A crowd had gathered on the school steps, maybe waiting for us to kill each other. I didn’t really care. Part of my brain was screaming at me to knock the bastard down, but the other part was attempting to be reasonable. I wasn’t sure how long my body was willing to listen to the latter.

Taylor Pratt sneered at me. Just looking at him made me want to rip his head off. People thought I was a spoiled, arrogant rich boy, but next to Taylor Pratt, I was a bloody fucking saint.

“Come on, Harding,” he taunted me. “What’s with the nice guy act? How long are you going to just stand there? I’ve already insulted you, your brother, and your little sister. What’s it going to take to get a rise out of you now?”

“Just stop being an idiot and get out of my way,” I said wearily.

“Or what?”

“Or I kill you, that’s what. Now move.”

“Oh, that’s so scary. You can’t really do anything when you’re by yourself, can you? Reggie Nielsen isn’t here to scare people off for you, and I’m sure you don’t have friends here. Which is good for them. I mean, you’re bad luck. You’d just get them killed or run over—”

“Aaron!” a familiar voice shouted in alarm from the top of the school steps.

The next second, Aaron Jenkins was there, his hand tight on my arm, which I hadn’t realized I’d swung back.

I wanted to split Taylor’s head open. “Let me go, Jenkins!”

“No.”

“Yeah, let him go, Jenkins,” Taylor echoed in amusement. “I think I pressed some buttons there.”

“Shut up, Taylor,” Tonie Melman said breathlessly, running over to where we stood. She had called Aaron’s name. “And get lost.”

Taylor laughed at us. “Looks like you do have friends here, after all. Although I wonder what Jenkins will do if he realizes just how friendly you and the munchkin are.”

“He called me a munchkin. Aaron, can I hit him?” Tonie asked her boyfriend hopefully.

“Keep your mouth shut, Taylor,” Aaron began darkly. “Or I might just kick you around a little myself.”

Taylor backed off. Aaron looked like he meant it, and you didn’t stick around to test a black-belter. He scowled at me and turned around.

Aaron relaxed his hold on my arm, which made it easy for me to throw my backpack at Taylor’s head.

It hit him with a satisfying thud!

Taylor came back. “That’s it! He wants a fight!”

“Harding!” Aaron yelled at me.

“I told you to stay out of it,” I told him cheerfully, shaking free of him.

I was just about to aim a kick at Taylor’s stomach when Jamie Jenkins came running over with the principal.

My stomach lurched in disappointment.

“Mr. Harding!” Mrs. Whitney shouted, looking like she was going to have a fit. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Tonie said hastily, standing between us. “Mike’s old friend just came over.”

Mrs. Whitney looked suspiciously at Taylor. “I was told that there was a fight.”

“Fight?” Aaron echoed stupidly. “We were just messing around.”

Mrs. Whitney turned to Jamie with an eyebrow raised.

“I guess I was misinformed,” Jamie lied.

Mrs. Whitney looked at all five of us. Then she sighed and walked away, dispersing the crowd.

“Slink away, slithery snake,” Tonie told Taylor coldly.

Pratt smirked at all of us, still trying to maintain his cool image, and slithered off, just as Tonie had told him to.

“What an ass,” Tonie said scornfully once Taylor had driven away. “I can’t believe he came all the way here just to bait you.”

“Why did you stop me?”

“We just wanted to help you,” Aaron sighed.

“I didn’t need your help, Jenkins,” I snapped at him. “I didn’t need either of you to back me up. I could have handled him myself.”

He blinked. “Handled him? You were going to punch him! He would have punched you back and the two of you would have rolled around in the dirt trying to kill each other! That’s not handling it.”

“This isn’t sixth grade, Jenkins. I didn’t need your help then, and I certainly didn’t need it just now.”

Aaron looked surprised.

“Mike, we were only trying to—”

“Shut up!” I shouted at Tonie, my temper finally exploding. “Just shut up and mind your own business. I don’t need you, or him, or her coming to my fucking rescue.”

Tonie’s eyes widened and she swallowed, her expression hurt.

“I think you’re being rude and ungrateful,” Jamie said resentfully.

I laughed hollowly. “Haven’t I already made it clear that I don’t care what you think of me? Besides, it’s better if you all hate me. That bastard was right about one thing.”

“Mike...” Aaron began as I picked up my backpack.

“Shut up,” I repeated, and started for my car.

“We were just trying to keep you out of trouble,” Tonie repeated softly before I could get out of earshot. “Mike, whether you believe us or not, we are your friends.”

“I don’t want any friends. And it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be in trouble anyway.”

I was right.

Jennifer was setting the kitchen table for dinner when the phone rang and she stopped to pick it up.

I sat quietly at the kitchen counter with a glass of milk and my homework. I already knew who it was.

