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Tears sting my eyes and I have to look away. He’s been through a lot because of my dad, yet he’s the one fighting for me. Doing more than a single member of my family.

“Thank you,” I whisper as I climb out.

I watch his car until it’s disappeared into the horizon. It was a terrible afternoon. But I’m smiling as I turn toward my house.

14

The next morning, I climb off the bus and stumble to a clumsy halt. My bike is fixed. The tires are inflated, the rim has been hammered out, and the seat’s been replaced.

Ford.

Ford James, the guy I’ve blamed for every evil that’s befallen me for the past few months, fixed my bike and did it while it was still locked up, which had to be difficult. I don’t even know what to do with that information. I could have come up with a reason he rescued me in the locker room—because he has a sister, because any decent person would—but I can’t think of an excuse for this.

I go to the office and tell Dr. Jeffries what Linc, Richard, and Jacob did yesterday. He says Ford’s already reported it and the three of them have been suspended.

Ford isn’t in English, so it’s not until journalism that I get a chance to thank him, biting my lip as he takes the seat across from mine. Our eyes lock, and though it scares me to do it, I smile. His mouth tugs upward on one side in response, slowly and not entirely willingly, but it’s enough. There’s a tiny warm sun inside my chest, and even when the bell rings for class, it still hasn’t set.

I slide my bag closer as the last few kids rush into the room late. “A magical fairy fixed my bike last night. Would you know anything about that?”

He raises a brow. “No, I wouldn’t know anything about a magical fairy. If you want to ask about a strapping young man who fixed your bike, I might have information.”

I laugh. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He grins. "I can't believe you asked if I was gonna douse you in pig's blood."

It was one of the stories we used to hear whispered about in New Hope. I frown at him. "It happens. They do it all over the place."

He bites his lip as if he's trying not to laugh. "They do what all over the place?"

"They nominate a girl Prom Queen as a joke and then they do something to her when she goes up on stage. Like they douse her in pig's blood."

He stares at me and then he starts laughing, laughing so hard that tears roll down his face. "Grace," he finally says, catching his breath, "that's not a thing that happens. It's the plot of Carrie, this Stephen King novel. I promise you, it doesn't happen."

I don't know why I want to fight for this story so much. Perhaps because I've already seen how cruel people outside the covenant can be. He can't possibly know that no high school hasn't tried to copy it.

He smiles. "You know how hard it would be to rig up a bucket of pig's blood over a stage?"

I guess he has a point.

"Fine, but they do other things," I argue. "They're cruel in a way people in New Hope wouldn't be."

"Maybe, but at least we don't have some weird aversion to letting eighteen-year-olds go to college."

“It’s not an aversion,” I reply, finally looking up at him. “It’s just about setting you on the right path before you enter the real world.”

He leans back a little on his stool, tapping a pen against his full lower lip. “And you feel tempted to stray from the path?”

The way he’s looking at me makes my breath stop. For a moment I wonder if he’s asking if I’d stray from the path with him, and I picture his hand on my breast, his thumb flicking my nipple.

“No,” I whisper, just as Mr. Scott calls us to order. Ford raises a brow. My no sounded uncertain. As if it was a yes.

I sit through class, distracted by the weight of Ford’s stare. He couldn’t possibly like me. Maybe I’m just so unaccustomed to male attention that I can’t tell basic human decency from flirtation.

I’d be naive to think it was anything more than that.

“I guess you won’t be at the game tonight,” he says as we walk out of class. “You never come, do you?”