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ways and, to start with, obsessed with the idea that people were looking at me and talking about me. Gradually, I realized that not only was that not happening, but that I was going completely unnoticed most of the time, and that made me feel lonely, and marooned, and out of place. People I’d known quite well before, but wasn’t all that close to, were nice and asked how I was, but didn’t ask much more. To begin with, I didn’t seem to speak at all to people I didn’t know, and I didn’t expect them to talk to me.
    And then, one did: Luke.
    “Hey, Red! When’s the Wuthering Heights essay got to be in by?”
    A dark-haired boy, in a green T-shirt with a picture of Elvis on it, was looking straight at me when he called this out. But I didn’t think it was me he was asking, so I just frowned at him with this idiotic confusion on my face.
    “You’re in Gresham’s English class, aren’t you?” he asked—definitely me this time. “Hello? Do you…speak?” he asked sort of mock-innocently, but his dark eyes were shiny and glinting.
    “Uh…yeah,” I said, blinking through my fringe at him. “I…didn’t think you were talking to me.”
    “You’re in English with me, aren’t you? Weren’t you the one at the front on the right squeaking about Heathcliff?”
    I cleared my throat, so my voice would come out nonsqueakily. But then, I just couldn’t think of anything to say. He was being so rude and he didn’t even know me! I was on my own and couldn’t start talking to anyone else. I felt fragile, as if my just-mended body would start coming apart at the seams if anyone rattled me.
    “The essay has to be in by next Monday,” I said politely, and started getting my bag and books together to go. He came over and sat down on the chair next to mine, and put his hand on my knee. Er…
    “All right, Red,” he said. “You don’t have to be so chilly. I was just saying hello.”
    “Well…you said I squeaked,” I said, looking at his hand and wondering if I should move it, or shake my leg free. I was trying to make it sound like a flirty telling-off, but it didn’t come out that way.
    “Well, you said I squeaked!” he squeaked loudly, and then laughed just as loudly. God, he was being so nasty! But I just stared at him again, breathing fast through my mouth.
    Anyway, that’s when I started falling for Luke.
    Yeah, I know, it’s nuts , isn’t it? Someone bullies me and I go for it. But Luke had an advantage over the boys I’d grown up with. To him, I wasn’t that girl who got leukemia and spent all that time in hospital; I was a stranger with red hair and a mysterious past, and he’d noticed me just because he liked the way I looked. When it came to my old friends, I was desperate to show them that I hadn’t changed, and that they didn’t need to treat me differently. I wanted them to know I was normal and the same because I didn’t want to be damaged. Luke didn’t know anything about the “normal” me, which meant that the side of me that had always wanted to be more spontaneous and funnier, and maybe a bit looser, could come out. He seemed to want to drag it out, and that was really why I’d fallen for him. Everyone else was so careful with me, from the people in the hospital, to my family, to my friends. Luke teased me, but he was also goofy and hilarious, and I needed that so much. I needed someone to be silly and a bit more rough-and-tumble with me, someone who wouldn’t keep stopping to check that I wasn’t about to die. Someone who’d grab my hand and run, and keep running—do you know what I mean? For the first time since I’d been old enough to worry about everything, I was acting goofy and stupid and giggly. Like for instance, I introduced him to my teddy bears—I mean, can you believe it? I even used to shove them in the wardrobe when my cool girl friends came round. Luke gave the teddies comedy voices that talked to me. (“Helloooo, Liviaaaa, it’s Big Furrrry Ted