My foot bounced up and down un­der my desk as I sat in trig class be­fore the bell, try­ing to cram in some last-?minute in­for­ma­tion. I shot a pa­thet­ic smile at Con­stance as she dropped in­to the seat next to mine.

“Ready for the quiz?” I asked.

'Yeah. So I have a ques­tion.“ Her voice was un­nat­ural­ly high- pitched. She laced her fin­gers to­geth­er on her desk as she turned to me. ”Why is Walt Whit­tak­er giv­ing you gifts?"

My stom­ach turned. This was not what I need­ed right now.

'You saw that?" I asked, rub­bing at a sud­den headache that had just sprung up be­tween my eyes.

“No. Mis­sy and Lor­na did,” she replied. “I don't be­lieve this. Yes­ter­day I'm pour­ing my heart out to you about my feel­ings for him,” she said un­der her breath. “And the whole time you two have a thing go­ing on. I'm such an id­iot.”

“No, Con­stance. It is so not like that,” I said. “We do not have a thing go­ing on. There is no thing.”

91

“Yeah, right,” she said. “Won­der what Thomas would say if he knew about this.”

I swal­lowed against a dry throat. Peo­ple around here re­al­ly did know how to hit a girl where it hurt.

“Noth­ing. He would say noth­ing be­cause it's noth­ing.” I took a deep breath as Con­stance stared res­olute­ly at the black­board. Around us our class­mates steadi­ly filled in the emp­ty seats. “Look, Whit may have a tiny crush on me, but that's it. And he's gonna get over it re­al­ly fast be­cause I swear I have no feel­ings for him.”

How could I when this thing with Thomas was still so un­re­solved? I thought of Josh's ac­cu­sa­tion in the cafe­te­ria and my in­sides squirmed.

But then I re­al­ized how all this looked. They had no idea that all I want­ed was to see Thomas again so that I could make sure he was all right, so that I could get a lit­tle clo­sure. How could I blame them for think­ing the worst of me?

Con­stance sighed and glanced at me out of the cor­ner of her eye. 'You swear?"

“I swear,” I said.

The ram­rod-?straight pos­ture she'd been work­ing since be­gin­ning her tirade re­laxed slight­ly and she leaned back in her seat. Out­side the door I saw our trig pro­fes­sor, Mr. Cran­dle, chat­ting with an­oth­er teach­er.

“Lis­ten, if you like him so much, you should talk to him,” I whis­pered. “Maybe you guys can get to­geth­er.”

Con­stance's cheeks turned pink and she looked down at her

92

pol­ished nails. Un­der her desk, she crossed her legs de­mure­ly at the an­kles.

“He doesn't even know I ex­ist,” she said.

“I doubt that's true. Whit doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd for­get an old fam­ily friend,” I said.

“Maybe,” Con­stance said, bit­ing her lip. “I don't know. But what if he doesn't re­mem­ber me? I'd feel like such a mo­ron.” Sud­den­ly her en­tire face lit up and she lift­ed her head. “Wait! Maybe you could talk to him for me. Men­tion me and see what he says?”

She was too cute. Re­al­ly. So cute it al­most made me want to wrap her up in a pink bow and stick her in a cat car­ri­er.

“Sure,” I told her. “I can do that.”

“Re­al­ly?” she squealed, reach­ing over to grab my hand. “That would be so amaz­ing.”

Not re­al­ly. Be­cause if I talked up Con­stance to Whit­tak­er and he end­ed up go­ing for her then it would ex­po­nen­tial­ly ben­efit me. The Billings Girls might be dis­ap­point­ed that I didn't land the guy who could “give me things,” but they couldn't fault me if he fell for some­one else. Plus Whit would be hap­py, and then I wouldn't have to hang out with him so much and con­stant­ly be re­mind­ed of those dis­gust­ing pic­tures. I would be able to con­cen­trate on what re­al­ly mat­tered--name­ly, fig­ur­ing out what to do about Natasha, keep­ing my ass in school, and find­ing out how to get to this Lega­cy thing so I could see Thomas. It was win, win, win, re­al­ly. For me, Whit­tak­er, and Con­stance.

“It's not a prob­lem,” I told her, adopt­ing a benev­olent smile.

93

“Thank you so much.”

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