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was going to be held as usual but uncertain as to whether or not she’d be in attendance.
    â€œYou finished with that?” A skate rat she recognized as one of Ed’s pre-accident thrill seekers leaned over her shoulder to get a better glimpse of the newspaper headline. He was breathing all over her Italiansurprise, she noted, which did nothing to enhance her interest in it.
    â€œHuh? Yeah, take it” Gaia practically shoved the paper at him to get him off her back and out of her personal space. She pushed her lunch tray farther away, certain she wasn’t going to touch it again.
    â€œSucks about prom, right?” the skate rat continued, smiling affably enough at her. Incredibly, he didn’t seem to be picking up on her leave-me-alone vibe.
    She managed a halfhearted grin. She definitely couldn’t afford to alienate any other member of the student body, especially right now, after she’d pretty much killed any real chance she had of fitting in with the FOHs. Her internal monitors were on the fritz. Everyone was putting her on edge, and even the most benign gesture set off her sensors. Gaia wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy under the best of circumstances, but this was extreme. “I guess,” she grunted.
    â€œMaybe we’ll still get to have it like normal,” he responded, clearly inspired by a sudden burst of optimism. He gestured toward the paper one last time and, convinced Gaia didn’t mind parting with it, tucked it under his arm and loped away.
    â€œRight, like normal,” Gaia muttered to herself.
    A few months ago Gaia wouldn’t have even dreamed of going to the prom. Prom was for girls like Megan and Tammie and the other FOHs, girls who knew about things like using “products” and about thebenefits of eyelash curlers. Gaia’s idea of getting ready for school was to fish out her least wrinkled sweatshirt from the pile on her floor.
    But something had happened to Gaia slowly, steadily, in the time she’d been at the Village School. No, she hadn’t impressed her teachers with her photographic memory—she was absent too often for anyone to be blown away by her intellect—but she
had
managed to somehow end her seventeen-year stint as Gaia the Unkissed and venture into the territory of Gaia the Girlfriend. Oh, sure, two of her three love interests had either been kidnapped or otherwise tortured by her uncle and the various other evil forces acting on her life, and the third had just tagged along for a search-and-rescue mission to
Siberia
, but why quibble?
    No, the point was that somehow, Gaia was slowly learning to fit in. She’d made a handful of friends and even gone to a party or two. And the new girl in school, Liz Rodke, seemed distinctly interested in getting to know Gaia. What did all
that
mean?
    Maybe, just maybe, it meant that Gaia ought to reconsider the prom. The truth was, she
liked
feeling accepted by the FOHs. It was easy enough to pretend you didn’t care what those girls thought of you, especially when you knew that nothing you said or did would make you one of them, but lately they’d beenwarming to her. Maybe her new fear gene came special with a side of insecurity, but whatever it was, it was urging her to eke out every last possible drop of normalcy. After all, Gaia knew—maybe better than anyone—that this “real girl” stuff that she had fought so hard to acquire could disappear in a heartbeat.
    And before that could happen, she was going to prom.
    Her mind made up, Gaia rose, bringing her untouched food tray over to the disposal area. She dropped it on the conveyor belt, bidding a lackluster farewell to the Italian surprise, and turned to leave the lunchroom…
    Bumping directly into Jake Montone as she did.
    â€œHey,” she managed, quickly taking in his trim build, accentuated by a light gray sweater and jeans. The sight of her boyfriend still made her throat catch. Of