heard a familiar voice complain.

I picked myself up, turned around, and stopped in surprise.

There was Mike Harding, sitting across the hall, staring back at me with equal astonishment. I was sure it was him. I could never mistake his brother for him. I didn’t hate his guts.

“You!” we burst out at exactly the same time.

“First, the game. Then, the cookie dough. Now, this!” I shouted, picking up my books, my blond hair falling out of my hastily tied ponytail and into my eyes.

“Oh, so it’s my fault?” he asked incredulously, still on the floor.

“Wasn’t it?”

“How typically feminine! Blame it on the guy!”

“That is such a—” I broke off, deciding that neither he nor his comment deserved a response. I resolved to ignore him.

“So...since you ran into me and all, could you help me up, please?”

“Get up yourself.”

“You ran into me. If you’d watched where you were going—”

“If you hadn’t been loitering in the hall on your knees—”

“Like I was doing that on purpose!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the hall.

That boy could be loud.

A door nearby opened and Ms. Walker, the freshman English teacher, frowned at us. “What are you two still doing out here, making all this noise? We’re having classes.”

“Sorry, Ms. Walker,” I mumbled.

She sighed. “All right. I’ll leave your detention up to your teachers to hand out.” She disappeared back into the room, firmly shutting the door.

“Look what you did,” I told Mike accusingly.

His blue eyes blazed. “Help me up,” he ordered.

“No,” I said stubbornly.

He sighed. “At least get my damn crutches back over here.”

I blinked. Crutches? Then I noticed his left foot, shoeless and cast, poking out from the hem of his loose jeans. I looked around and saw his crutches several feet down the hall. “Wait here,” I sighed. I was still annoyed with him, of course, but I wasn’t a heartless monster.

“I’m not going to run off,” he said dryly, leaning back against the wall.

I went back to him with his crutches. “Here.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking one back and struggling to rise with it.

I watched him and finally felt sorry for him. “Oh, all right. I’ll help you up.”

“Oh, no. I can handle this. You don’t have to help me or anything.”

“Just shut up,” I told him and grabbed his arm. He was quite heavy. But then, he was over six feet tall, and though lean and not overly muscular, he was far from skinny. I glanced at him and noticed for the first time how long his eyelashes were. And his eyes, a deep, dark blue, seemed to have tiny dancing flecks of green. It was the first time I’d gotten close enough to him to actually see his eyes.

They took my breath away.

“This feels nice,” he leered at me, once upright, and pulled me close.

I quickly jumped back and he laughed at me. I hated him. I really did. “Here,” I said again, shoving the other crutch at his chest, but his hands were filled with his books and other things.

“Maybe you can hold that for a minute? I need to find my locker.”

I blinked at him, several questions suddenly popping into my head. Funny how I hadn’t thought of them sooner. “What do you mean, your locker?”

He was busy studying a piece of paper. “What do you mean, what do I mean?” he asked absently.

“I mean, why do you have a locker here?”

“Because I study here.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do now.”

“You can’t!” I exclaimed irrationally. “This must all be some elaborate scheme to piss me off!”

He looked at me slowly, his eyes coolly amused. “You’re not the center of my universe,” he said mildly.

I shook my head. I can’t deal with this right now. “I’m late for math class,” I said abruptly, and turned on my heel.

“Advanced Calc?” he called after me, a hopeful catch in his voice.

No, God. Please, No...

“You can show me the room later,” he was saying happily. “Right now you have to show me to my locker,” he added, showing me a piece of paper.

“But I’m late!” I said dumbly. “I’m going to get detention!”

“We’re getting detention, anyway. For making all the noise. Come on.”

And before I could protest further, he was dragging me down the hall in the wrong direction.

By the time lunch rolled around, I’d had enough of the school’s newest celebrity. Unfortunately, everyone else had not.

“Isn’t he just adorable?” Samantha Thompson sighed dreamily, chewing on a carrot stick as she gazed across the lunchroom with wide green eyes at Mike Harding, her other hand absently twirling a lock of her reddish brown hair around one finger. This reaction to a good-looking man was rather typical of Sam.

I frowned, glancing at Mike out of the corner of my eye. He could barely move with all the girls crowding around him and offering to help him with his lunch tray so he could hold his crutch properly. His other crutch wasn’t in sight, as his hands were full with his nearly overflowing tray of food.

“So what’s the story?” I couldn’t help asking. “Why is he here?”

Katie Tanner, who was sitting across from me, looked up from the book she was reading. “I asked him about it earlier. He says his father told him to keep an eye on his aunt who just moved out. She’s diabetic or something.”

“Diabetics don’t need babysitters.”

Katie shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe he was lying, in which case we’ll never know the truth. It’s hard to drag a serious answer out of him.”

“Who cares?” Sam went on, still floating in outer space. “Just as long as he’s here. Now would you look at that smile? Gosh, his eyes are pretty.”

Katie shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid Sam’s too far gone, now, JJ. She’s majorly in crush with him.”

“Half the school is,” I muttered. Which was true. Most of the girls in the cafeteria were staring at the guy in, at the very least, appreciation and, at the most, open adoration.

“Well, he is gorgeous, you have to admit.” Katie looked at me strangely. “You seem to be immune.”

“I’ve got a boyfriend. What do I need him for? You don’t seem to be as fascinated by him, either.”

“Who said I wasn’t?” Katie laughed. “I know Mike Harding. I’ve gone out with him a few times. The only difference between them and me is that I’ve learned not to hope.”

“Hope for what?”

