She cocks her head to the side, long, straight brown hair shining in the light as it falls over her shoulder. “It isn’t, though. Not really. We’re doing everything we can for Lullaby Doe with the fundraiser. With the funeral and the headstone. But she’s already gone, Beckett. This is for the people of Clifford. To heal our wounds. To bring the community together in the face of an unspeakable tragedy.”

I can tell from the way she says it, with that polished conviction, that she’s practiced those words. That she’s going to say them just like that into a microphone in a few minutes, probably when she introduces Brother Bill, the youth minister from First Baptist, who’s agreed to lead everyone in a prayer.

“Is that what you think this community deserves? You think Clifford has earned this big spectacle of a Band-Aid for its ‘wounds’?”

Sophia blinks at me, insulted and confused. “Don’t you watch the news, Beckett? Don’t you know what they’re saying about us? Claire Tillman and her mother went on TV and made us sound like a bunch of ignorant rednecks. That reporter said this is our fault. That Lullaby Doe died because we let her down. Because we refused to see the problem or were just too damn lazy to notice. They’re lying about us on national television. Crucifying us for things we didn’t do. That’s why I invited the reporter to film us organizing the vigil. Someone has to stand up for Clifford. Someone has to show the world who we really are.” She lowers her voice even further as her eyes shine with conviction bordering on fanaticism. “Someone has to defend our honor!”

I don’t understand why she feels personally victimized by the news coverage. No one’s calling her a #babykiller. No one’s threatening to shoot or dismember her.

I also don’t understand why she seems so convinced that the Clifford community is blameless in all of this. “Sophia … can’t the truth be somewhere in the middle?”

She frowns. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, isn’t it possible that we’re not as bad as they’re making us out to be on TV, but we’re not as good as you think we are either?”

Her cheeks flush as if I just slapped her. “Why would you say that?”

“Because no one cared about Lullaby Doe before she died!” I whisper fiercely, near the end of my patience for her rose-colored delusion. “No one even cared enough to notice that she existed. That there was another pregnant teenager who probably needed help.”

“How were we supposed to know, if—”

“Someone should have noticed,” I insist. “Someone should have seen that a student or a daughter—or a friend—was acting strange. Pulling away.”

I glance at Amira, and she’s staring at me with wide eyes. Her entire body is tense.