Diana was babbling on and on about going to Danny’s regional party with Maria Cierra, Dawn Lane and Sherri Jeffries. Pat figured she was trying to pretend she wasn’t jealous of the fact that Danny had made a point of asking Pat himself. Diana said it didn’t matter, as long as they were both going, but who was she kidding?

The only problem, the real source of Pat’s annoyance was that Diana was leaving her out. She didn’t even bother to ask Maria if Pat could ride with them.

Pat couldn’t drive herself and couldn’t ask Brian. Pat had prided herself on successfully ignoring Brian the weeks following the team pictures; she couldn’t ask him for a favor now. When she pointed this out, Diana played dumb.

"Oh yeaaa....I forgot about your little family feud."

Pat started. "Little family feud? Diana, he humiliated me in front of Danny. If I hadn’t done this he would’ve ruined my life."

"Umm, yeah right, I remember. Or I think so. It was a while ago." Pat sat back in her chair in astonishment. Diana had been the most indignant over the whole thing when it happened. Pat remembered having to literally stop her from saying something to Brian. Diana had vowed to only talk to Brian when necessary. Now she was acting like the whole thing was in Pat’s head.

"No, I remember," Diana said quickly, as if she could read Pat’s thoughts, "it’s just that Maria and I were talking about the party and everything in math and I just didn’t think about it."

That was another thing. Since her "casual" invitation to Maria to sit next to her in Algebra, Diana had managed to mention what happened in class everyday.

"Great, now I can’t even go," Pat groused.

"Why can’t you just ask Maria yourself?"

"Oh yeah, right Diana."

"No, I’m serious. What’s the big deal? It’d be a good chance for you to get to know her Pat, she’s really sweet. Remember what we talked about before?"

"What we talking about," Pat said, "was you being the one talking to her."

Diana made no effort to suppress a sigh. "Patella, that’s so immature," she said. She had taken up calling Pat Patella again after Pat’s nickname stuck and "D" didn’t.

"It was your idea!" Pat said, a little too loudly for study hall. She looked around the room to see if anyone looked up. Diana rested her forehead on one hand and massaged her temples. She spoke quietly.

"Patella, I’m sure Maria would help you find a ride if you asked her nicely. We’ll talk to her about it today."

"What’s today?"

"We’re doing the math homework at lunch, remember?"

Pat vaguely remembered Diana saying something about Maria and lunch, but she had begun tuning out when Diana brought her up. Now when Diana started speculating that she had finally gotten Maria over being in a ninth grade class, Pat tuned her out with her own thoughts.

She had thought twice about turning around when she’d heard someone calling her full name in the hall this morning.

"Hey Patella!"

But it didn’t sound like Richard or any other of Brian’s stupid jock friends. She looked around furtively, as if there were several Patella’s walking along the main hall.

"Up here!"

Pat realized she was near the junior and senior lockers. She looked up at a second floor landing and saw Danny waving at her.

"Oh, there you are," she said. It was still sort of early and a lot of people weren’t around.

Danny leaned over the railing. "Here I am. What’s up?"

"Same, I guess." Pat amazed herself with her calm attitude. Of course Diana wasn’t around to see, she had lagged behind talking with Brian and Richard.

"This is like that Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, but backwards. Patella, Patella, where are you Patella?" Danny said.

"I told you, it’s Pat. And it’s ‘wherefore art thou’ anyway."

"I can’t hear you, come up!" Danny said.

Pat’s heart leaped up to her throat. But she called out, "Come down!"

"I need stuff out of my locker."

"Oh fine, I’ll make the sacrifice." Pat pretended to drag herself towards the stairway. It was actually the best thing that could’ve happened. She knew it would make her day if Diana passed by and saw her leaning against a senior locker, chatting casually with Danny Willis. It would make her week if Brian saw her. As long as he didn’t freak out again. That was weird. Since when did he start caring who she liked? She dismissed it and walked over to Danny.

"Hey," he said.

"How now cuz," Pat answered before thinking.

But Danny smiled. "Art thou reading that play in English right now?"

"You got it."

Danny nodded while opening his locker. Which was near the end of the row, making them clearly visible on the landing. Pat leaned against the locker on the end of the row and willed herself not to grin from ear to ear.

Then Danny asked, "So is your brother going to let you come to the regionals party?"

"Huh?" Pat said.

"Huh?" Danny repeated with a grin. "My party. Are you coming?"

"Oh well, considering I don’t speak to my brother I didn’t know anything about it."

"Why don’t you talk to Brian?" asked Danny who was suddenly busy with something in his locker.

Pat wanted to laugh out loud. He obviously had some idea and was trying to get her to tell him. "Long story," she said.

"I know about those," Danny said. He gathered his books and shut his locker and they stood facing each other. In the distance, Pat could hear more people coming in the school. She hoped her brother and friends would pass by before the conversation was over.

"It’s the Saturday after the tournament, like the twenty-ninth or something. You should come," Danny said.

Pat nodded, unable to speak.

"Well, I gotta go this way, I’ll talk to you later," Danny said. He started to turn around and Pat said a quick goodbye. He waved and she scooted to the stairs of the landing as more seniors began to arrive in the locker area. She didn’t want to be standing around like a groupie.

