Excerpt from The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Saenz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Finally she came out of the house as I was texting Fito. His dramas were different from Sam's. I'd never had to live in the kind of chaos Fito endured every day of his life, but I thought he was doing pretty well for himself.

"Hi," Sam said as she walked over, oblivious to the fact that I'd been standing there waiting. She was wearing a blue dress. Her backpack matched her dress, and her earrings dangled in the soft breeze. And her shoes? Sandals. Sandals? I waited all this time for a pair of sandals she bought at Target?

"Great day," she said, all smiles and enthusiasm.

"Sandals?" I said. "That's what I was waiting for?"

She wasn't going to let me throw her off her game. "They're perfect." She gave me another smile and kissed me on the cheek.

"What was that for?"

"For luck. Senior year."

"Senior year. And then what?"

"College!"

"Don't bring that word up again. That's all we've talked about all summer."

"Wrong. That's all I've talked about. You were a little absent during those discussions."

"Discussions. Is that what they were? I thought they were monologues."

"Get over it. College! Life, baby!" She made a fist and held it high in the air.

"Yeah. Life," I said.

She gave me one of her Sam looks. "First day. Let's kick ass."

We grinned at each other. And then we were on our way. To begin living.

The first day of school was completely forgettable. Usually I liked the first day—?everybody wearing new clothes and smiles of optimism, all the good thoughts in our heads, all the good attitudes floating around like gas balloons in a parade, and the pep rally slogans—?Let's make this the greatest year ever! Our teachers were all about telling us how we had it in us to climb the ladder of success in hopes that we might actually get motivated to learn something. Maybe they were just trying to get us to modify our behavior. Let's face it, a lot of our behavior needed to be modified. Sam said that ninety percent of El Paso High School students needed behavior modification therapy.

This year I just was not into this whole first-day experience. Nope. And then of course Ali Gomez sat in front of me in my AP English class for the third year in a row. Yeah, Ali, a leftover from past years who liked to flirt with me in hopes that I'd help her with her homework.

Excerpted from The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Saenz. Copyright © 2017 by Benjamin Saenz. Excerpted by permission of Clarion. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.