Surviving High School by M. Doty

her a lift.
    Normally, Emily’s eyes would have bulged at the sight of the speedometer’s needle pointing well past eighty, and her pulse would have quickened as the scenery rushed by, but tonight her only thoughts were of Ben Kale. She looked down to see the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d lent her, and a warm feeling radiated from her chest as she remembered jumping after him into the pool.
    “What are you smiling about?” asked Samantha. “Your little boyfriend back at the party?”
    “Ben’s not my boyfriend,” said Emily.
    “Too bad,” said Samantha. “You’re kind of cute together.”
    “Really? You think so?”
    Samantha rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded like freshmen .
    “Whatever,” said Emily. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’ll actually ever be my boyfriend. It was fun hanging out, but I’m way too busy for, you know, date nights and going out to dinner and a movie, and dances and stuff.”
    “Too busy?” asked Samantha.
    “My life—” started Emily. “It’s scheduled down to the minute. I wake up, eat, head to school, swim for three hours, dinner, homework, stretching, maybe an hour to talk to people online, and then I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep the minute my head touches the pillow.”
    “It sounds like you’ve got a pretty packed schedule,” said Samantha.
    “Definitely.”
    “But on the other hand…” Samantha trailed off.
    “What?”
    “Well, you did make it out to the party tonight.”
    “This was a onetime thing.”
    “Right,” said Samantha. “Of course.”
    Emily crossed her arms and glanced over at Samantha, trying to get a read on her. With her freshly shaved head and her motorcycle jacket, Samantha looked more like a heroine out of a postapocalyptic zombie movie than a high school girl. It was hard to believe they were talking about something as mundane as boys.
    “Busy, busy girl,” Samantha added.
    “You’re making fun of me,” said Emily.
    “You’re pretty observant.”
    As they neared Emily’s street, she told Samantha to stop and let her out a block from home.
    “Daddy doesn’t know you left?” asked Samantha.
    “Does yours?”
    Samantha shrugged and smiled. She pulled over to the street corner and killed the engine.
    “Probably not,” she admitted.
    Emily opened the door and stepped out of the truck.
    “Anyway,” she said, “thanks for the ride.”
    She closed the door and had taken a few steps toward home when she heard Samantha’s voice calling after her.
    “Hey, Kessler! If your sister had time for a boyfriend, so do you.”
    Emily turned to respond, but by the time the words had sunk in, Samantha’s engine had already roared to life. In allher years around a pool, Emily had only belly flopped off a diving board once or twice. Now, she had that same feeling, as if all the air had been pushed out of her.
    “Your sister had time for a boyfriend.”
    Emily watched in silence as the older girl’s taillights disappeared into the distance.
    “Your sister had… a boyfriend.”
    It was impossible, right, to live in the same house as someone for more than a dozen years without really knowing her? And yet—Emily’s parents knew nothing about Ben. Emily had never mentioned him, and she’d sneaked out to his party without them knowing. Was it possible that Emily herself had been just as clueless about Sara’s love life?
    Emily turned and started walking home, the words echoing in her mind. What if what Samantha had said was true? What did it mean if Sara—the Machine—turned out to have been human?

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Halfway through her 10K run the next morning, Emily was starting to regret going to Ben’s party. What was the point in trying to get together with a cute guy if she collapsed and died of a heart attack by the side of the road before she even got a kiss?
    “You’re almost a minute over your usual time at the 5K mark!” her father shouted from the driver’s seat of his car. On Saturdays, he