Michelle Hodkin

The idea was a splinter in my mind. Always there, always stinging,even when I wasn't conscious of it. Even when I wasn't thinking about it.

I was warned about you, you know."And with that half-smile that wrecked me, Noah said, "But you're here anyway.

Jamie said in that voice of his, "You never saw us.""I never saw you," the driver repeated, sounding dazed. "You drove this astonishingly hot underwear model from south Texas. You wanted to lick his abs." "I wanted to lick his abs.""You're such an asshole," Stella muttered as she climbed out of the cab.

I was going to kiss him, and I was going to regret it. But at that moment, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Have you kissed many boys before?" he asked quietly. His question brought my mind back into focus. I raised an eyebrow. "Boys? That's an assumption." Noah laughed, the sound low and husky. "Girls, then?""No.""Not many girls? Or not many boys?""Neither," I said. Let him make of that what he would."How many?" "Why_" "I am taking away that word. You are no longer allowed to use it. How many?" My cheeks flushed, but my voice was steady as I answered. "One." At this, Noah leaned in impossibly closer, the slender muscles in his forearm flexing as he bent his elbow to bring himself nearer to me, almost touching. I was heady with the proximity of him and grew legitimately concerned that my heart might explode. Maybe Noah wasn't asking. Maybe I didn't mind. I closed my eyes and felt Noah's five o' clock graze my jaw, and the faintest whisper of his lips at my ear."He was doing it wrong.

Does anyone know how to start a fire?"Blank stares. "So we can't start a fire," [Jamie] said. "We can't fly. We can't create a force field. We are the most bullshit superheroes.

Noah's eyes held my face. I swallowed hard. The juxtaposition of him sitting in a room full of people while staring at no one but me was overwhelming. Something shifted inside of me at the intimacy of us, eyes locked amid the scraping of twenty graphite pencils on paper.I shaded his face out of nothingness. I smudged the slope of his neck and darkened his delinquent mouth, while the lights accented the right angle of his jaw against the cloudy sky outside. I did not hear the bell. I did not hear the other students rise and leave the room. I did not even notice that Noah no longer sat at the stool.

I laughed as I twisted to face him and raised my arm to hit in one move. He caught my wrist and my laugh caught in my throat. A mischievous grin curved my mouth as I raised my other hand to hit him. He reached over me and caught that wrist too, gently pinning my arms above my head as he straddled my hips. The space between us boiled my blood.

You can__ hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I__ in love with you, Mara. I love you. No matter what you do.

My name is not Mara Dyer, but my lawyer told me I had to choose something. A pseudonym. A nom de plume, for all of us studying for the SATs. I know that having a fake name is strange, but trust me__t__ the most normal thing about my life right now. Even telling you this much probably isn__ smart. But without my big mouth, no one would know that a seventeen-year-old who likes Death Cab for Cutie was responsible for the murders. No one would know that somewhere out there is a B student with a body count. And it__ important that you know, so you__e not next.

I read the title from the cover. ' 'The joy of... crap.' ' I read the rest of the full title of the thick, nondescript volume to myself and felt myself redden.Noah turned over on to his side and said with mock seriousness, 'I have never read 'The Joy Of Crap'. Sounds disgusting.' I blushed deeper. 'I have, however, read 'The Joy Of Sex.' ' He continued, a smile transforming his face. 'Not in a while, but I think it's one of those classics you can come back to again... and again.

I slipped in and out of consciousness as time stretched and flowed around me. Dreams and reality blurred, but I liked the dreams better. Noah was in them.I dreamed of us, walking hand in hand down a crowded street in the middle of the day. We were in New York. I was in no rush__ could walk with him forever__ut Noah was. He pulled me alongside him, strong and determined and not smiling. Not today.We wove among the people, somehow not touching a single one. The trees were green and blossoming. It was spring, almost summer. A strong wind shook a few steadfast flowers off of the branches and into our path. We ignored them.Noah led me into Central Park. It was teeming with human life. Bright colored picnic blankets burst across the lawn, the pale, outstretched forms of people wriggling over them like worms in fruit. We passed the reservoir, the sun reflecting off its surface, and then the crowd began to thicken.They funneled into a throbbing mass as we strode up a hill, over and through. Until we could see them all below us, angry and electric. Noah reached into his bag. He pulled out the little cloth doll, my grandmother__. The one we burned.

I'll love you to ruins.

You want me as much as I want you. And all I want is you."My tongue warred with my mind. "Today," I whispered.Noah stood slowly, his body skimming mine as he rose. "Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever.

You're supposed to say, 'All I want is your happiness. I'll do whatever it takes, even if it means being without you.'""Sorry," Noah said. "I'm just not that big of a person.

He didn't look like the same person who picked me up this morning. Noah--sarcastic, distant, untouchable Noah--cared. And that made him real.

Something inside of me began to tear.