Prologue

"Hi, Sage."

Sage Mancini turned her head away from the group of friends she was talking to when they were standing outside at lunchtime.

"Hi, Knox," she said back, forcing a smile. She liked the kid that was in her homeroom and talked to her every morning of their eighth-grade year, but she didn't want to really hang out with him.

"What did you think of that English test?" Knox asked her, his black thick-rimmed glasses coming off his face as he wiped them on his shirt.

He was shorter than her, probably thinner too and she had always been told she was on the thin side. Her attraction to boys at twelve years old wasn't about much more than the fact she didn't want to be looking down on them or be able to pick them up and toss them a few feet.

"I probably would have done better if I finished reading the book, but it's boring."

"It is," Knox said. "I only read half of it and then fluffed the rest of my answers."

"Isn't your father some English professor?" Brit asked. Brit never cared if she interrupted other people's conversations.

"Yeah," Knox said. "Doesn't mean I like English or am good at it."

"You couldn't ask him for a summary?" Brit asked.

Knox snorted. "It's not like he's teaching eighth-grade English to college kids."

Sage giggled over that response. She was thinking the same thing but wouldn't voice it to Brit who could turn her nastiness on at the drop of a dime.

"Whatever," Brit said, turning her back on them to face their friends. The rest of the group started to giggle and Sage felt bad for Knox.

He was only being nice even if she wished he'd go away to talk to his own friends.

Only she didn't think he had too many friends. Or if he did, she didn't see it. Could be they were still in the building eating lunch, playing chess or something else dorky.

"I don't care for reading this stuff much," he said.

"No," she said. "I'd rather draw or design fashion."

She thought of her brother's best friend who was an international model at fourteen. All those clothes that she was jealous of.

At night she'd create outfits and ad campaigns. When the clothing ideas didn't come out all that great, she'd perfect how she'd brand or market it.

In her eyes, that was just as much fun.

Her friends all thought she was silly and stupid to spend time on that. They were always asking her questions about Kate, her brother's supermodel best friend, too. Saying Kate was a star and asking what it was like to live next to her or have her at their house all the time. If her brother and Kate were dating.

It annoyed her, but she pushed it off and didn't answer that many questions if she could avoid it. Maybe deep down she didn't do it hoping her friends kept her around to find out more.

Sad in her eyes, but the cool girls were talking to her and didn't every middle schooler want to be part of the in crowd and be liked by everyone?

"I'd like to see them," he said, smiling at her when he pushed his glasses back on his face.

"They aren't that good," she said.

"I'm sure they are," he said.

Knox might be the only one who ever said that to her. It was kind of sweet in a way and it reminded her why he was nice to talk to. That she shouldn't be quick to push him away because her friends might make fun of her for talking to him.

"Well," she said. "It's just for fun and something I do so that I don't have to listen to Mrs. Gardner. Maybe if I paid more attention the test would have been easier."

"Let's go, Sage," Brit said, grabbing her arm and tugging her. "We don't need to waste our time talking to other people during lunch."

"Bye, Sage," Knox said, his smile dropping.

"Bye," she said, allowing her superficial friend to yank her away. "You can let go now," she told Brit.

"You can thank me for pulling you away," Brit said. "He's kind of a pain, isn't he?"

"He's harmless," she said.

"He's a dork," Steph said. "He's always trying to come up and talk to you. He looks like he should still be in elementary school."

She giggled. That thought had crossed her mind at times too. "That's not his fault," she said. "That would be genetics."

"I heard his mother is fooling around with some guy and the baby she's carrying isn't her husband"s," Maddie said.

Sage hadn't even known Knox's mother was pregnant. Why would she know those things? And how did Maddie know? Maddie was always the one in the group full of gossip.

"Who cares about those things," she said.

Her father was an NYPD detective and more than once had told her to keep her nose clean by staying out of other people's problems.

Her mother was a hairdresser and listened to her client's problems all day long and agreed with her father. It was better to ignore things that didn't affect her.

It was just so hard at this age it seemed. Someone was always trying to bring another person down.

Maddie shrugged. "I'm only saying."

"I don't care," she said. "It's not like I'm going to date the kid. We were talking about our English test."

"My mother says it always starts with English and then the next thing you know, he's stalking you until you give in and say you'll go to the prom with him," Brit said. "Put your foot down. Say he's a nerd and you'd never lower yourself to dating him. He'll leave you alone after that."

Sage was going to say she'd never be that mean, but when she turned, her eyes landed on Knox's and she'd seen he'd heard that statement and walked away.

Her group of "friends" burst out laughing and she wondered if she'd just been set up for that.

It seemed to be the story of her life. Wrong place at the wrong time and she was the one coming out smelling like turds rather than the rose.