Getting to Biology class approximately three seconds before the bell, Lorelei plopped down next to Anya and swiveled around quickly to face her.

Anya stared at her. "Have you been eating handfuls of sugar?"

"Noo," she replied, but looked confused and unsure about her actual sugar intake. "Okay. Are you busy?"

"Well, I was getting ready to learn about plants, so no, I am not busy." She reached across the narrow aisle space and grabbed Lorelei's liquid paper. She unscrewed the lid and proceeded to paint her nails with it. "Why, what's wrong?"

"I've decided I want to tell you something because I wanted to tell you yesterday but I chickened out and so I'm going to tell you now, okay?"

"Miss Lane, can you tell me the equation for photosynthesis?" Mr. Kennedy asked.

Lorelei barely glanced at him. "No." She went back to whispering to Anya. "Okay, so like, two weeks ago, I had that detention, right--"
"What about you, Miss Berkowitz?" Mr. Kennedy interrupted again.

Anya looked rather frightened. "6CO2 plus 6H20 plus sunlight plus something something something something?"

"Okay. Anyone else?"

After Ronnie Hawkins shot his hand up in the air and started to rattle off the meaningless equation, Lorelei began to talk again. "I have a new crush."

Anya grinned softly but eagerly at her. "Ooh. Yes? Enlighten me."

"I'm so glad you're my best friend," Lorelei giggled. "Because I know you won't like laugh or anything, but anyway, yeah. I am infatuated."

"Tell me tell me tell me!" Anya pleaded.

"GUESS," she laughed evilly.

"TOMMY," she guessed.

Lorelei made a point of flopping around as if dying painfully in a grotesque way. Then she recovered and whispered, "No."

"TEDDY?"

"Whispering voices," Lorelei hissed, gesturing wildly with her hands. "And no, not Teddy, why did you guess him?"

"Because you guys have been hanging around each other an awful lot. I'm pretty sure I saw him follow you home yesterday. You're sure you don't like him?"

"I'm sure." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm sure. You should see what he did in my bathroom."

"Oh God," Anya cackled.

"It like exploded!"

"Ewwww," she giggled crazily. "You let him beat off in your bathroom?"

"Ewwww," Lorelei cried. "NO! He clogged the toilet! Ewwww, what made you think of Teddy jerking off in my bathroom, you sick monkey?"

"You said he exploded!"

"No I did not say he exploded!"

"Okay, okay, let's stop this conversation--it is wrong on so many levels." Anya smiled with playful politeness. "Just tell me who it is."

"No. You have to guess."

"I'll start talking about Teddy masturbating again."

"He came to your house yesterday and I was like amazingly jealous but I couldn't figure out how to tell you that at the time!" Lorelei burst out in a frightened rush.

Anya's jaw dropped. "Chris?" she hissed.

Lorelei was slightly taken aback by her friend's reaction. She sat back in her seat, looking at Anya with curious hurt. She never took Anya for the type to disapprove of someone just because everyone else did.

"Lorelei?" Anya whispered, confused at her silence. "You mean Chris Chambers, right?"

"Whatever, Anya," she muttered. "I would have preferred it if you had laughed at me."

"No, no, Lie," she insisted. "I think it's great that you like him, he's really cool. He'd probably like you too."

Not one to stay mad for very long, Lorelei said, "Thank God you're like hot and heavy with Reese because I got this feeling yesterday that Chris likes you and yeah…I think I'd be kinda sad if my best friend went out with the guy I like."

"Yeah, me too," Anya mumbled, and then put her head down on her desk.

"I really like him, Anya," she murmured. "I don't know what it is, but I've really fallen."

It suddenly hit Anya badly how big of a mess she had made yesterday by kissing Chris.

"Shit, man, though, I wish you coulda been there," Teddy told Vern as the two of them leaned against the chain link fence around the parking lot. They were supposed to be in math preparation class. "It was like the toilet was puking out water and Lorelei was so friggen mad at me it was just funny, and by the time the water stopped she looked like a drowned rat holding a plunger. Then she had to get me another change of clothes because I kept falling in the water, right, and then she said she heard my mother calling me for supper and I should leave immediately. But she was kinda smiling, so I don't think she was like furious enough to kill me and eat me for dinner or anything."

