“Liam —”

“Not Dad,” he says, merging into traffic. “Me. I want to kill me.”

I sighed wearily.

I hated when he got this way — depressive, suicidal. His pain was so palpable, it made me hurt. Huddling inside my parka, which did nothing for the chill inside, I resigned myself to repeating my sophomore year. So what? How insignificant was school compared to saving my brother from himself?

Liam exited at Broadway Avenue and swung into a Star-bucks. We sat in the car, neither of us making a move to get out. “What are we doing here?” I finally said.

Liam didn’t answer.

I pointed to a sign on the door. “‘Help wanted.’ Is that a hint? I should be a barista? It’s probably the only job I’ll be able to get after I flunk out of high school.”

He didn’t take the hint. Instead, he removed the keys from the ignition and swung his long legs out the door to head inside.

As if programmed to be his lapdog, I heeled.

Liam ordered a latte and I got a mocha. Since he was paying, I went back for a blueberry scone. We sat at the window counter, sipping our drinks and watching the world go by. The real world as opposed to Liam’s parallel universe. All I could think was, I need to be in school today. I need to go to chemistry. A woman lugging an overstuffed pillowcase shuffled into a Laundromat across the parking lot at the same moment a fat man exited. He dragged a little kid behind him. The kid was throwing a temper tantrum, stamping and wailing. We couldn’t hear what the dad — or whoever he was — was screaming at the kid, but you could pretty much guess.

Liam said, “Watch. He’ll grow up to make his father proud.”

I exhaled a long sigh. “Liam —”

Like a sinking ship, he listed to the side. His head came to rest on my shoulder. “What am I going to do, Re?” he said. “I’m dying inside.”

Oh God. Not this again. I looped an arm around his bony back and held his head. “It’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t. It’ll never be okay.”

“Lia Marie —”

“Luna.”

“Huh?”

“It’s Luna.”

“Oh, right. Luna.” Her new name was going to take some getting used to.

A grungy guy at the end of the counter, who’d been keying into his laptop, stopped and stared at us. I met his eyes and widened mine, like, What? You got a problem?

He resumed working.

Liam lifted his head and straightened in his seat. “Every day, the same old thing. Hiding, lying, holding her in. It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”

Don’t cry, I thought. Please don’t cry.

“When people look at me, they don’t see the real me. They can’t because I look like this.” He swept a hand down his chest.

What was I supposed to say? How many times had I heard this? “I like that shirt,” I settled on, trying to lighten the mood. “Is it new?”

He cast me a withering glance.

“Sorry.”

“No one will ever know the person I am inside. The true me. The girl, the woman. All they see is this ... this nothing.”

“You’re not nothing,” I snapped. “You’re a person. You’re Liam.”

“Liam.” He let out a short laugh. “Who’s that? A caricature I’ve created. A puppet, a mime, a cartoon character. I’m this male macho version of a son that Dad has in his head.”

“Forget Dad,” I told him. “What does he matter? You don’t have to play baseball, okay?”

Liam closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest. “I need to let her out, Re.”

“What do you mean? How?”

“I’m strangling her. She’s not the one I want to eliminate. All this suppressing and holding her down, keeping her caged, perpetuating this fraud, this sham. I can’t do it anymore.” He shook his head. “I can’t.” He raised his chin and looked at me. “It won’t go away. No matter how much I wish, or pray, she’s always with me. She is me. I am her. I want to be her. I want to be Luna.”

“You are,” I said. “You can be.”

“No.” He blinked. “I mean all the time. I want to be free. I want to transition.”

Transition? He’d never used that word. Transition meant change. Like, move from one place to another. But how? Where?

He was searching my face, probing my eyes. “You understand, don’t you, Re?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah,” I lied. He’d talked about coming out before, breaking free. Lots of times. But that’s as far as it went, being free.

He continued to stare at me, watch me. It made me uneasy when he did that. I broke off a corner of scone and nibbled it. Stale. “You want this?” I shoved it at him.

He said, “Mom was right, you know. You look like a zombie. A dab of Preparation H under your eyes would shrink those bags.”

