“I’m supposed to say yes, aren’t I?”
“I hope you say yes.”
“Okay, yes,” Rosina says. “But I’m a little terrified.”
“It’s okay to be terrified.”
“I’m peeing my pants a little.”
“You should probably get that checked out.”
“What’d you tell your parents about me?”
“I told them you’re awesome.”
“Oh.”
“I also may have told them that I kind of want you to be my girlfriend,” Melissa says.
And that’s it—there are now officially too many feelings to fit inside the confines of Rosina’s ribs. Her heart explodes. She’s a goner.
US.
Amber Sullivan is in Graphic Design, her best hour of the day. It’s her chance to fool around on a decent computer and feel halfway good at something. Who knows what she’d be capable of if she actually had one at home to practice on.
Not only is this her best class, it is also her best seating arrangement. She is assigned to a computer right next to Otis Goldberg, who is usually on the other side of the school in the smart-kid classes, and who, at this point in her life, is the only person whose company Amber actually enjoys.
“What are you working on?” Otis asks her, as if she’s an actual person.
“Oh,” she says. “Um.” He is the only boy she doesn’t know how to talk to.
“That looks cool,” he says, leaning sideways to better see her screen, his shoulder touching hers. “Is it animated?”
“Yeah,” she says. She presses the button to start the animation. It’s nothing, really. It took her fifteen minutes to create.
“Wow,” Otis says, and he seems genuinely impressed. “How’d you do that?”
“It’s really easy programming,” Amber says. She switches to the screen where she wrote it.
“You wrote all that code? How’d you learn how to do that?”
Amber shrugs. “I guess I just taught myself.”
“You’re really talented,” Otis says. “You could do this professionally if you wanted to.”
Amber has to look away from his searing eyes. He’s the only one who’s ever told her she can do anything.
“Slut,” Olivia Han fake coughs as she walks by, knocking Amber’s computer with her hip.
“Shut up, Olivia,” Otis says. “Not cool.”
Olivia looks at Otis for a moment, dumbfounded. When has anyone ever stood up for Amber Sullivan? “Whatever,” Olivia finally says, and walks away.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Amber says. “I’m used to it.”
“That doesn’t give her the right to do it,” Otis says. “You don’t deserve that.”
The strange thing is, he actually seems to believe it.
The strangest thing is, for a brief moment, looking into Otis’s eyes, so does Amber.
*
Someone sits in the desk designated for Adam Kowalski, but that is just the name on her birth certificate. Her real name is Adele now, but nobody knows it yet. Just one more year, she thinks, the mantra on a constant loop in her head.
She watches a group of girls in a huddle, whispering. Something yanks inside her chest, wanting to join them. She knows they’re talking about the Nowhere Girls; that’s all anyone talks about these days. She yearns to be a part of it, but would they even let her in? Is someone like her allowed? If she showed up to a meeting, would they scream at her to leave? What is her claim to womanhood if it isn’t in her body?
*
Of course Margot Dillard has already finished the homework Mom picked up for her at school. She has already had an encouraging conversation with the dean of admissions at Stanford, who waxed nostalgic about her own trouble with the law protesting apartheid in the eighties. Certain that their daughter can do no wrong, Margot’s parents are preparing to sue the school district over her suspension, and they have a very good lawyer.
Margot does not think about her great luck, about this privilege of being trusted. She is sitting in front of the mirror applying makeup. She replays the YouTube video about how to create a smoky eye, which she’s already watched six times because of course it has to be perfect. She looks in the mirror and pouts out her plump red lips.
Sexy, she thinks. Holy shit, I’m sexy.
*
Trista’s father installed a new doorknob on her door that locks from the outside. She can’t come out except for once every two hours to use the bathroom. Mom brings her food and prays with her. After dinner the family has the incredible honor of being visited by Pastor Skinner. Trista is let out of her room to sit with him in the living room to talk about honoring her parents and the church.
As he drones on about respecting authority, Trista thinks about how she’s been raised to always ask herself “What would Jesus do?” She says nothing to Pastor Skinner about how Jesus fought for what he believed in, how he stood up against corrupt people in power, how he showed women kindness and respect at a time in history when they received little of either. But that is not the Jesus who Pastor Skinner is talking about. In fact, the pastor isn’t talking much about Jesus at all.
Trista is being held hostage, and that’s not even teenage hyperbole. This is really, truly a hostage situation. But there’s nothing she can do. She’s a kid. She has no rights. Her parents get to decide what’s right and wrong for her, even if they’re wrong.
*
Elise Powell knows this suspension is supposed to be a punishment, but she’s lying in bed with a grin on her face, looking at the ceiling and not feeling particularly guilty about anything. She already made it through the initial terror of her future being destroyed like Principal Slatterly promised—her parents’ disappointment, getting kicked off the softball team, losing her scholarship to U of O. After their visit to the principal’s office, as Elise explained her side of the story to her parents, she swears she saw her mom fighting a smile. Most important, they believed her. And when Elise called her coach in tears begging not to be kicked off the team, after a short pause and what sounded like a door closing, Coach Andrews whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but, girl, I am so proud of you. And I’m pretty sure my friends over at U of O will feel the same way.”