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in.
    â€œThanks, I think I can handle it,” she muttered as she slammed the door closed once again.
    â€œOh, right,” he said, matching her tone. “Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re a superhero.”
    Incredibly enough, his comment actually elicited another smile.
Two for two,
Ed thought. Not bad for a Monday morning.
    â€œVery funny,” she said, turning to look up at him.
    Suddenly the smile dropped from her face.
    Ed frowned. “What’s wrong?”
    But Gaia didn’t answer. Instead she just stared at Ed as if he were a specimen from some distant galaxy.
    â€œWhat’s. . . the. . . problem?” he repeated slowly, in case she might have missed some part of the question. He tried to muster a little laugh again. But he was starting to feel a nervous twitch in his stomach.
    â€œNothing,” she replied finally. She turned away.
    â€œWhat?” he pressed. “Do I have pen on my face or something?”
    â€œI have to go,” she said. Her voice took on an edge. She stared up at him again, her eyes darting from point to point on Ed’s face. “I’m late for MacGregor.”
    Now he was officially uncomfortable. “So what? I am, too.”
    â€œWell, I don’t want to flunk the class, so . . .” Gaia turned to leave, but he stuck out his left crutch to hold her up.
    â€œHey. What happened to ‘say something nice’?”
    He searched her face, trying to understand her bizarre, sudden shift in personality—although he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been switching personalities a lot lately, going from sourand ornery one moment to mysteriously blissful the next. But far more disturbing was that she had stopped being completely honest at all times. Gaia Moore’s unflinching honesty, more than anything— even more than the ass kicking and the Amazonian beauty— was what separated Gaia from pretty much every other human being on the planet.
    â€œI’ll—I’ll. . . try to find you at lunch,” she stammered, running her hand through her hair and avoiding eye contact. “
Later,
okay?”
    Well. There was clearly no point in trying to understand what was going on here. All he knew was that he was starting to feel awfully shitty. Did this have something to do with his being out of the chair? Was that what was making her so distant?
    No. Not Gaia. How could
she
be thrown by seeing him on his feet? She’d seen right past his chair, so why the hell wouldn’t she be able to see past his crutches? There was some undeniable energy passing between them, but he couldn’t tell if it was positively charged or negatively charged. Gaia wasn’t giving him any clues. He’d never had to
ask
for clues before.
    â€œGaia,” he said, searching for recognition in her eyes. “It’s
me. Ed.
You know,
Ed.
The dude in the wheelchair? Same guy.”
    But Gaia had no response.
    GAIA’S HEAD WAS SPINNING. SHE found she was royally pissed off, and she had no idea why. All she knew was that her anger was directed at Ed, and Ed was really the only reason she’d even bothered to come to school before heading over to the Mosses’ house. It made no sense.
    Queen Bitch to the Rescue
    Maybe there were just too many thoughts crowding her brain at the same time. There was the horrific encounter with Sam. She didn’t want to deal with that. Couldn’t think about it now. There was always the absence of her dad.
Avoid that thought at all costs.
There was her new chaotic and absurd emotional status to consider (coupled with sleeplessness), a condition referred to commonly as insanity
.
That couldn’t help.
    Was it just the crutches? She hadn’t expected the crutches. She hadn’t even seen Ed since the day he’d saved her ass in the park. But now, frozen in this goddamn hall, looking up at Ed, face-to-face . . .
    First of all, just looking
up
at Ed was