Kiera’s voice breaks the silence again. “Is that true? You’ve been answering Miss Flora Mae’s letters? What about . . .”

She doesn’t want to say it out loud. I can see that. Everyone would know she’d needed the advice in the first place. She’s wide-eyed and caught off guard in a way I’ve never seen before.

I can hear the whispers rumbling all around. Miss Flora Mae is Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea killed Miss Flora Mae. She’s been lying. She knows everyone’s secrets. Only a few people around us have caught on, but I wonder how long it will take for the whole class to find out.

“Sweet Pea?” I turn to find Mrs. Young. “Let’s take this to the office, okay?”

I nod numbly.

I look to Oscar, hoping to find sympathy there, but he won’t even look at me. And Kiera . . . she’s still shocked, but I can see the hurt building like a wall around her.

I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know where to start.

Chapter Thirty

A New Kind of Normal

In the office waiting area, the word I hear Mrs. Young use over and over when she’s on the phone with my mom is disruptive. Apparently, I “caused a scene.” I was “acting out of character.” Mrs. Young wants to know if “something is going on at home.” I nearly shout: Which home?

Mrs. Young circles back around the front of the receptionist’s desk. “Your mother is on her way, Sweet Pea. When she gets here, we’ll have a chat with Vice Principal Mendes.”

“Am I in trouble?” I ask.

“That’s up to Vice Principal Mendes.” She gives me a sympathetic half smile. “I’ve got to get back to the rest of the class, but I’ll be back when your mother arrives,” she says, and leaves me there in the waiting area outside the offices. It feels more like a holding pen.

About thirty minutes in, and the tears start falling. My mom still isn’t here. I think I’m in trouble. Oscar hates me. Kiera probably does too. And I blew my big secret. It’s probably only a matter of time before Miss Flora Mae finds out too.

From behind her desk, Miss Horton, the school receptionist, slides a tiny bowl of hard candy toward me. “The red ones are strawberry,” she says.

I take one and slump back into my seat. The front office waiting area is just one giant windowed room looking out into the hallway, so I’m basically on display for everyone to see as they file back to class from the cafeteria. I turn my back to avoid having to make eye contact with everyone.

While Miss Horton is in the teachers’ lounge microwaving her lunch, Greg pops his head through the cutout in the glass where the attendance slips are dropped off.

“Hey,” he whispers.

I twirl around to find the hallway completely empty except for him. The fluttering in my stomach I normally feel around Greg is faint. My mind is full of too many other things to even worry about Greg.