“Shut up.” I smacked his arm. “You’re the reason I have bags.”

“Hey, did you like the blonde wig I wore this morning?” He brightened a little. “It goes well with red, I think, but the color’s a bit brassy. Too platinum. And too bold to wear with casual slacks. I think the brown curly is better for casual wear. Don’t you?”

Once she started talking hair and clothes, we’d be here forever. “I need to get back to school, Lia.” I checked my watch. Nine forty-five. If we hauled ass I could make my history class. Then I’d only have to repeat half the year.

She sighed. “It’s Luna. You’re so narcissistic and demanding.”

“What about you?” What was narcissistic?

She batted her eyelashes and finger-tipped her chest. “Me?”

She was so weird. “Don’t you have class?” I asked, swaddling my scone in a napkin for burial.

“Senior Seminar,” she replied. “Nonrequired attendance.” Gulping down the rest of her latte, she slid off the stool and added, “Will you run into Wal-Mart and buy me some underwear first? Mine are getting a little gray.”

I trailed her to the door. “You have to use bleach with your whites.”

“So I’ve been told,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m just a girl, not a domestic goddess like yourself.”

I ground a knuckle into her shoulder blade. At this rate we might make school by noon. Oh, well. It was bad enough he had to take his girly wash to the Laundromat. There was no way I was going to wash it. I didn’t mind buying him panties and bras, but handling the dirties ...ew.

We climbed into the Spyder. Liam dug out his wallet and handed me a twenty. “Get me Maidenform high-cut in beige, if they have it. White if they don’t. Size five.”

“Size five,” I mocked. He grinned as I ripped the money out from between his first two fingers. It irked me that he wore a smaller size than me — and knew it.

Chapter 4

We got back to school around lunchtime. Liam’s lunch. Mine was already over. He headed off to find Alyson in the cafeteria while I barreled up the stairs to the science wing. The closer I got to class, the sicker I felt.

I hated high school. It hated me back. All the cliques and clubs and sports and spirit squads going on around me, without me. People joking and laughing with their friends in the hall. High school flaunted it, threw it in my face, all the fun I wasn’t having. All because of —

No. Not fair. It wasn’t Liam’s fault. This was my choice, my way of dealing.

Fifth period was already in progress, so I slithered in the door, head down, praying Mr. Bruchac was his usual talking head. Lecturing, oblivious to bodies dropping like flies from boredom.

No such luck. He was sitting at his desk, and I had to pass by. He peered over his horn-rims, making sure he caught my eye, then ticked a check by my name on his seating chart.

Bastard.

The one class I would’ve loved to ditch, I couldn’t. Not today. Today we were starting labs.

Bruchac had been warning us for a month, since the winter term began, that we should carefully consider who to pair up with for labs. The rest of the semester we’d be living and breathing chemistry with this person, he said, so we should choose someone we could work with closely.

Closely. Close. The word set off an alarm in my head.

Our final grade was contingent on how well we worked together, our total contribution. The contribution part didn’t scare me, since my share was going to be one hundred percent. Every day I’d taken a head count. There were twenty-three of us. Divided by two. That left a remainder. Me. I’d volunteer to work alone. No problem. It’d make my life so much easier.

Up front Bruchac droned on about how laboratory reports had to be signed by both partners; problem sets and worksheets were to be individual efforts; anyone caught cheating would receive an automatic zero. “Goose egg.” He got up and drew it on the board. “And that, folks, is not the symbol for oxygen.”

He was such a dork. He wore a suit and tie every day, which wouldn’t be too bad if his outfits matched. His jackets were checkered and his shirts striped, like he’d built his wardrobe from the Barnum & Bailey liquidation sale. Not that I was glam girl of the year or anything, but get a clue. All the other male teachers wore jeans, mostly.

“Quizzes can be retaken once,” Bruchac said. “But if you miss a test, it’ll take the promise of your firstborn child to persuade me to let you retake it.”