“Uh-huh,” Jennifer was saying into the receiver. “Uh-huh. Okay. Give us an hour.” She hung up and turned to me. “Your father wants to see you. Any idea why?”

“Is he coming over or what?”

“He told us to go there.”

“Why do I have to go to him?”

She ignored that. “Why does he want to see you?”

I stood up. “To yell at me, most likely.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“The same thing I always do: disappoint him. That’s why he kicked me out, remember?”

“You know that’s not true.”

I sighed. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go get yelled at.”

Jennifer slowed to a stop in the middle of our old house’s circular driveway.

I gazed out of the car window and up at the massive double doors at the entrance. I had only been gone several weeks, and I was already intimidated by it. But then I always had been. It had always seemed too big and too cold and too empty.

“Come on,” Jennifer said gently. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

“Oh, no. We wouldn’t want that,” I said, mustering as much sarcasm as I could from the knot in my stomach as I got out of the car.

We walked up the front steps, whereupon a housekeeper opened the door before we could even get there.

“He’s in his study,” said a voice from the staircase to the left of the entrance hall.

I looked up. “Laura.”

My twenty-one-year-old sister looked back at me, her green eyes cold. Her dark brown hair hung loose, softening the stern expression she wore. But not by much.

“You’d better go in,” she told me.

Jennifer stopped me when I started to move. “No. I’ll go first. I have something to say to him.”

“Jen— No. Don’t argue with him just for my sake—”

She ignored me. “Stay here.”

I sighed as she stalked determinedly from the hall.

I turned to my sister. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in University?”

“Just visiting,” she said coolly.

“I’m not guessing it was because you missed me,” I said lightly.

She frowned at me. “When are you growing up, Keith?”

And there it was. I swear, there must be some kind of rule written down that said people should call me by my first name whenever they were annoyed with me. It was usually a prelude to yelling.

“Why don’t you ask yourself that, Laura?” I asked her wearily. “Where’s Brian?”

“Out.”

“Chris?”

“She’s in her bedroom. She doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Right. I guess I’m not important enough. I’m just a nobody who got tossed out of this house.”

“She’ll only get upset.”

“Of course,” I said sarcastically. Then I sighed, sick of all of it. “I guess I should get this over with,” I muttered under my breath.

She didn’t say anything, and I headed for my father’s study, bracing myself for the shouting ahead.

A few moments later, I was sitting and staring at my father from across his desk.

Is that what I’ll look like when I’m his age? I wondered. It was true that Brian and I looked exactly like him, except his eyes were a pure sharp green. On a good day, he looked at least ten years older than we did, still ten years younger than his actual age. But he looked all of his forty-seven years when he frowned at me.

“I spoke to Taylor Pratt’s father this afternoon.”

I said nothing.

“He said you attacked his son again – this time for no apparent reason.”

“What? I had plenty of reason!”

“So you don’t even attempt to deny it?”

“Well, I didn’t attack him. I only threw my backpack at his head.” Maybe that didn’t come out quite right.

He sighed and wearily passed a hand over his eyes.

“He started it,” I added lamely. “He—”

“I don’t really care who started it,” he interrupted me. “The point is: you shouldn’t be out there picking fights.”

“Picking – Pratt was the one who went all the way to Riverview High just to piss me off, and you think I’m the one picking fights?” I asked him incredulously.

“From what I understand, Pratt was ready to walk away from the whole thing.”

“Only because Aaron Jenkins threatened him, and you don’t argue with someone who’s studied how to hurt people.”

“Do you even feel sorry for what you’ve done?”

It was almost as though I’d murdered Taylor. I almost wished I had, just so our entire conversation would be worth it. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Why don’t you just concentrate on your studies like your brother and sisters instead of wasting your time fighting over girls?”

I got to my feet, slamming my hands down his desk. “Do you even know why I hate the guy? Why just seeing him makes me want to pound him into the pavement? The whole story? Not some dramatic tale concocted by his father to wring an apology from the great Stephen Harding?” I asked him, unable to control the anger and sarcasm rising in my voice.

“I know Taylor broke things off with Chris because he didn’t want to date a girl who could not walk. That set off the last fight between the two of you, if I recall correctly.”

I ground my teeth at his matter-of-fact tone. “You know. But do you understand at all?”

He fixed me with his cold green eyes. “It made you very angry. After all, Christine wouldn’t be—”

“If you’re going to say that it’s all thanks to me that she isn’t walking anymore, don’t bother,” I snapped, even though that particular stab hurt me more than anything else. “Taylor already told me. Everything’s my fault. I’m bad luck. And you know, I even believe that now. I’m sorry I keep standing in the way of everyone’s happiness. Can I go now?”

“Keith, it’s not—”

I didn’t let him finish. I was already out the door.