As she came down the stairs she noticed Brian, Richard and Diana further up the hall. So they had passed. She sighed, figuring with her luck they didn’t even look up. Richard was in one his moods where he was nice to Diana, so he was probably letting her in on the conversation.

When she came to study hall, she found out that Diana had seen her talking to Danny. So Pat got her chance to recap the conversation, but her satisfaction was short-lived. Diana followed with her detailed story about how she got invited to the party. Maria Cierra had asked her in Algebra if Brian was mad about anything and Diana mentioned Pat and Danny. Then the part that Diana was so excited about. Maria had paid them both a complement by assuming they were already invited to Danny’s party!

Maria had merely said something like, "Oh yeah, probably about the regionals party, aren’t you guys going?" But Diana had decided that they were on their way to becoming Seb’s most popular freshmen. It was a heady thought, but Pat knew in her heart that Danny had asked her to piss off Brian and Maria had probably just wanted to be nice. But she let Diana’s excitement affect her and for awhile it was just like old times, until Diana brought up the fact that she already had a ride.

Before lunch, Diana had almost convinced Pat to bring up with party while they were with Maria and get herself in Sherri’s car with Diana, Maria and Dawn. But Maria’s first comment wiped away all of Pat’s resolve. She had been waiting for them by the cafeteria. When they came through the door she marched up to Diana and said,

"I have had it with your cousin!...and brother," she added, looking at Pat as an afterthought.

Diana clutched Maria’s hand as they walked to a table. "What happened? Didn’t you talk to him about it in English?"

Pat sat down across from them, trying to look as though she knew full well what "it" was that Maria and Brian were supposed to discuss.

"I never even got the chance! He was so pissy towards everyone before English we couldn’t even talk to him! It was unbelievable, Diana!" Maria said. Diana, the embodiment of concern, nodded rapidly. Neither looked at Pat.

"I don’t know if I can do this right now," Maria said, nodding towards Pat.

"What? Algebra homework?" Pat said.

"Oh, she totally agrees with us. She doesn’t even speak to him anymore. Right, Pat?"

"Who, Brian? Well, I...no I guess I don’t..." Pat said. What did her brother have to do with Algebra homework? It was then she noticed that Maria had no books with her. Something was definitely going on. "What does that have to do with Algebra?" Pat asked, pointing to her book and notebook.

"Well, that’s not exactly why we’re here," Diana said slowly.

"Excuse me?"

Maria took over. "Diana thought we could all sit down and talk about what’s been going on between you two. Since it seems to have something to do with me and the fact that Diana and I were friends. You know, Pat just because..."

"Hold on, hold on," Pat said. She looked over at Diana. "What is going on here?"

"I can’t finish a sentence around anybody in this family!" Maria said. Diana patted her shoulder.

"Diana?" Pat said.

"Pat, I just thought we could clear everything up about me being friends with you and Maria, that’s all."

"So you lied to me," Pat said.

Diana tried again. "We could do algebra, too. Do you need help?"

That was just too much. "For one thing, Diana, no, I do not need help in Algebra. Secondly, I do not need Maria to tell me that just because you’re my cousin doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with other people."

"I knew this wasn’t going to work," Maria said, more to herself than to Pat or Diana.

"I can’t believe instead of coming out and saying what you wanted you had to trick me, Diana," Pat said.

Maria answered for Diana. "Maybe she thought this was what was going to happen."

"Look," Pat said to her, "I don’t know what your problem with Brian is, but you don’t have to take it out on me."

"Taking what out on you?" Maria said, "you’re the one who wont sit here and listen to what I have to say for two minutes. You’re also the one that has the problem with Brian. If I had a dollar everytime he’s complained to me about you I’d be the richest girl in school," she chuckled. Diana smiled weakly in response, not altogether liking Pat’s face. v Pat slid back in her chair, angry and not being able to come up with any quick reply. She then gathering up her books to leave. She was sure she would start screaming if she had to sit and look at Maria and Diana together anymore. She took a bit of time getting her things in order to think of something to say. The other girls watched her. Diana looked anxious. Maria tried to tactfully hide her triumph.

"Well, tell me something I don’t know next time," was all Pat could come up with. She turned and left the table, willing herself not to run from the cafeteria.

Pat thought she heard Diana calling to her as she pushed opened the door of the cafeteria. She continued on, not wanting to deal with her cousin. She also wanted to just go somewhere, sit down and sort out what she just heard.

Pat sought out some benches near the huge canon in front of the school and plopped down on one. She put her bag down, folded her legs and hugged her knees.

She realized that she had to admit to herself that underneath being angry at Diana and Maria for setting her up, she was hurt by what Maria said. She herself had often waved off Brian’s strange behavior by saying he hated her. But there was a little place deep down inside of Pat where she admitted things like her parents were sometimes right and she liked school. In this place she didn’t really think Brian hated her; there was just some weird reason they weren’t getting along at the moment. Because there were times when they got along just like they did when they were kids before anyone else was around.

But what Maria said had to be true. Maria was Brian’s oldest friend next to her, Pat. She was probably his best friend next to Richard. And it had been that way, since...well since she and Maria weren’t friends anymore.