“What do you write in those forms?” I asked.“Nothing. I just do this to look threatening.”

“Why are you pretending to write, when I already know you're just doing that to intimidate me?”

“Most people hear an airplane in the sky and think, ‘There’s an airplane,’ and go back to what they were doing. A few folks look around for the airplane, try to figure out what kind of plane it is, and watch it from the time they spot it to the time it disappears on the horizon, maybe after that. Those kids are the ones who will be pilots." He pointed at me. "I knew that about you. I’ve just been waiting for you to show up.”

“Did you tell my mother that you called me a bitch last night,too?" I asked him. "Because that's the best way I know to win parents over."For a split second,he looked uncomfortable. Almost immediately, he recovered and went back on the offensive. "You shouldn't wear those jeans.People might think something."I stomped my foot on the stair. "Like what? I want to show off my fire-crotch? What do you care? God! Stop following me." My hair was down now, and I felt it smack into his chest as I whirled around and flounced down the rest of the stairs, across the lobby, and into the cold night.”

“What the monkey!” My dad slammed through my door and burst into my room wearing nothing but his bathrobe.We all looked up at him in surprise. “You tell us,” I said.“Oh.” My dad actually looked sheepish. “It’s one o’clock in the morning and I was going to tell you to shut the monkey up and go to bed. I didn’t realize what wasgoing on in here.”“What’s going on in here?” Cameron asked suspiciously.“Maturity.” My dad backed out of the room and closed the door.”

“Sean stood there with a mischievous grin, hand still forming a claw. He’d tapped on the door with his fingernails to fool me.I slammed the door in his face.Before the latch caught, the door bounced open again. Cameron stood just behind Sean with the rubber toe of his shoe blocking the door from shutting. “You look likehell,” Cameron said.“I look like Sean.” is was a joke from my darkest memory. If Sean told me I was ugly, I could deflect the insult easily, because he was calling himself the same name. IfCameron told me I was ugly, he was also insulting Sean, and Sean would get revenge on him without me having to do a thing.”

“Grayson looked at me again. This time his gaze traveled form my hair down, and he let me see that he was looking. What he meant by this was that he thought I was beautiful, it was not just my miraculous hair, and we shouldn’t be distracted from our true love by the pesky detail that he was blackmailing me into dating his brother.Right.”