Laynie was walking into her first period class more excited then most times in her life. That is, until she saw the most confusing thing she'd ever felt, "Laynie! Back from Boston, eh?" "Ed. oh shit. hi!" she had no idea what to say, 'sorry I lied to you! Hey, all that stuff bout me and Boston- lies, and my brother? 5 month coma, actually. But all she could pull off was a, "I'm sorry. I just don't deal out stuff like that." still feeling completely embarrassed, "sooo. you live here?" "Yup, just moved a few days ago. Haven' seen you around though." "Yeah, I was at the hospital and before that I was a private school. That part was true." "Huh. So. what's up?" This confused her in many ways- did he not just catch her in her lie? Didn't he care? "Wait, so you don't care that I lied to you?" "I'll forget it if you never mention how we met, too embarrassing." "Sure." "You wanna sit down here?" "Sure." Still confused, but less. "Sure." "Great. So why were you in the hospital?" "My brother." "But I thought you said you. bent the truth about that." "I did, but not in the way you'd think. do you read the New-York times?" "Should I?" "Well do you know about that famous surgeon, the 'greatest thing to happen to medical science in years'? Dr. Andrew Brown? About how he left New-York and moved to some small town?" "I heard something like that. Why?" "Well, on the 4th of July, last year, my brother went on a joy ride. That cost him 5 months of his life. He was in a coma. Dr. Brown saved him. But he got sick again and they had to operate again. He'll be fine now. The second operation was why I was at the hospital. I spent 2-3 days there, but then we all got kicked out." "We all?" "Yeah, me, my parents, the doctor's son, his girlfriend, and her family." "Wow. That's a lot of people. I wish that many people still cared about me 5 months after my accident." "Yeah. Don't worry. You'll make many enemies that care about you right here!" "Why do you say that?" "Well I might not care about that wheelchair, but we live in a very. old-in- their-ways town. They'll either bug you, or ignore you and hope you go away." "Good." They laugh.

Ephram walks into first period class to see Amy sitting by the window. "Hey." There was no reply. Suddenly all Ephram could think of was that night when she was performing ballet and totally zoned out, he panicked. "Amy? Amy!" he started shaking her, "what are you doing, Ephram?" She turned around, as normal as can be, "uh. n o t h i n g..." he wanted to bury his head in the ground. "You were worried I flipped again, weren't you?" "Yeah. sorry." She smiled. "Sorry about what? Caring about me? -" Suddenly she was frozen again. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Then why did you just freeze again?" "I've got a lot on my-" "Good morning class! I see some old faces back, welcome Amy." Ephram gritted his teeth and sat down. But whispered, "I want to talk to you after class-" "Sooo, Ephram! Back in class for less then 3 minutes and already getting detentions?" "But I- oh." "Oh is right." "But sir," Amy started, "He didn't do anything." "I suppose that's true. He HAS been a bad influence on you. Tell you what! Since you were so quick to defend your boyfriend-" "He's not my boyfriend!" "Either way, you'll be spending detention together." "What?!" "End of discussion, this has already taken up too much of the class's time! I'll see you in detention!"