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the keyboard, a smile creeping across his face. It was so totally
predictable why fight it? He and Madison couldn t seem to
stay away from one another, no matter how much they pissed
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each other off. Come to think of it, they d never really given
things a serious shot they d always just hooked up and pre-
tended it didn t really happen the day after. Maybe he should
really try and see what happened. The only problem was, when
he looked at Mad, as gorgeous as she was, he didn t really get
that feeling, those crazy butterflies everyone talked about in the
movies. Sure, he wanted to tear off her dress and eat it for
breakfast, but it wasn t like he spent his nights thinking about
holding her hand and watching the sunset. But maybe that was
because, except for that disastrous night before he left for Am-
sterdam, he d never really tried.
dva1990: Not much. Wanna hang tomorrow night?
The Gchat window stayed motionless, the icon blinking for
what felt like forever. Drew realized that he was holding his
breath waiting for her response. All of a sudden he was com-
pletely terrified that she might say no. Madison was as much of
a constant in his life as his parents or that chair in the corner.
He couldn t even for a minute imagine his life without her in
it. And if that wasn t love, than what was? Probably something
best described by Jerry Springer . . .
socialiez666: K J Talk later.
Drew logged off, breathing a sigh of relief and stood up,
stretching his long arms above his head and stretching his mus-
cles until he heard his back crack, unlocking the tension in his
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spine he d been carrying around all day. Maybe, despite what
his dad or anyone else said, it was just easier to continue
playing it safe and for Drew Van Allen, Madison Macallister
was about as safe as it got. In a way, it was effortless Mad was
the girl everyone expected him to be with, the most beautiful
girl in school from the most notorious family on the entire
Upper East Side. But that was exactly the problem Drew had
never been the kind of guy who did what was expected of
him in fact, once he knew that he was supposed to do
something or someone he usually did the polar opposite,
and ran as fast as his feet could carry him in the other direction.
If he was totally honest with himself, Drew knew that he d
never really taken Mad seriously as actual girlfriend material
when they weren t making out frantically, they were more like
an old married couple who argued and bickered all the time
than anything resembling the kind of great love stories he
sometimes caught on late-night TV if he was Bogie, Madison
was definitely not Bacall. The problem was that they were so set
in this ridiculous pattern of fighting, then making up or
out that the whole thing had gotten pretty old. Maybe they
needed to bust out of their comfort zone and do something
that would take their relationship to a different level one
where they couldn t argue all the time or tear each other s
clothes off either.
Not that total nakedness with Madison was necessarily a bad
idea . . .
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Casey sat cross-legged on her bed, surveying the open
textbooks that surrounded her like an ocean of slick, glossy
paper. She d never really experienced the pressure of having to
exceed academically before. Back in Normal, no one really paid
much attention to her test scores or eventual report card except
for her mother, who would usually use Casey s grades as an ex-
cuse to start waxing ecstatic about the merits of applying one-
self in an academic setting. It was hard not to yawn when
Barbara really got going, but Casey had learned to plaster an
engaged expression on her face, nodding periodically as
though she were actually listening, when in reality she was usu-
ally entertaining a series of completely random thoughts like
what the probability would be of getting her hair to grow
JENNI FER BANASH
back in magically straight if she buzzed it all off with a pair of
clippers like Britney Spears in the throes of her nineteenth ner-
vous breakdown. . .
It s not that she didn t care about doing well it s just that,
before now, she d never had to particularly try very hard. No
offense to her former Illinois classmates, but the kids back
home were more interested in planning the next kegger and
cruising Main Street on Saturday nights than they were in
studying for the dreaded SATs. Class was for passing notes and
daydreaming not for raising your hand or, God forbid, actu-
ally paying attention. But at Meadowlark, she had to fight just
to get a word in during class discussions, which could only be
described as intense. To add a little more pressure, keeping her
grades up was one of the conditions of her continued enroll-
ment. If she wanted to stay at Meadowlark, good grades
weren t a choice they were a necessity. The thing that un-
nerved her the most about her new school was the feeling that
she wasn t allowed to screw up, even if she wanted to. As she
sat in class after class, listening to her fellow students give intri-
cate, detailed explanations of the Crimean war and global
warming, Casey started to wonder if too much perfection was
really a good thing. It wasn t the pressure to excel that was
really bothering her it was the fact that being a Meadlowlark
student meant that she flat-out wasn t allowed to make mistakes.
And that made her nervous indeed.
After a full day of French, Trigonometry, History, and So-
ciology, Casey s brain hurt, her eyes glazing over as she mind-
lessly flipped through her French workbook. I probably have
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drain bramage from reading too much, she thought, closing her
sore eyes and rubbing her temples with her index fingers. Not
that she could study even if she wanted to not after the way
Drew acted after she d practically attacked him. Casey flipped
open her battered Sprint phone and checked for missed
calls . . . again. Predictably, there weren t any. She snapped the
phone shut and threw it to the end of the bed, where it landed
with a thump, and picked up her violin from the floor, running
her hands over the taut strings. Sometimes just holding the
rich, reddish-brown-hued wood seemed reassuring and right
now she needed all the reassurance she could get.
She couldn t stop thinking about the look on Drew s face
when she ran her hand up his arm and the look that must ve
been all over her own when he had pulled away. And later that
afternoon as he passed by her in the hallway, he just smiled,
waved. . . and kept walking. She thought he would at least
stop, say hi, and maybe ask how her day was going but the
way he waved so nonchalantly, his smile so tight, made it clear
that stopping to talk, or calling her later was the last thing on his
mind. Was she not aggressive enough? Casey couldn t help but
entertain the sneaking suspicion that maybe she d be better off
simply ignoring Madison s dating advice. Why did making
friends have to be so hard here? Back home in Normal, hanging
out with her friends had been effortless, but since she d arrived
at The Bram, Casey couldn t help but have the feeling that no
matter how hard she tried to get along with Mad, no matter
what she said or did, it wouldn t make any difference. Why
couldn t they all just be friends without guys getting in the way?
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Umm, maybe because you re in lust with her ex-boyfriend, her
inner pragmatist answered back matter-of-factly . . .
Casey sighed, placing her violin gently back on the floor
and lying back on the blue quilt. The fabric emitted a noxious
combination of mothballs and the Chanel No 5 Nanna had ob-
viously sprayed all over it in an attempt to mask the hideous,
medicinal scent. It was probably too much to hope for that the
most gorgeous guy she d ever seen would pick her over some-
one like Madison Macallister. Why couldn t things be like they
were in the movies, where the least popular girl always got the
hottest guy in school? Casey sat up and opened her new lap-
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