“Nowhere important.” I don’t take her offered hand. Don’t want to encourage the fluttering of her eyelashes. Don’t want to be looked at like that. Don't want to be looked at at all.

When Maggie’s eyebrows bow up, Lyric glances at me with her brow cocked. “You’ll have to excuse Ayden,” she says to Maggie. “He’s a man of few words.”

“Oh, the sexy silent type,” she says, chomping loudly on a piece of gum. “Nice.”

“No, just the silent, doesn’t like to chat type,” I say, switching my weight uncomfortably, wishing Lyric would end the conversation and just take me to the office so I can check in and get the fuck out of this overcrowded, stuffy hall.

“I don’t get it.” Maggie blinks at Lyric for help.

“It doesn’t matter.” Lyric waves good-bye before tugging me down the hallway.

“We so need to work on your people skills,” she tells me as she steers me through the mob.

“My people skills are fine.”

She snorts a laugh. “Okay.”

I sigh, giving up on the argument, and instead focus on what’s going on around me. Most of the kids look on the preppy side, except for a group lingering around the benches in the quad. I make eye contact with them, figuring they’ll be the best start toward finding my place here. But the tallest guy in the group gives me a hard stare in return, and a curvy girl with purple hair flips me the bird.

The day only gets shittier from there. Everyone at this damn school seems to hate me, and the other half seems overly interested. I don’t want that. Don’t want their stares. I just want to be left alone, since I’ll be out of here when the week passes.

I do my best to keep my distance from most people, and spend lunchtime in the bathroom. When fifth period rolls around, though, things really go to shit. It’s PE, which is bad enough, but I also have it with Lyric.

“You have been avoiding me,” she says as she waltzes up to the bottom bleacher I’m sitting on, waiting for class to start. She has on a red T-shirt and short, black gym shorts that show off her extremely long legs. “What’s up with that?”

“When was I avoiding you?” I ask, fiddling with the drawstring on my own shorts.

“At lunch.” She sits down beside me and crosses her legs. “I looked everywhere for you. Where the hell were you?”

I pick at a hole in the bottom of my shorts. “I ate in the bathroom.”

Her nose crinkles. “Ew, Ayden. No, no, no. Just no.”

I shrug. “It was better than being stared at.”

“Who’s staring at you?”

I give her a ‘really’ look.

She sighs. “All right, I’ll give you the staring thing.” She rests her elbows on the bench behind us and reclines back, staring at the gym floor. “My school has apparently never seen someone so gothically adorable.”

“What does that even mean?”

She smirks at me. “You know, dark, mysterious, sullen, yet cute.”

I gape at her. “Do you even have a filter?”

She swiftly shakes her head. “No way. Where’s the fun in that?”

I continue to stare at her, impressed and kind of afraid of her. She’s so open. So honest. So unlike me, the guy who barely speaks and who carries pills with him, contemplating suicide. Lyric is my polar opposite.

“Hey, Lyric.” A guy wearing baggie gym shorts and a school T-shirt comes strolling up to us with a smile on his face. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, Lanson.” Lyric smiles up at him then leans forward to tie her shoe. “Have you met Ayden?”

Lanson’s eyes land on me and the friendliness he conveyed when he was staring at Lyric disappears. “Yeah, new guy, right? I think we have English together.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Heaviness develops in my chest as more attention is focused on me. God, I wish this day would just get over with.

“You two should hang out,” Lyric suggests with her head still tipped down as she loops her shoelace.

Lanson sneers. “Oh yeah, I’m sure we can be best friends.” When Lyric looks up again, his haughtiness turns into a friendly smile. “In fact, I’m having a party this weekend. You two should come.”

Lyric glances over her shoulder at me. “What do you think? Are you up for a party?”

Lanson glares at me. I can’t tell if he wants me to agree to go or to say no, but one thing’s for sure: my existence is clearly irritating him.

I force a tight smile. “Sure, a party sounds fun.”

The death glare vanishes from Lanson’s face when Lyric looks back at him. “Oh, time for class.” Lyric springs up and grabs my hand, hauling me to my feet.

That move earns me the darkest scowl from Lanson. I have a feeling things are going to get a hell of a lot worse.

I wish I could follow Lyric, but the teacher splits up the class—boys on one side, girls on the other. Then we’re divided into teams of three and handed a basketball. Athletics was never my thing, but I try my best, even when I start to get criticized by Lanson, who of course has to be on the team I’m playing against.

He smirks at me as he throws the ball over my head to another member of the team then “accidentally” elbows me in the gut.

“Where are you from?” he asks as we both jog down the court toward the ball.

“Nowhere important.” I dodge to the right when the ball is thrown again and surprisingly catch it.