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bathroom. But I’m fine. No big deal.”
    Rollins can’t hide his worries, though he tries. His eyes narrow. “If you say so.”
    I squirm. Concern makes me itchy.
    “Look, I gotta get to class. See you later?”
    Rollins nods. “Later, Vee.”
    When I get back to English, it looks like someone released sleeping gas in the classroom. Almost everyone is draped over their desks, holding their copies of Julius Caesar at odd angles in front of their faces so it’s not completely obvious they’re asleep. Mrs. Winger is still absorbed in her game. She doesn’t look up when I ease into my seat.
    Samantha Phillips, her hair framing her face in straight red sheets, eyeballs me from across the room. Her cheerleading skirt is yanked up to show off her fake-baked thighs. I can’t believe I once wore one of those skirts. I can’t believe I was ever friends with the girl who is now captain of the squad. Sophomore year seems like a lifetime ago.
    She looks at my Oasis T-shirt and sneers. “Nice outfit. What is it, like, 1994?”
    I give her a death glare until she looks away and goes back to inconspicuously tapping the screen of her iPhone.
    My gaze falls on the crisp, clean copy of Astronomy: The Cosmic Perspective , which peeks out from my black school-bag. I had to order it brand-new to avoid the possibility of sliding when I flipped through the pages. People have emotional ties with books more often than you think, and I try to play it safe.
    With Mrs. Winger so enthralled by her computer game, it would be easy to pull my book out and continue the section on black holes I was reading the night before. There probably won’t be any questions about black holes on the Julius Caesar test, though, sadly enough.
    I turn to Icky. “What’d I miss?”
    “Hmmm . . . Well, the conspirators stabbed Caesar. You missed about the only good part in this play.”
    “Aw, crap,” I say, in mock annoyance. I lean over his desk, careful not to touch the book, and scan the part I missed. Yada yada yada, the conspirators surround him, Caesar is history.
    One of the questions on the study guide: What were Caesar’s last words?
    I look back at the book, searching for the answer. Aha! Right after Brutus plunges the knife in, Caesar says, “ Et tu, Bruté? —Then fall Caesar.”
    I think of Caesar going to the Capitol, surrounded by men he thought were his friends, only to be stabbed repeatedly in the back. And there’s Brutus, holding the bloody freaking knife. The only thing left for Caesar to do is die, thinking he’s such a shitty person even his best friend wants him dead.
    Sophie’s face pops into my head. What will she think when she finds out her two best friends are plotting against her? On her birthday, no less?
    People suck.
    I shake my head, writing down the answer.
    “Pretty sick stuff, eh?” Icky grins.
    “I’ll say.”
    The bell rings, and everyone jumps to life.
    Lunchtime.
    I sit in my usual place, underneath the bleachers, and wait for Rollins. From my spot, I spy an empty Coke can, half a Snickers bar, and a Trojan wrapper. Fumbling in my backpack for my lunch, I wonder who in their right mind would want to have sex under the bleachers. Maybe they did it on the football field and the wrapper just blew over here—not that that’s much better.
    The brown sugar Pop-Tarts I packed this morning have crumbled to bits, so I eat the big pieces and then tilt my head back and dump the rest of the crumbs into my mouth.
    I expect Rollins to sneak up on me and make a snarky comment about my ladylike table manners, but he doesn’t show. This is the third lunch he’s stood me up for. After a few minutes, I pull out my astronomy book and read about black holes in between swigs of warm Mountain Dew.
    I’m in the middle of a really great paragraph about how nothing—not even light—can escape a black hole once it’s reached the event horizon when something above me clangs. Two people are working their way down the bleachers. I