Eleven days till graduation. I decided to drop out of school.

At the rate I was going, I wouldn’t ever get it together and have a career, so what difference did a diploma make? I didn’t even care.

I went back into the bushes.

I went back to the bushes to find Heather Hale.

I sat down in the quiet clearing, resting my head against the moss on a damp rock. Gray clouds moved across the fading sun.

Anger management classes, what a joke. Mackie Hollander beat up skinny boys every day. He pushed them in lockers; he shoved their heads into toilets and flushed while they cried.

Hey, slut, he’d said to me as soon as I entered the pep rally. Hey, slut. Come here and show that sweet ass to Mackie.

Once you lose control, it’s hard to stop.

Hand over the knife, Principal Dave Locke had ordered, or you’re banned from school premises. It wasn’t much of a bribe.

Now, I still had the knife with me, and when I heard boots breaking over fallen branches, I kept the knife ready in my hand.

Bryce looked pretty goofy, rocking his head to some imaginary song.

Hey, Ice Queen, he said, like everything was still the same.

I narrowed my eyes, gave him a dirty look. The long silver blade pointing like an arrow on a compass.

He didn’t even notice my blade. He just sat down on the rock above me. He took out his little plastic baggie and rolled a spliff. There it was, the familiar smell of pot.

Raped any girls lately? I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

I just stared at him, thrusting the knife in my hand, hoping he would get nervous and stutter. But he toked away, a slow, silly smile on his face as if he was trying to remember a good joke he’d heard yesterday. He’d grown a faint mustache; a rash of pimples reddened his chin. It was hard to imagine why I’d ever been nervous and quiet around him.

You look pretty agitated, he said. Drawling the word, aaagiitaated. It sounded like some kind of surfer’s move.

I slid the knife back into my boot. I could have been carrying a machete. Bryce was too high to notice anything beyond the fact that I wasn’t smiling.

Where’s Heather? I asked.

Don’t know, don’t care, he said.

He was sitting a few feet above me, and I lifted my hand. Teasingly, I pulled on the frayed cuffs of his blue jeans.

Hey, Bryce. I just stabbed Mackie Hollander.

Yeah, right, and I just fucked Nadia Comaneci.

When did he get such a dirty mouth?

You couldn’t hurt anyone, he said. You’re too shy.