Freak.

I read it again. In fact, I read it a few times, disbelieving that her hatred could find its way into my computer — that it was, in fact, meant for me. I quickly clicked the icon that would delete the message, as if I was disposing of a slimy bug.

“Wait until I tell Claire about this one,” I mumbled to myself, thinking of how my best friend would handle the situation. She would most likely forward it back to Brynn, giving her a taste of her own medicine.

But me? I was still hoping the delete button would erase it forever.

6:12 a.m. glowed from the lime-green iPod dock on my nightstand and I stood up to stretch, crossing my arms over my face, blocking the view of my otherwise seriously outdated bedroom. Evanescence posters and angel sketches covered my pale-purple walls, but there was little hope for the rest. I pulled up my covers, put away my dog-eared copy of A Great and Terrible Beauty, and got ready for school, knowing Claire would be honking the horn of her little white Cabrio sooner than I realized. Taking the school bus was most certainly not an option.

Flashbacks of second grade circulated through my head. It was the year Brynn began torturing me, when she poked fun at the crocheted hat my Aunt Karen had made for me. That, combined with the fried-egg sandwich I’d had for breakfast, resulted in my throwing up all over Eddie Carmichael’s new hoodie.

That was a bad day.

These days, I still ride the bus from time to time. And Brynn? Well, Brynn got a BMW Z-3 convertible for her sixteenth birthday last year.

I wasn’t sure why I was at the top of her hate list. In fact, I wasn’t sure about a lot of things.

I let my fingers trace over the tiny silver frame on my dresser, the one photo of my father I was lucky enough to call my own. My parents had never married and my mother never spoke of him. Maybe she was dreading the day I would ask about him, dreading the one moment when I would question the strangeness of it all.