He jumped back, throwing his hands up as if he wished to ward me off. “Jesus! Don’t look at me with your dead eyes, you freak!”

“Hey!” yelled Adam, stepping around me. “Don’t talk like that to her.”

Dustin lurched at Adam like he was going to hit him, but it was fake. I knew it, and Adam knew it, but we both winced. The crowd around Dustin burst into laughter, the word “freak” still being tossed around as they made their way down the hall.

“What an asshole,” muttered Adam. “God, you know what?”

“What?” Hot tears burned my eyes, threatening to spill over, and I hated myself for letting a jerk like Dustin get to me.

“You know he’s gonna be pumping our gas one day. He thinks he’s Big Shit now, but he’ll be working at his father’s gas station until he dies.” Adam slammed his locker shut, his face softening. “Em, don’t let him get to you like that. You’re better than him and all his friends.”

I blinked furiously. “Are my eyes really that creepy?”

Adam swallowed and it took him a few moments to answer. “No… they aren’t creepy, Em. They’re just different, that’s all.”

I sighed. Who was he kidding? My eyes were creepy. The funny thing was they used to be a shade of boring brown, but after the whole dying thing, they’d changed. Now they possessed the palest shade of blue possible—kind of like the color of the sky on an overcast day, when the world appeared dull and diluted. People thought it was the trauma from the accident or something.

“Em?” he said. “Wanna hang out tonight? We can order pizza. Your favorite this time—no pepperoni—just peppers and mushrooms.”

“Sure.” I cleared my throat, forcing a smile. Adam never questioned why I didn’t like to be touched. He just accepted it—accepted me. He made life here tolerable. “I have to pick up Olivia after school and get some groceries, but you can come over.”

Adam smiled, visibly relieved. “Good—”

The second warning bell went off, drawing a groan from Adam. He had biology next. Today he’d be dissecting frogs. I pushed away from the locker, about to send him a sympathetic smile when, out of the blue, that line from Macbeth popped into my head: Something wicked this way comes. I twisted my neck and peered over my shoulder.

My eyes found him at once.

He was tall—even taller than freakishly tall Adam.

Deep brown hair fell over his forehead in wild waves. His face was arresting and intriguing, with broad cheekbones and a determined mouth. Not conventionally handsome, but universally alluring. Even from where I stood, I could see his eyes were so dark they were almost black.

There was something eerily familiar about his face, like I’d caught glimpses of him in a crowd before. He looked up, and our eyes locked. The intensity in his gaze forced me to step back, almost knocking into Adam.

“Em? You okay? What you staring at?”