Oh ha ha. I was carving an infinity sign into my notebook cover when the moment of doom arrived. Bruchac announced, “With a minimum of ruckus, choose your partners and stake your claim to a lab station.”

My stomach lurched. Surreptitiously I glanced around the room. A lot of the people in here I knew. Not well, of course, but I’d grown up in this neighborhood. My only real friends were Alyson and Liam, which was fine. Really. I mean, who had time for a hundred friends? Sometimes I felt as if my brother and I shared one life. His. We were both disembodied hollows.

My eyes landed on a solitary figure in the back who was thundering up the aisle toward me. I swiveled around fast. Please, God, no, I prayed, invoking my invisibility shield. Not Hoyt Doucet. He was evil. Satan incarnate. I despised him so much. He’d been Liam’s worst nightmare ever since the Doucets had moved in down the street a few years ago. Moved into Alyson’s house, as a matter of fact, when the Walshes upscaled. Liam had had to leave for school half an hour early his whole eighth grade year to avoid being ambushed by Hoyt Doucet.

If Hoyt asked me to be his lab partner, I’d regurgitate my scone all over him. It’d be an honor.

There was a tap on my shoulder. “You want to work together?”

I whirled, prepared to blow chunks. But Hoyt charged past me, the stench of sewer gas in his wake. My eyes refocused. The voice had emanated from lips, which smiled down on me, and a head, which tilted, on a neck, which extended from a body. Nothing hollow about it. Rock solid, top to bottom.

“How ’bout it? We could be the dynamic duo. Make that the dyn**ite duo — blow up the lab. Kaboom!” He grinned.

This was a dream. Who was this guy, and how had he penetrated the shield?

“You want ... me?” I croaked, palming my chest.

Bruchac bellowed, “Could we get this done today, people? You have thirty seconds to find a lab rat and a station.”

I scooted back my chair and stood. Stunned. This guy, this real-living-person-like guy, motioned me to follow him. Which I would have, into a noxious cloud of carbon monoxide probably. He was like, hot.

“Is this one all right?” he asked, indicating an unclaimed sink area by the periodic table chart.

I was paralyzed. It was all I could do to nod.

“I’m Chris,” he said.

“Um, Regan.” My voice sounded strained, weak. Same way I felt.

“I’m sorta new here.” He looped a leg over the lab stool. “Are you, too? You looked the way I felt when Bruchac said we had to pair up.”

I laughed a little. “No, I’m just your basic loser.”

He made a face. “Yeah, right.” His eyes plumbed my depth, causing my internal temperature to soar. Was he checking me out?

God. What if he was? I’d dribbled mocha down my shirt.

A spike of fear lodged in my spine. For some reason, my vocal cords engaged. “You still have,” I looked at my watch, “twelve seconds to change your mind. Find someone else and save your reputation.”

One side of his lip cricked up. “I found you. I’ll take my chances.”

Meltdown. Massive nuclear meltdown. I’d been rehearsing this so often — hiding behind my shield until everyone else had a partner; assuring Bruchac I didn’t mind working alone; making the lie sound convincing — that I was having a hard time believing the scenario was playing out differently. Should I pinch myself? Pinch him?

The silence between us grew, like we didn’t know what to say next, or do. Incompatible species, crossed my mind. We were. He was human. Chris? Chris, did he say? He was turning on and off the water faucet, running his index finger back and forth under the spigot. Flicking me with water. Grinning. Baiting me.

Maybe I could handle this. I mean, it wasn’t like we were dating or anything. Should I act mad? Splash him back?

I didn’t even know how to be with a guy. What did you say?

Was it permissible to remark, “Your hair is gorgeous?” Because it was. Black as ink and silky soft. A shock of it fell across his right eye. The left one seemed to gleam, twinkle, tease me.

Get a grip, Regan. I leaned away from him and opened my spiral. Should I comment on his clothes? I mean, he looked cool. He might take it wrong, though. Think I was being facetious. His clothing wasn’t new, or nice. His jeans had a rip under the pocket and his long-sleeved tee was frayed at the cuffs. His hands were huge, I noticed. And there was grease under his cuticles. Real grease.