"Dude," Vern said, after listening with awe-struck amazement to Teddy's tale of flooding toilet adventures. "Do you like this chick or something?"

"What?" Teddy was genuinely surprised. The thought of liking Lorelei had never occurred to him. She was like a guy, but only female. "No way, man, she's just a friend."

Vern giggled, poking his friend repeatedly in the shoulder. "You do, you do, you do, you do!" he sang gleefully.

"I do not, and if you want to keep your manhood, I suggest you shutting the hell up right about now."

"Well how come you don't like her?"

Teddy sighed impatiently. "How many times do I need to say this--I barely even consider Lorelei a girl. I don't have fantasies about girls that are barely girls, you know what I'm saying?"

"I think so. You're trying to tell me you like guys?"

Teddy rolled his eyes. "Yes, Vern."

Gordie wasn't at school the next day. Chris was worried, and he figured he probably flunked his English theory quiz because his thoughts were so occupied.

Ever since Gordie's older brother Denny died six years ago, Gordie had missed school off and on when he was feeling sad. He never really wanted to talk about it, and Chris understood that, but he always felt so useless when Gordie couldn't even come to school because he missed Denny so much.

He really just wanted to tell Gordie about Anya. And he felt so selfish.

"I'm going to assign you groups of three to do your poet history speech," Mrs. Pedensky announced. She actually wasn't that much like a vulture. Chris kind of liked her. "The groups are in alphabetical order. Reese Aarons, Anya Berkowitz, Chris Chambers--you're group one. You'll be doing Rainer Maria Rilke." She noticed Brooke raise her eyebrows and explained, "I didn't want to put you in a group with your brother, Miss Aarons. You're in group two with Russ and Danielle. You'll do Boris Pasternak."

Chris glanced discreetly at Anya, who looked like she had a headache. He almost smirked. It was rather ironic having to research a famous poet for English class in a group consisting of your boyfriend and the guy you cheated on the said boyfriend with.

Once Mrs. Pedensky had read off the names, everyone dispersed to sit with their groups. Reese shoved his desk up next to Anya's, ignoring Chris when he slid his own desk next to him.

"I've never even heard of this Rainer Maria chick," Reese announced.

"It's a guy," Chris informed him.

"Um, okay," he said. He looked at Anya. "Looks like you and me have got a lot of work ahead of us, huh?"

Anya turned her eyes up to look up at him tiredly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, with Chambers here in our group…"

"Screw off, Reese," she snapped.

"Pardon me?" Reese stared at her in appalled confusion.

She rolled her eyes. "He's smarter than you are. Don't talk about him that way like he's not even here."

"What the hell is wrong with you today?" he demanded. "And since when do you talk back to me?"

Chris set his pencil down on his desktop slowly and, in a quiet voice, told Reese, "Don't talk to her like that, man, okay?"

"I'll talk to her anyway I want to, Chambers," he growled. "Besides, she doesn't care."

"That's not what she was saying."

"Excuse me?"

Chris looked away, and for some reason his eyes fell on Brooke, who was watching them cautiously.

Reese's hand closed around Chris' shoulder. "Why have you been talking to Anya?"

Jerking away from him, Chris murmured, "She can talk to anyone she wants to. She's not your trophy."

An ill look fell over Reese's face. He looked to Anya, looking like he wanted her to hug him and reassure him that she loved him. "Anya?"

"Reese, not here," she hissed.

"We're talking about this now," he growled. "You been seeing this low life behind my back?"

"I said I'm not talking about this right now!" she snapped, her voice hushed.

"Fine," he said, looking straight ahead, skimming his hand over his cut-short blond hair. "But I'm not talking about this later either. Don't expect to talk to me again, Anya."

"Reese," she whispered helplessly. "I was going to tell you…"

Chris looked at her. What the fuck? She was choosing him over Reese?

"Tell me now, Ann. Please?" Reese looked surprisingly and uncharacteristically innocent and alone.

"You treat him so bad, Reese."

"Well Jesus, do you know who he is?" he demanded.

"Do you?"

"Everyone does! Everyone knows that he's a thief, he's a cheat, he's just going to end up like the rest of those inbreeds--"

"Will you shut up?" she barked. "You could never even hope to be half of who he is, so just shut up Reese."

Reese and Chris both simultaneously looked up at the clock; both of them probably just wishing the class would end.