When we got home, Lucy holed up with her computer in the living room, and I pulled out my script for Peter Pan. As far as I knew, the show was still on. Mr. Davidson didn’t seem like he was giving up, yet.

A few pages in, I started getting a string of very embarrassed texts from Berry.

BERRY

I think we should all thank my mom for making sure our first meeting was as awkward as possible

ANNE

I wasn’t embarrassed!

ANNE

Finally I got to meet the only other person in Greenville with any musical taste!

BERRY

Yeah u guys didn’t get to compare notes

ANNE

Next time

BERRY

I heard about Sarah’s protest!!!

ANNE

Yeah

BERRY

And the emails

BERRY

FYI my mom didn’t send one.

ANNE

Good

ANNE

My mom is dealing w it

BERRY

Good

I rolled over on my back into a pile of what could have been either cat or dog hair, which I then had to peel off my body while my phone buzzed.

With a phone call.

A phone call?

“Hey.” The voice on the other end of the phone was soft, almost a whisper.

“Hello?”

“It’s Gilly.”

“Oh! Hey!” My stomach did a nervous flip.

“Is now okay? To talk?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” I looked around. Bjorn looked up at me from his spot on my bed. It was that solid cat look of You are bothering me by just existing. “Um. How’s your ankle?”

“Oh. Sprained. Not too bad, though. So I’ll be back in a few days. Just got a little boot cast.”

“Great. I mean, it’s good it’s not broken. Right?”

Then there was literally a one-minute pause where I wondered if Gilly had hung up after giving me an update on her cast.

“I heard about. . .Sarah’s protest. About the play?”

“Yeah. That kind of sucked.”

There was a shuffling sound in the background, making me wonder if Gilly was alone. “I just think, maybe, like, if you could talk to Sarah, it might change her mind.”

My stomach took a pause from flopping around in my insides to drop into my ankles. Like how much did this sound like Gilly’s last idea, that I should sign up for the play? A suggestion that led me straight into a deluge of homophobic slurs?

“Um.” I bit my lip. “Yeah, I don’t know. Gilly. I think. I don’t think me talking to Sarah is a great idea.”

“I just thought—” I could hear Gilly’s lips get closer to the phone. Or I was picturing it. “If you talked to her, face-to-face, that it could be different?”

This time it was my turn to sit in silence.