© 2012 Elle Casey, all rights reserved, worldwide.

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CHAPTER ONE

I can't take much more of this high school nonsense.

I feel like I'm not supposed to be here.

So, where would I be if I weren't here? ... I don't know.

All I
do
know is I'm in the middle of all this crap, going to class, taking tests – but I'm on autopilot, going through the motions, waiting for life to start happening.

I'm sitting in World History, and there's a girl one row over who's the polar opposite of me.

She's staring attentively at the teacher, her pen poised above an already nearly full page of notes, eager to write down every nugget of educational wisdom he's throwing our way.

She loves it here, and she has big plans for moving on to college next year.

She has cheer practice after school and a boyfriend named Mike who plays wide receiver on the football team.

Ugh.

I own a pen.

I probably have some paper somewhere in my backpack, too.

Today, however, I'm using my pen to draw symbols all over my right hand – temporary tattoos.

I write and eat with my left hand but do just about everything else with my right.

My own body is confused with what it's supposed to do.

I'm in the minority in this school.

It seems like just about everyone else knows exactly what they're doing now and what they're going to be doing until the day they die.

Me?

I don't have a clue.

All I know is that
this
isn't it.

Today the bathroom scale said I'd lost another two pounds.

I was literally wasting away with boredom.

Maybe I was going to just disappear altogether.

I wondered if anyone would miss me.

"Jayne?

May I ask what you're doing?"

Uh-oh.

I'd been spotted by the droner.

I tucked my hand under my desk, hiding my artwork.

"Um, nothin' ... just taking some notes."

My face was the picture of innocence.

Or so I thought.

He walked over and stopped at my desk, looking down at its empty surface.

"Where are these so-called notes?"

I reached up with my non-tattooed hand to tap my temple, looking up at him.

"Right here, Mr. Parks; it's all riiiight here."

I gave him a saucy wink just because I knew how much he'd hate it.

Sometimes I do that kind of stuff – my mom calls it cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I'm not sure why I do it; maybe to make life more interesting, give myself more of a challenge ... or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

I looked over at the girl sitting next to me, noticing her scowl out of the corner of my eye.

I stuck my tongue out at her because I'm not all that mature and I still enjoy doing the things that cracked me up when I was ten.

She doesn't get me at all.

I'd heard girls like her call me a waste before.

I can't say that I disagree with that comment – I am definitely wasted on this school.

"Cute ... I wonder if the assistant principal would agree."

Mr. Parks went back to his desk, bending down to write out a referral slip.

"Take this up to the office and see what he thinks about your mental note-taking program."

I slid out of my chair, standing to walk to the front of the classroom with a loose grip on my nearly empty backpack.

Bringing books to class was also something I didn't normally bother with.

My locker is better equipped than my shoulder to manage fifty pounds of blah, blah, and blah.

"Thanks ever so much," I said sweetly, taking the slip from him and turning my head to look at my classmates.

There would be no leaving with eyes cast down and a heart full of shame for this girl.

I caught the eye of my best friend, the biggest dork on the entire planet, Tony Green.

I blew him a kiss with the referral slip held between my middle finger and thumb so he and the rest of the class could enjoy my one-finger salute.

His face turned bright pink and he sunk low in his chair, shaking his head and refusing to meet my eyes.

He was probably worried I was going to get him a one-way ticket to the principal's office, too.

They don't know him there like they know me.

Tony has been my friend, not necessarily willingly, since he ended up having the extraordinarily good luck to sit in front of me in Analytic Geometry, two years ago.

He was so pitiful – still is really.

Skinny as a sack of bones with crazy, unkempt and un-styled brown hair, wearing clothes I know for a fact his mother bought for him in the little boys' section at Wal-Mart, and shoes with weird, thick rubber soles.

The bright pink pimples he always had on his pale white skin did not help this package one bit.

The first day I saw him, I couldn't help latching myself right on.

