Art Club. Trent hates it when I go – so I have to make it sound important. He wants us to eat lunch together every day. He needs me, he says. And he always wants to drive off campus.
“Do you want me to walk you to the office?” Melanie asks. She has short hair – super shot – shaved, really – and dyed pink. Her eyes are blue – like mine – but hers have this sheen to them, I don’t know – a silver tint or something. She looks happy. Even alone, sketching and eating a flat sandwich in the hallway – around all the groups of people coming and going – she doesn’t mind it. I mean, she seems to like it.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“I’m not supposed to come back without you. Ms. K said…”
“Tell her I’m sick. I’m going home or something.”
“But you left your bag in class – all your stuff.”
“I’ll go back.”
“Do you want me to get it for you?”
“Sure, thanks.”
Maybe I really will leave. Trent won’t like that – he likes it when I sit in the front seat of his car so he can go speeding around town. Once he almost killed someone’s calico cat. Twice he’s nabbed a squirrel (10 points!). I hate it when he kills things – I hate it when he tries to. I scream, but that doesn’t work. He likes that. When I’m scared. When I scream. My friend Carrie says this makes him a psychopath – some kind of monster, she says, but she doesn’t really know him. Not like I do. He always feels sorry – I tell her – he feels so sorry, after. After killing animals? Carrie scoffs. Well, he should!