Rules for Being a Girl

“Hm?” He turns around. “What’s up?”

I open my mouth, then close it again. Of everything I’ve lost in the last few months, somehow this feels like the worst.

“Nothing,” I tell him finally. “You take care of yourself too.”

Thirty-Six

School is strangely quiet the rest of the day. Chloe and I were fully prepared for a fallout of epic proportions—we even drafted emergency letters to our respective colleges in the event we were both expelled—but other than my conversation with Gray on the bleachers, no one says anything to me about it. I take a calc quiz. I sit with the book club at lunch. Even Michael Cyr leaves me alone.

On one hand it feels like a massive relief—that editorial was the riskiest thing I’ve ever written, and even though I might have been prepared to sacrifice what’s left of my future, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the consequences.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel a tiny bit disappointed too. Like, does seriously no one even care?

Chloe picks me up the following morning, the two of us listening to the latest episode of our favorite creepy podcast and taking the long way so we can swing by the Starbucks drive-through for iced coffees and slightly dry croissants. By the time we pull into the Bridgewater parking lot it almost feels like it did last fall before everything happened.

That is, until we actually get inside.

I’ve become something of an expert in gauging the energy in the south hallway the last few weeks, and this morning it definitely feels like something unusual is happening, that sharp electric bite in the air. Sean Campolo’s gaze cuts in between us. Allie Chao whispers something behind her hand.

“Oh, what the hell is this?” I can’t keep myself from muttering. It feels like my first day back after break all over again, right down to the icy feeling creeping down my backbone. I thought I was immune to this, to the shame of being singled out and stared at. I guess, even after all this time, I was wrong.

I’m about to bolt—directly to first period, or possibly right out the door again—but Chloe reaches down and hooks her elbow in mine.

“Relax,” she says, with all the easy intuition of seven years of best friendship. Her voice is perfectly level. “Whatever happens, we’re together, right?”

I force a nod. “Right,” I manage, and to my surprise, I do feel a tiny zing of confidence, my spine straightening the slightest bit. “We’re together.”

We head toward our lockers, gather our books; down the hall I can see a gaggle of book clubbers sprawled in the lounge outside the cafeteria, and as we weave through the crowded hallway in their direction, I can see that Elisa is grinning. Lydia lifts her chin in a nod.

“Okay, no, seriously,” I murmur, quiet enough that only Chloe can hear me. “What the hell is this?”

Before she can reply I spy Principal DioGuardi coming down the hallway from the direction of the admin suite in a blue button-down so shiny it’s nearly iridescent. He catches my eye and motions us over, popping his whistle into his mouth.

“Girls,” he says, pulling it out again as we approach him. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

I take a breath. “Mr. DioGuardi,” I begin, just like we practiced in Chloe’s bedroom, “Chloe and I are happy to discuss whatever concerns you had about this week’s issue. But I should let you know that we looked at the organizational paperwork for the Beacon before we published, and it says very clearly that the administration shall not interfere with the editorial page unless there’s an egregious violation of—”

Mr. DioGuardi shakes his head. “It’s not about that,” he tells me. “Or it is about that, but—” He jams the whistle back into his mouth, looking visibly pained. “I just wanted to let you both know that Mr. Beckett has been removed from the faculty.”

For a second I just blink at him dumbly. That is . . . not what I was expecting him to say.

“Really?” I blurt.

Mr. DioGuardi nods. “Other students have already come forward,” he explains miserably. He looks exhausted, greenish bags under his eyes and a day’s worth of beard on his chin; if things had gone a little bit differently between us, I’d almost feel sorry for him. “It seems there was . . . well. More of a problem with Mr. Beckett than we realized, certainly. Both here and at the last school he worked at.”

The last school he worked at. I remember the first day Bex drove me home, that line about cooking dinner for students in his apartment, and can’t keep from shaking my head.

“He’s really gone?” I ask, still looking for the catch somewhere, but Mr. DioGuardi nods again.

“Effective immediately,” he reassures me. “He won’t be back.”

“Wow.” It’s more than I ever dreamed would happen, honestly. “That’s . . . wow.”

Chloe seems to consider that for a moment; to my surprise, she doesn’t actually look satisfied. “So, Mr. DioGuardi,” she says politely, cocking her head to the side, her eyes sharp and keen behind her glasses. “It sounds like what you’re saying is that you were wrong not to believe Marin when she came to you in the first place, hm?”

Mr. DioGuardi frowns. “Well, it wasn’t a question of belief or not,” he explains, his gaze cutting from her to me and back again. “The board was working with the information they had at the time—”

“Including the information she gave you, right?”