The Beginning of After

“Here. I know you don’t have far to go, but why get wet?” she said. Her look seemed to say, I wish I had a daughter just like you, who preferred homework over that bad egg Kevin McNaughton.
    Toby climbed into the backseat of the car, humming something. My mom opened the other back door and leaned to kiss me on the cheek. “You have your key, right?”
    I nodded, patting my purse. As the garage door opened and Mr. Kaufman started the engine, I walked toward the driveway and waved at my dad in the front passenger seat.
    Then I opened the umbrella as they drove past me, so Mrs. Kaufman could see, but once they turned the corner, away from the house and down the hill, I closed it again. The rain was light and dainty, and I loved the feel of it on my skin as I headed toward home.

Chapter Two

    M y cell phone rang an hour later, just as I was finishing my French homework at the kitchen table.
    “Can you talk?” whispered my best friend, Megan Dill, who lived one street over.
    “Yeah, I came back early and nobody’s here. Sweet freedom.”
    “How was it?” she asked.
    “Awkward but survivable. David barely talked to anyone during the whole dinner.”
    “He’s such a freak.”
    I heard meowing and turned around to see our cats, Elliot and Selina, sitting anxiously at the back door, waiting to go outside.
    “I know,” I said, getting up. “It’s like, once he decided to be friends with the Railroads, they gave him an instruction manual. Rule one, be grumpy and brooding at all times.”
    I opened the door and the cats scrambled past my legs, apparently late for some appointment in the woods across the street. Elliot paused for a second to look back at me with half-closed “Don’t wait up” eyes, and then they were gone.
    “Rule two,” continued Meg, “you may only smoke Marlboro Reds, wear high-top sneakers, and carry all combs in your right back pocket. They’re such a joke. They want to be rebels, but they’re obsessed with fitting in with each other just like anyone else.”
    “You’re the one who had a crush him,” I said, noticing a pot roast glob on the kitchen counter. I wiped it with my thumb and sucked the sauce off, knowing how completely gross that was.
    “Like a hundred years ago, when he was still partially human.” He’s alterna-hot , Meg used to say. I preferred not to go there at all with David; I’d known him for too long, and it was weird to think some girls considered him good-looking.
    “Speaking of guys, how is Will these days?” I asked, ready to change the subject.
    “I think it’s safe to say he’s not going to ask me to the prom.”
    “Why not?”
    “Apparently he started going out with Georgia Marinese last week.”
    “Oh, Meg, I’m sorry.”
    “Eh, it’s kind of a relief that he doesn’t like me anymore. I would have gone to the prom with him just to go, you know.”
    “You can do better.”
    “We’ll both do better.”
    The prom was more than a month away but the frenzy was already building, and I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of it. As juniors we were eligible to go, but there was nobody I liked enough. There had never been anybody I liked enough. Meg was the one who clicked with every boy she ever met, with her easy wit and striking black Irish beauty. I was the runner-up version of her; the quieter brunette with straight, thin hair that could only sometimes inspire a ponytail or braid.
    As a pair, we were not popular but not outcasts. Not gorgeous but not ugly, not fat but not thin. I was best known for getting As, starting the Tutoring Club, and painting scenery for the drama productions. Meg was in the show choir, and while she never got the lead in plays and musicals, she usually nabbed a juicy supporting role. Mostly people just didn’t think about us, which Mom always said was a good thing, but I never got why.
    “If we don’t do better,” Meg added, “we won’t go at all.”
    Good , I thought. That would make my life easier.
    Suddenly, I heard something near the front of the house.
    “Meg, hang on,” I said. “I think someone’s at the door.”
    We sat silent for a few seconds, and I could hear my breathing sync up with Meg’s on the other end of the line.
    There it was again, two short knocks. Insistent. But I wasn’t supposed to answer the door if I was the only one home.
    “I’m walking you into the living room,” I said to Meg, shifting the phone to my other ear. “If it’s an ax murderer, you’ll be able to hear the