Lake County High isn’t a big school; my graduating class boasts a whopping one hundred and forty-three students. When someone new shows up, everyone notices. I had been hearing about a new guy all morning. Ashley Johnson was all about the “yummy newbie” who transferred in from Montana. She spent half of our first hour class planning their wedding.

And now the future Mr. Ashley Johnson was turned around in his chair, leaning around John Davis, staring at me.

It didn’t take long for my brain to decide that the last thing it wanted was another confrontation and allowed embarrassment to overwhelm me. I dropped my eyes as my face turned a brilliant shade of tomato.

I continued through the rest of the hour with my eyes fixed steadfastly on my desk. I tried to take some notes on what Mr. Beck was covering, but it all basically boiled down to him being a jerk and the class being impossibly hard. I was pretty sure I could remember that without a written reminder.

When the bell finally rang, I quickly gathered my stuff and jumped up, planning to make a quick escape. Instead, I ran directly into the new guy’s chest.

“Sorry,” I muttered, trying to step around him to get to the door. Instead of moving to the side to let me by, like a decent person would do, the new guy just stood there.

“Excuse me,” I hissed through clenched teeth. He finally moved, allowing me clear access to the door, and the blissful anonymity the crowded hallway provided.

***

I breathed a sigh of relief as I sank into the seat next to my best friend, Talley Matthews, in the school’s dilapidated theater. The seats were worn and threadbare, the thick velvet curtain had faded from red to a rustic orange, half of the light fixtures were missing bulbs, and a musty, mildewed scent hung heavily in the air. Despite its ruinous state, I was looking forward to the time I would be spending in the old theater taking the school’s new Shakespeare class.

“How is your last first day of high school going?” Talley asked, without even a hint of irony in her voice.

“It has sucked, big time. Jase totally hogged the bathroom all morning. Then, he insisted on picking up Nikki Anderson, who made us wait fifteen minutes in the car while she painted on her perfect face. And, of course, Jase then made me ride in the back seat of our car so that he could stare at her unnaturally perky boobs as he drove us to school. Ashley Johnson is in my AP English class, and Mr. Beck is a complete tool who refuses to call me Scout. And, remember that guy I told you about from The Strip? Mr. Tall, Dark and Insane? His brother is the new guy.”

“There’s a new guy?” Talley was always oblivious to the school’s latest gossip. “What’s his name?”

“His last name is Cole. I don’t remember what his first name is though. Some really generic “A” name. Alan? Andrew?”

“Alex,” an unfamiliar male voice replied from behind me. I turned to see the new guy, apparently named Alex, sitting in the second row of seats.

Crap. How long had he been there?

“Should I call you Scout or Miss Donovan?” he asked with a smirk.

I glowered. “Scout will be fine.”

“I’m Talley,” my best friend chimed in, turning around to stretch her hand out towards Alex. What was she doing? Was she going to shake his hand like they were closing a bank deal or something equally adult and boring?

To his credit, Alex didn’t look at Talley as though she was breaking some unwritten high school code, and extended his own hand to her. “Nice to meet you, Talley. Cool name. Very non-generic.” His grey eyes seemed to dance their way over to mine. The huge grin on his face revealed perfectly straight white teeth and a pair of honest-to-goodness dimples.

“Thanks,” Talley replied, meeting his smile watt per watt. “My mom went into labor with me at O’Talley’s restaurant. It was the only thing her post-childbirth drug-addled mind could come up with when they asked her for a name.”

“Cool. And how does one become a Scout? Are you like a super cookie salesman?” He was obviously pleased with his own attempt at being clever. I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were still focused intently on my face.

“It’s because my name is Harper Lee,” I said in the most annoyed voice I could muster.

“And so people call you Scout?” I allowed a condescending smile to spread across my face. I had missed moments like these ever since they assigned To Kill a Mockingbird our Junior year. “Why not Boo?” Alex asked, effectively robbing me of my smugness.

Jerk.

My spirits sank even lower as I looked up to see the last batch of students making their way towards the stage. Ashley Johnson practically skipped her way to the seat beside Alex.

“Hi, you must be new,” Ashley gushed, pretending she didn’t already know exactly who he was. Knowing her super-stalker abilities, she probably already knew what size wedding band she needed to buy him. “I’m Ashley.”

Alex finally stopped staring at me to focus on the Bimbo Barbie sitting next to him. I watched as his eyes assessed her, from her super-styled bottle blond hair all the way down to her designer 4-inch heels. Apparently, he liked what he saw. “Well, Ashley, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Alex Cole.”

I turned back around in my seat so I wouldn’t have to actually see Ashley’s breasts as they struggled to free themselves from the tiny tank top she had them stuffed in as she leaned over to talk to Alex. Sadly, this didn’t stop her grating voice from reaching my ears.

“That’s a real interestin’ accent ya go there, Alex. Where are y’all from?” Ashley always had a bit of a southern drawl, but she was really laying it on thick.

“I just moved here from Montana,” he answered, hamming up his own accent so that he sounded like a member of The Barenaked Ladies.

“How on earth does someone from Montana end up down here in Timber, Kentucky?”

I was actually curious about that myself. Timber isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis. Most of the county is covered by Land Between the Lakes, a national forest that is beautiful and mildly entertaining in the summer months, but lacking modern amenities like a Target or movie theater. Occasionally someone would move up from Nashville to escape the city, but most of our families have been here forever. I hadn’t even met someone from Montana until three days ago.

I’m not sure if he was being truthful or trying yet again to be clever, but I could tell from the momentary silence behind me that his response of, “This is where the car broke down,” wasn’t exactly what Ashley was expecting either.