He was like a scraggly little puppy who'd had its ass kicked.

It's not like I'm miss beauty queen or anything, but I know bad fashion choices when I see them.

I preferred the casual look for myself – usually jeans, purple Converse sneaks, and cute t-shirts ... hoodies in the winter.

It never gets too cold in south Florida where we live, so my fashion choices are somewhat limited.

I keep my brown hair long because it's so thick; the few times I got it cut short, I ended up having a big, puffy hair triangle on my head.

Not cool.

But sporting a thick, long, wavy mane in Florida is crazy hot, so my hair is usually up in a rubber band, out of the way.

I've been told that I'm pretty or, more often, cute.

I don't wear a lot of makeup, mostly eyeliner and mascara, occasionally lip gloss.

Adults always comment on my big green eyes and heart-shaped lips, whatever that means.

I'm shorter than about half the girls I know, so guess that makes me average height.

Every day I went into Geometry that semester, I'd ask Tony when we were going to start hanging out together.

I don't know why I did it; he just seemed so shy and cute, scared to death of everything around him.

I wanted to toughen him up or something, maybe break him out of his lonely shell.

As the school's winter dance got closer, I took to leaning forward and whispering in his ear all kinds of stuff.

First it was things like, 'When are you going to ask me to the dance?' and then it kind of devolved into, 'Hey, Tony, whaddya say you and I go hang out after school and smoke some dope or something?'

I don't do drugs, but I liked shocking the crap out of Tony – who I had started calling Tony Baloney by this time.

Or Tones.

Or Tone-Tone.

Tony had other friends, but they were all computer geeks, and none of them were girls.

I know a bit about computers, but I mostly use them to research places I'd rather be than school.

I have no idea how to program anything other than the alarm on my cell phone.

I had other friends, girls, but they were always busy doing homework and making their parents proud.

We didn't have a lot in common and their parents tended to discourage friendships with me.

I'm apparently what some might consider a 'bad influence'.

As far as I was concerned, they were the fun police.

Tony's ability to blush on command was unrivaled.

All I had to do was say 'boobs' or 'dick' and instantly his face would be scarlet.

I made the mistake of telling my mom about my antics with him one day, and she went off, telling me I was bullying the poor boy.

She made it a point to remind me that I sometimes don't realize how persistent I can be.

I think when she said 'persistent' she really meant 'annoying' or 'pain-in-the-ass-ish'.

My mom's asshat boyfriend was more than happy to chime in on that conversation.

He practically lives with us now, which is why I avoid going home as much as possible.

After my mom said that about Tony, I started feeling a little bit bad.

I looked back on everything I'd said to him and thought that maybe people could see it as bullying if they didn't realize that I was actually quite fond of the guy.

Over the weeks and months of my 'persistence', Tony kinda warmed up a bit.

We talked about things.

He learned to brush off my inappropriate comments, even laughing at them on occasion when they were particularly crass.

We walked between classes together sometimes.

We'd yet to hang out after school, but I had a feeling it was going to happen some day soon.

After the talk with my mom, I decided I needed to clear the air with old Tony Baloney.

I didn't want to think about him going home and crying because some mean girl at school was making his life a living hell.

Lord knows my father, long gone from the household but still haunting me via court-ordered visitation, has given me that credit enough times over the years.

Before history class the next day, as we were waiting for our teacher Mr. Banks to arrive, I asked Tony if I was bothering him.

The conversation went something like this:

"Hey, Tony.

Am I bothering you?"

"Yes."

"No, I mean really, Tone-Tone.

Am I really bothering you?"

"Yes, you really are."

"Okay, thanks, I feel better now.

I thought I was really bothering you."

Sigh.

"You ARE bothering me, are you deaf?"

"No, but I know what you really mean when you say 'yes'."

"Ah, so this is one of those 'no means yes' things we learned about in health class?"

"Uh ... kind of.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

BOOK: The Changelings (War of the Fae: Book 1)

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