Katie looked over her shoulder. Mike was there, having somehow fended off his admirers. He was looking at her expectantly and she smiled. “Speak of the devil.”

“Oh, were you talking about me?”

I rolled my eyes as he smiled at the comatose Samantha, who seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. I kicked her under the table and she gasped, catching Mike’s attention.

Sam smiled weakly at him. “Hi...”

“Hi. Samantha Thompson, right?”

I had no idea how he knew Sam’s name but the fact that he knew it seemed to please Sam, which was probably the effect he wanted.

“That’s right! So...how do you find our school so far?”

“It’s great.”

“Are you just saying that? It’s not as fancy as Coleridge High, after all.”

“Oh, he means it,” Katie replied, taking a sip from her milk carton. “Private schools are highly overrated. Bridgewater Academy was boring as hell.”

“I thought it was hell,” Mike muttered. “Where are you going?” he asked as Katie stood up, her lunch tray in her hands.

“I have to go. We have cheerleading practice next period. They’re pressuring us to win the upcoming competition so it’s practice, practice, practice.”

Mike’s eyes lit up.

“No, Mike. We’re not wearing our uniforms. Just sweatshirts and pants, so sorry to disappoint you.”

“I’ll get over it.”

“And we did agree to meet after school,” Katie reminded him. “You promised you’d at least listen—”

“All right, all right. I won’t run away,” he said tiredly. “Shut up before I change my mind.”

Katie grinned and hurried away.

Mike turned to me. “Speaking of running away. I see you’re about to.”

I scowled at him in the act of picking up the remains of my own lunch. “If you must know, I have important things to take care of,” I told him loftily.

He gave me a strange, millisecond smile. “See you in detention.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.” Funny. It didn’t come out as sarcastically as I’d intended.

“I hate detention,” I complained that afternoon, trying to return a book to a top shelf in the library. Mike and I were serving our sentence for being loud in the halls and it was our job to return the stuff in the book drop to their proper shelves.

Mike took pity on me and shelved the book himself. “Quit complaining. This can’t be as bad for you as it is for me.”

“Oh, so it’s fine for you to complain but I can’t.”

“Look, it’s not that. It’s just the principal warned me just this morning not to get in trouble and here I am.”

“Am I supposed to think you really care?”

“Is everyone here as judgmental as you and Mrs. Whitney?” he asked, sounding exasperated. “You know, someday you’ll have to explain to me why you hate me so much.”

“I’m not judgmental!” I said defensively, latching on to that.

“Oh. Sorry. If you aren’t judgmental then I guess Webster and his dictionary got it all wrong,” he said dryly, leaning his shoulder against a bookshelf.

I wanted to strangle him.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He leaned forward slightly. “Like you want to kill me.”

“I do want to kill you,” I muttered when he turned around and started down the aisle. “I was just trying to figure out whether I wanted to wring your neck or run you over after school.”

“You’d run over a cripple?” he asked, feigning shock. “You’re cruel.”

“Thank you.”

He started to turn around but did it too fast. His long legs caught on his crutch and he started to topple forward.

“You are such a klutz, honestly!” I exclaimed, grabbing his hand to keep him steady.

He grinned, looking down. “I am, aren’t I?”

“How did you ever become an athlete? And a supposedly good one at that.”

His grin broadened. “You heard that about me?”

“Yeah, well, don’t let it get to your head,” I said lamely, trying to let go of his hand, but he wouldn’t let me. “Um, can you let me go now?”

“I’ll let go if you let go.”

I snatched my hand away quickly and he laughed. “That’s the last time I’m catching you. Even if you fall flat on your face in front of me, I’ll only laugh at you.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“You know, I think I've figured out why I don't like you. It's because—” I got no further than that because he suddenly put his index finger to his lips, shushing me.

"Shut up a minute," he said absently, cocking his head to one side as if listening for something.

“What's—”

"I heard my name," he said softly, pulling me around a bookshelf. "Someone's talking about me."

I rolled my eyes. “That's such a self-centered thing to—” I broke off. Someone was talking about him. And it was a voice I recognized.

"Ashten Haley," I whispered to him. "She's a real..."

"I know. Be quiet."

The conversation on the other side of the shelf was interesting.

"So, you really want to go out with Mike Harding?" Jessica Foster. I knew her. She was a shallow ditz who usually sucked up to Tonie.

"Why not?" Ashten asked her.

"Well...do you think you have a chance?"

"He seemed interested when we talked."

Behind me, Mike made a gagging noise and I stepped on his foot to make him stop.

"But Ashten, he's got a bad reputation!"

“Funny. Some rumors make him out to be a saint. He's at the top of his class in Coleridge and he aced the college evaluation tests. He can go to any university he wants, he’s a great athlete, and filthy rich. He’s got pretty much everything. Not to mention that he’s hot as hell.”

"But I heard something else," Jessica went on. "I heard he got arrested once. He even went to court."

"Yeah, I heard about that, too. But there was supposed to be some kind of mistake..."

"It was kept very quiet. Anyway, his father's got lots of money. Maybe that explains everything, even his grades."

"Well, that just makes him more interesting. If he was that perfect, he would be boring. Come on. I've found the book. Let's hit the mall."

They left and with a feeling of dread, I turned to look at Mike, but he was looking down at the floor. "Mike? Are you...are you okay?"

He looked up and his blue eyes were on fire. I took a step back involuntarily. "We'd better get to work," he said coldly.

“Mike—”

“Save it. I know you think the same way they do. It was stupid of me to think that maybe here, things would be different. Let's just get this over with. I want to go home.”