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I head downstairs and letherroom, their trash talk just audible over the clatter of the Cartoon Network

“Sunk!” one of the I hear before I shut the door

Twenty-Two

My parents and I meet with Principal DioGuardi and the school board over break, all of us sitting around a folding table on the stage in the auditorium I wonder if they ive the boardin a play I never auditioned for; they assure us that they’re taking theto Mr Beckett as well

The rest of Christets back from New Hampshire and takes o see The Nutcracker with my mom My dad sit

s through about aup periodically to get us more homemade marshmallow hot chocolate cookies, which I know is code for I love you and I’m here

Myback after break, the security blanket of knowing I could make a quick exit if I needed to I sla lot, the pavement sleet-slippery under my boots Icy rain slides underneath the collar of my winter coat, and I aljust in time

I shake h the senior entrance and scan the bright, crowded hallway Harper Russo raises her eyebrows, then whispers soiant, shit-eating grin

I duckdra shot of a nineties teen rabpast Cara St John and Aminah Thomas in the bottleneck in the hallway

“—always hanging out with hi her shoulder-length hair into a stubby blond ponytail “I don’t knohat she thought was going on”

“I wish Bex would try so with lance over her shoulder and spotcoh my entire body

So Everybody really does know, then

I shuffle dazedly throughlike auze and I can’t see or hear or even breathe properly All ine what I’ll do if Bex is in his classrooine what I’ll do if he’s not

“You ready?” Gray asks, slipping his hand into mine as we head down the hallway, and I nod

I’ve been telling myself I’ll be fine no o wobbly with relief when I see the sub standing up in front of Bex’s classroouy with a comb-over and a paunch