Poison Ink by Christopher Golden Page B

others got up as well. Sammi wished they would yell at her, so that maybe she could try to explain why she had done it. But they walked away, moving to another table, and left her in the corner alone.
    All eyes in the cafeteria must have been on her, but Sammi did not turn to look. She kept her back to everyone, pushing her food around with a fork. She’d lost her appetite again.

 

    6
    T he rest of the day Sammi walked the halls of Covington High in a constant state of humiliation. In sixth grade she’d had a recurring dream about showing up late for school, completely naked. As she moved from class to class, from locker to bus line, she felt that dreamlike hyperreality envelop her. Every glance or whisper troubled her. No matter how she told herself they weren’t talking about her, that a lot of people hadn’t even noticed the way her friends had abandoned her and it simply wasn’t interesting enough gossip for the rest of the school to care, still she felt exposed.
    Her skin prickled with pins and needles all day, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Worse yet, a stone had somehow exchanged places with her heart. Cold, hard stone. It made Sammi walk more slowly, made it hard for her to lift her chin, made it hard to breathe and to swallow.
    In her entire life, she’d never felt so lonely. Without the girls, Sammi floated at sea, cast adrift. She might as well have been the only one in school who spoke English, for all the good the rest of them would do her.
    She had other friends, and she kept telling herself that. But they weren’t her real friends, not close. Not intimate. For the first time, she hated being a floater. In all the school there was no one to whom she could turn for reassurance, for a safe harbor. Before her final class of the day, she huddled in a stall in the girls’ room and sent Adam a text message.
    today’s a disaster. can u talk later?
    Sammi waited as long as she could, even past the bell to begin class, but Adam did not reply. When she hurried into psychology late, enduring the wrathful gaze of Mr. Sullivan—the knitting of those bushy eyebrows—she had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.
    Which pissed her off.
    By the time psych ended and Sammi threaded through the crowded halls to her locker, some of the hurt and humiliation had turned to anger. When she saw Katsuko coming in the opposite direction, she stared into her eyes for a second and then looked away. They brushed past one another, shoulders coming into contact.
    “Bitch,” Katsuko muttered.
    Sammi flinched. The word cut deeply, but instead of blood, the wound filled with anger. She gritted her teeth and willed her heart to go cold against the girls—against her friends. If they were going to take things that far, then to hell with them.
    She jammed her books into her backpack and slammed her locker. As she left the school, she kept her eyes fixed firmly in front of her. Sammi refused to look at anything except what was straight ahead. She raised her eyes just long enough to mark the location of her bus and then headed in that direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of T.Q.’s hair—as always, the girl was impossible to miss.
    Katsuko had always tended to be arrogant and Caryn had her temper, but if any of them would give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be T.Q. For a second she hesitated, wishing she could just put an end to the emotions that had wound her up so tightly. But then Sammi pushed on, getting in line for her bus. She had tried to deceive them, had lied to all of them, but they had to know why. At least they could have given her a chance to explain.
    So much for sisters, she thought, stepping up onto the bus.
    Once in her seat she pulled out her cell phone to find no messages. Adam hadn’t replied to her text yet, and why should he? They’d just met. Now she regretted having sent it at all. Sammi had never been one of those girls who thrived on drama, who stoked it up like a