Alissa waves a five-dollar bill around. It reminds me of the first day of junior high. I thought Alissa had made a bet then too.

She came up to my desk that first morning and asked if the seat next to me was taken. Alissa was the kind of girl who could have sat anywhere. She was so incredibly beautiful. Her eyes were the color of the sea on the Italian coast, where I’d spent the summer. I looked around suspiciously. Where were her giggling friends, laughing at me from a distance because I’d fallen for it?

But there was no one else there. We were the only ones in the classroom.

Sky’s voice brings me back to the present. “Let’s bet for a pizza,” he says. “And Miles can deliver it. Perfect.”

So they’re talking about Miles, who works at the pizzeria with Sky. I’ve never seen him before, but Alissa’s mentioned him a few times.

A girl with blond hair and a red scarf around her neck comes jogging into the park. As she passes us, she flashes me a quick smile.

“He’s on his way, so now we just have to wait and see.” Sky puts his phone in his pocket and casually rolls a cigarette. He never has actual packs of cigarettes. Sky always does everything just a little bit differently from everyone else.

“Did it hurt?” I hear Alissa ask. I’m back on the bench in the park. What were they talking about now?

I follow Alissa’s gaze to Sky’s eyebrow piercing, which he had done a while ago. When he turned up at school the next day, the skin around the piercing was red and swollen. I touch my own eyebrow, which also hurt for a few days.

At first I thought it was a coincidence, but then when Alissa broke her wrist in gym, mine was painful for weeks too.

Can I feel other people’s pain? Is that possible? It feels supernatural, weird. And if anyone finds out, I’ll get even more of a reputation for being crazy.

Sky points at his eyebrow. “So much gunk came out! I could have made it into a smoothie.”

Alissa gives him a shove and he nearly falls off the back of the bench. “Stop! You’re going to scare me out of it.”

Since when has Alissa wanted a piercing? I try to imagine what it would look like on her, a little ring through her eyebrow.

A couple weeks ago in Textile Studies, we had to make dresses out of garbage bags. Alissa pulled hers over her head, grabbed hold of it on one side, and shot a staple through the plastic. Then she paraded around the classroom like she was on a catwalk. Some of the boys started whistling. Even in a garbage bag, she was stunning.

“Where’s that pizza?” Alissa asks impatiently.