What Are Friends For?

Chapter Two

Greenville High wasn't the biggest school in the county—it didn't compare to Bayview or Northside Prep by any means—so even though everyone was buddy-buddy for the most part, Elijah and I were closer than most. Partners in crime, two peas in a pod. All that cliché crap. We even made friendship bracelets with each other's names once. He still kept his on his key ring, though mine had broken years ago.

A lot of girls at school thought Elijah was "sweet cute." Cute without being a jerk about it. In an objective way, I guess he was sort of cute, if you were into the whole wavy-haired, narrow-boned, artsy kind of thing. His eyebrows were several shades darker than his blond hair, which almost looked bleached. His features were fine, apart from the slight curve that bent his nose from when I'd accidentally broken it in fifth grade.

I'd tried to pressure him into playing softball with me, tossing the ball at him and solidly connecting with his nose. We learned then that hand-eye coordination wasn't exactly his thing. But art was. Give him a pencil and he could draw the entire map of the world, line for line, from memory. He was currently working on an art project to enter it into a county-hosted art contest in a couple weeks with the theme "Family." Though he refused to tell me what exactly he was going to enter—painting, drawing, sculpture—I wondered if it had something to do with his brother.

But I knew one thing—Elijah was a pottery guy at heart. No doubt his project would be made of clay.

"So what happened today that made you want to go shopping?" Elijah asked around his chocolate ice cream cone, periodically licking any drips. Elijah had this thing. Everyone has a thing that makes them unique, and Elijah had this. Thirty-three degrees outside, snowing like mad, and he had to have ice cream. I teased him all the time that he's probably the reason why Freezing Fred's opens in winter, the only ice cream parlor in the county that does so. "I know you. You only ever like to shop when something bad happens. What's wrong?"

I slouched a little in my seat, goosebumps covering my skin as I stirred the vanilla and blue raspberry ice cream. "Nothing. I was just in the mood for a good sale."

"Liar."

Fine, I was lying, but I also wasn't admitting anything. I reached up and rubbed my hand over my mouth, feeling the stickiness of the blue raspberry syrup.

Elijah fanned a napkin in front of me, seeming to pull it from nowhere. "You do this every time. You never get a napkin, but always need one."

I snatched it from his grasp, sticking my tongue out. "You should start reminding me."

"Did you finish the assignment for art yet?"

Ugh, I didn't want to be reminded about that. Didn't want to think about art or about Mrs. Keller, our art teacher and, as of a few hours ago, my mortal enemy. I could still hear her voice echoing in my head, like a villain in some bad movie. You have a fifty-six in my class, Remi.