Rae Voight had an impulse to stop dead in the middle of the hallway, fling her arms out wide, and cry, "Just look, okay? Just take a good long look and stop giving me all those sneaky, out-of-the-comer-of-your-eye glances."

But she didn't. When everyone at school recently found out your mother was a murderer who died in a mental hospital and everyone already knew that you had spent your summer vacation in, yes, a mental hospital, it wasn't that smart to draw more attention to yourself.

Except ... at this point, all of that barely seemed to matter. How bizarre was that? The possibility that even her best friend might find out the truth about Rae's mom used to be Rae's biggest fear And now everybody knew She was sure even the janitor had heard. She was sure the AV guys, who usually didn't talk about anything except how bad they wanted a plasma TV, were gossiping about her. And she cared ... some. That's it. She wasn't even close to being destroyed the way she'd always thought she would be if anyone found out about her mom.

Maybe it was because she knew her mother hadn't killed anyone. She'd been convinced of that ever since she'd touched a letter with her mother's fingerprints on it and used her psychic ability to pick up the thoughts her mom had been having when she wrote the letter. But now she had proof -- Aiden's confession. Aiden had finally admitted to Rae that her mom had been set up to take the blame for her best friend's death. Rae wasn't the daughter of a killer.

And she also wasn't being stalked by her own best friend anymore. Yana Savari had turned out to be the one after her all along, but now Aiden had Yana tucked away somewhere where she couldn't hurt Rae.

So her mom was innocent, and Rae was safe. But even with all of that, the other major reason why Rae didn't really care what anyone here in school thought of her was that Anthony Fascinelli had kissed her-kissed her until her lips got all puffy and sore in a good way. Who could care about anything after that? 'Me kiss hadn't even been after a crisis situation, either. He hadn't kissed her because she'd almost died. Or because he almost had. So it totally counted. A little smile broke across Rae's face as she thought about the kiss and all the kisses that had come after that kiss in the past week. The smile earned her a few more what's-your-deal looks. Clearly people thought Rae should never smile again now that the so-called truth about her mom was out. But forget them. She had to smile. Because school was over for the day, and as soon as she found Anthony, they'd be kissing again.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Rae felt Anthony's hands slide around her waist. She twisted around to face him, impatient to feel his mouth on hers, to become RaeAnthony instead of Rae and Anthony. They'd kissed hundreds of times in the week since the kiss, but Rae still felt starved for the taste of him. When his lips met hers, God, it was like everything she'd ever wanted in her whole life had been dumped in a pile at her feet with a big bow and whipped cream and a cherry on top.

"Car," Anthony said into her mouth, and he started backing her down the hall, his face inches apart from hers. Rae locked her arms around his shoulders and easily matched her steps to his. No, it "Got 'em"' Anthony said, his lips sliding off hers and onto her cheek. He straightened up, pulling Rae with him.