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d r a w n a w a y
find “real” friends here, if that makes sense. Okay, to be
honest, I was worried they might all be lame hicks. That
thought seemed pretty ignorant now. My new school had
its share of jerks—they all do—but Rafe was great, and
he’d introduced me to a group of kids I already liked.
Even the school itself was not so bad. At my old
school, they were always talking about “lifelong learning”
and “self-direction.” That meant we were given a lot of
responsibility for our own work:
What interests you in this
course? What are your learning goals? How will you demon-
strate you’ve achieved them?
In a way it was good, but, like
anything that’s repeated too often, it got to be a tedious
pain in the butt, and we mostly bullshitted our way
through it. Still, the regimentation of my new school had
rubbed me the wrong way at first—until I realized how
much easier it was. Show up for class, read chapter eight,
do the assignment. It was kind of a relief, honestly.
And Lucy—Lucy was awesome. I’d never met a girl
quite like her. She had this kick-ass sort of don’t-mess-
with-me look, but that’s not what she was like—at least,
not entirely. She was funny and smart and, I don’t know,
direct, but not in a rude way, just like she knew who she
was and wasn’t going to pretend to be anyone else. I really
liked spending time with her and was already hoping we’d
be a lot more than math buddies before too long.
I began to realize there were things I didn’t under-
stand about Lucy though. I noticed she didn’t seem to
have that many friends at school, though Rafe and his
