Tiny Drop the Needle #3

TITLE: Wilder Times
GENRE: YA



He'd ditched her. Again. Katrina Hayes didn't have enough
fingers to count the number of times she'd been stood up within the
past twenty-four hours. She found herself wishing that she was a
mutant. With ten fingers on each hand. That would make it easier to
track just how many times Jackson Scott hadn't been where he was
supposed to be. Plus, double digits on one hand would make for a
really cool slap mark across his check. Which was what he deserved
right about now.

The halls were nearly empty: everyone had gone to lunch. Everyone but
Katrina. She was standing by her locker looking like a lost loser.
Apparently Jackson wasn't meeting her here just like he had done every
day for the past two-and-a-half years. She slammed her locker shut and
stormed to the cafeteria.

The lunch lines were horrendously long. She looked toward the cluster
of tables near the center of the lunch room. There he was, setting out
his sack lunch. A small growl escaped through her clenched teeth; the
growl that Jackson said made her sound like Marge Simpson's sister.
But this growl was warranted. Not only had Jackson come to the
cafeteria alone, he was also proceeding to eat lunch without her. If
she went through the lunch line, he'd be gone by the time she got her
food. And obviously that was his intention.