Free Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci Page A

and talk to people. It was the difference between being on the dance floor, where you were given all the choreography, and being the choreographer, where you made it all up yourself. Anything could happen.
    Yrena smiled at me. “If you squint, they will look just like your friends,” she said.
    I squinted.
    I squinted so that people looked nicer.
    “Okay,” I said. “But maybe we should start by finding someone who can get us drinks?”
    Yrena nodded.
    I felt better with a plan. I felt more confident about asking people for something, like a drink, than just going up to strangers and inserting myself into their conversations. I had about as much experience as Yrena did at coming out to a party, but with the two of us in it together, it was a lot easier to fake.
    I was just starting to feel good about the whole night, and how it might actually go okay, when I saw Daisy coming up the stairs.
    Daisy.
    I felt that old rush of bad heat come over me.
    Of all the people that I thought might be here, Daisy wasn’t one of them. Then again, this was exactly where she would be. She probably partied all the time.
    I tried to duck behind Yrena and get her to walk all the way over to the other side of the steps, but Daisy caught sight of me before we could slip away. I watched in horror as she gestured to the girls she was with. They all looked in mydirection and then looked away and laughed. My heart was beating fast. I wanted to run away. I think normally I would have, but I didn’t want to give myself away as a weakling in front of Yrena.
    I had to remind myself that Yrena didn’t know me. So she didn’t care about what had happened between me and Daisy.
    Yrena was what I’d thought high school would be for me: a clean slate.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Daisy’s friends had formed a little V behind her, like she was the lead bird in a flock of geese going south for the winter.
    I stayed put and tried to size up who would be the best person to approach for booze.
    “Are those your friends coming toward us?” Yrena asked. She’d noticed Daisy’s crowd looking at us.
    “I wouldn’t call them friends,” I said.
    “But you know them?”
    “I used to go to school with them.” That sounded like a nice balance between a lie and the truth. “They go to Science.”
    She didn’t know what that meant. So I explained.
    “They go to a school called Bronx Science. My brother goes there, too.”
    “Maybe they will have a drink for us,” she said, starting toward them.
    “No,” I said a little too forcefully, and tried to catch her arm. But I missed and watched as she moved down the steps toward Daisy and her friends. I forced myself to follow, pretending I was making an entrance from the wings onto a stage. Listen to the music. And one, two, three, go.
    When Yrena and I reached Daisy’s spot on the steps, she hemmed us in like she was afraid we’d get away. It seemed strategic, and I remembered that she was always doing stuff like that, forcing me into the weaker position.
    “Hello,” Yrena said, extending her hand into a handshake. “I am Yrena. Rose’s friend.”
    “Rose,” Daisy said as she eyeballed Yrena and ignored her extended hand. “It’s so weird to see you here. I never see you out at anything fun.”
    “I run in different circles now,” I said.
    “Must be a small circle,” she shot back.
    “Yrena, this is Daisy,” I said. “We used to go to school together.”
    “You mean we used to be friends,” Daisy said.
    “I am Yrena,” Yrena said again.
    “Yrena,” Daisy said. “Great name. So you go to Performing Arts?”
    “Go?” Yrena said blankly.
    “Where do you go?” Daisy was losing patience—and she didn’t have much to start with. “What high school do you go to? Are you at Performing Arts, too?”
    “She doesn’t go anywhere,” I said. “We live next door to each other.”
    “I thought those weird commies lived next door,” Daisy said.
    I cringed. It had