One of the Boys

"Lydia." Sapia grabbed my shoulders.

"What?" I gasped, his words cutting into my arguement.

"We're quite aware that Annabelle hates us, okay?"

I stepped back from Sapia, heaving a heavy sigh and leaning against the brick wall of the building. "Got a smoke?" I asked, giving up. I'd stormed onto the school grounds, pulling Sapia and Eddy aside to vent last night's dilemmas to them. They merely smirked the entire time, soaking up the hilarity they found in my anger. It wouldn't have been so funny if I punched their teeth in.

Eddy popped a cigarette out of his pocket and handed it to me. I quickly lit it up and took a long drag, feeling calmer instantly. "Y'know, if she wasn't my foster sister, I'd probably beat her ass," I said.

"Woah, what the hell, she's your foster sister?" Eddy questioned, his eyes widening and looking as though they were going to bug out of thier sockets.

"Yeah. A shame, isn't it?" I replied. Sapia already knew the whole story, and he seemed to accept it.

"I didn't even know she was a foster kid," Eddy said as the first bell rang. I shrugged, but I knew that if she let out that information for everyone to see, she'd never live it down. The three of us headed inside, buried in the endless sea of high schoolers headed for the doors. It didn't take long for me to lose sight of Eddy and Sapia, at which I scowled. It felt awkward to walk among the group of jocks that I'd fallen into step beside, my being sticking out like a sore thumb. To my luck, the tallest of them all bumped into me, sending me sideways into the girls on the other side to me.

"Watch where you're going!" one shrieked. I stumbled back onto both feet, glaring in her direction. She took one look at me, frowned in fear, and scurried on to wherever she was headed. I sighed, flipped my bangs out of my face, and continued on inside.

"Hey, sorry about that."

I jumped, startled to see the jock beside me again and to see him apologizing. I looked at him, blinking in confusion.

"Uhm, it's okay," I said uneasily. He was much taller than me, his dark brown hair shaved in a buzz cut. There were a few freckles dotting his cheekbones and nose, his green eyes lit up as he looked down at me. To be blunt, he was drop dead gorgeous, but I still saw through that at how a jock really behaved.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked as we both entered the school building. I broke into laughter and shook my head. He couldn't be serious.

"No," I said. "That takes a lot."

"Well, as long as you're okay-"

"Save the speech, Buzz," I remarked, turning away from him and walking off to find Sapia and Eddy again. They were waiting for me around the corner, their eyebrows raised in question.

"What? Can't even walk in the school without being swept off your feet?" Eddy joked, slinging his arm around my shoulders and dragging me toward his locker.

"Oh yeah, he totally pulled me in," I replied, pushing his arm away and taking a punch at his arm. Eddy recoiled, a smirk on his face as he blocked the throw. "Well, I do kinda have a connection to the in-crowd when you think about it," I added, leaning against the lockers.

"Well, we were wondering if you might want to get away from that for a little while," Sapia suggested suddenly. I cocked my head to the side, wondering what he could possibly have in store. "We're gonna go quadding after school today behind Great Adventure. You in?" His brown eyes glinted with mischief the same way I saw Eddy's do yesterday.

Oh, they just got better every day.

"Hell yeah!" I exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across my lips. I couldn't recall the last time I had gone quadding. My dad had sold ours after I wrecked it in a creek with some friends. I could have fixed it, but he just didn't want to spend the money on the parts to fix it.

"Do you think your foster mom would flip shit on you if you went?" Sapia asked as Eddy went in the opposite direction of us toward his first class.

"Shit." I sighed. "Probably."

"Well, then just leave the lying to me."