"Stop crying." Skye said, wiping Jane's tears away with a flat thumb. "It's going to be okay. You know that; I know that and everyone else doesn't matter."

J:

I guess I imagined high school to be just like the years before. But in fact, the hellish recesses of school just deepen over time.

Perhaps it's the fact that I still find English enjoyable, that I like school and care about Shakespeare and all of the others that makes them groan. Nerd. The ultimately easy label.

I can hear their words.

"That Jane Penderwick… she likes Mr. Donatello."

"That Jane Penderwick, she's a wacko; reads fucking Shakespeare in her free time."

Or at least that's what it was in the beginning.

The first day of school I woke up with my heart bouncing at the back of my throat, a fucking bowling ball attached like a weight to my left shoulder. Skye was already up, of course, doing sit ups. She was always working out when I got up. She was training to be a starter for Varsity. Not that anyone but she had any doubt that she would make it. Skye made all of the other girls look like armadillos with her ferocity. She was a fucking beast sometimes, and it was all I could do to love her for it.

I rolled out of bed immediately and swept to the bathroom stepping into the shower as fast as I could, and out only a minute later, I swept my hair up into a braid, trying to keep it out of my face..

How to avoid stereotyping: Dress the opposite of what people think you should. But don't be a try-hard.

So I slipped into a pair of normal colored jeans, thinking that for once, extravagance is not the right way to present yourself. And a plain white t-shirt with a blue cardigan over it. It was a please-don't-notice-me outfit. Just perfect.

By the time I was finished, Skye was waltzing through our room in a white towel, having rinsed the sweat off her body. She pulled a black t-shirt over her towel and slipped it down. Another thing about my older sister: you could look at her and know she was cool.

After she had slipped into her jeans, she turned to look at me.

"You nervous?"

I nodded, feeling as though she had swallowed something uncomfortably big. She snorted. "You'll do fine. Look at you, you're a fucking English protégée."

"Skye." I flopped down on her bed. "You know that's not what they want in their little squads."

"Exactly. Fuck the squads Jane. You're too cool for the squads. Start your own." She slowly pushed me over onto my bed and straightened the sheet.

She pulled my hair up into a ponytail, and listened only slightly as I rambled on and on about this and that- her heart spilling in a bumpy pattern.

It was a moment before she realized I had gone silent.

"You stopped talking."

"God Skye, what if I puke?"

"You won't puke." She smiled sympathetically. "You idiot, you do realize that it's 87% the same people?" She frowned. "Or at least it was for my class. How many did you have last year?"

"It doesn't matter." I buried my face in my hands.

"It does. I'm trying to prove a point here."

"And I'm trying to bask in my unmistakable steroid-filled butterflies." I muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." I sighed.

"Oh. Well, I promise you, if any of them are rude, I'll torch their pubes okay?"

"Okay."

"Jane, you don't believe me. I'm not afraid of going to jail just as long as you promise to pick Jeffrey up and bail me out okay?"

"Okay." I said, smiling slightly. "I promise."

"You promise what?"

"To bail you out of jail when you torch the crowned prom queen's pubes." I said in a monotone. "But Skye—"

"Stop jabbering." She insisted, pulling her backpack over her shoulders. "You'll be even more fine if you don't start quoting Dickinson in the cafeteria. Come on."