Honors English, junior year of high school: the desks were drawn into a circle, and Sophie sat directly across from Troy. She was wearing Birkenstocks, knee-high rainbow-striped socks, and a skirt that appeared to be made of duct tape, or at least covered in it, and that ended a few inches above her knees. Thick, glossy, dark-wheat-colored hair pulled up in a lackadaisical side pony. A crooked smile. And the jokes she chimed in with were clever, cutting, and sometimes grotesque—they smacked of what he thought of as strictly guys’ humor.
