We head back to our lockers. Chester and Tim peel off, leaving Dustin, Andy, and me.

“Can’t believe I did that,” I say.

“Did what?” says Dustin. He’s honestly stumped for a second, even though it was just a few minutes ago. “Oh, the thing with Malfoy? Don’t sweat it.”

“You’re the one who said he was going to be so mad,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but who are we talking about here?” says Dustin. “He’s always mad.”

“Good point,” I say. I want to say more, but we’ve reached Dustin’s locker.

Now it’s just Andy and me. He’s the one guy I don’t have to explain this to.

“Not good,” he says.

“Nope,” I say.

“Déjà vu,” he says.

“Yep,” I say.

And then he ducks his head into his locker, and I’m alone in the hallway.

I’m thinking about what happened with Malfoy. I don’t mean five minutes ago, I mean five years. I’ll just say it: Malfoy and I used to be best friends. That’s the history. This was like kindergarten and first grade. I guess, if you want to look at it that way, he was my first best friend. “Meach,” that’s what I called him back then.

Malfoy and I — Meach, whatever — it’s not like we had a big argument or anything. I mean, he was always a little out there. I remember once, in kindergarten, he cut all the limbs off one of the playtime dolls with those green-handled safety scissors. He cut it up and left it there for the girls to find. He did that just the one time, but there were other things.

It wasn’t really that stuff, though. I just met Andy in second grade, and we got along better. Maybe we had more in common or something, I don’t know. It was second grade. But those two didn’t get along at all, and so there I was: monkey in the middle. And I made my choice.