“See, this is why you’re not on the texts,” she says, more than a little bitchily. “Between Midnight Breakfast and that whole little cheer at the pep rally, people think you’re, like, Team Jack. And as your best friend, I’ve told them a hundred times that you’re not, you’re loyal to the team and to us and to Robbie.” There’s a little flash of pain in her eyes, blink-and-you-miss-it quick but present all the same. “It’s not true, though, is it? You’re supposed to be our leader next year, but for some reason, you support her. You don’t even care who it hurts.”

“It shouldn’t hurt anyone!” It’s not the right thing to say to Cara, but it needs to be said. “She stepped in. She lifts up the whole team. They win now. And it’s our job to cheer them on whether they win or lose, but it matters that they’re finally winning and that it’s a girl helping them do that. We’re a fucking cheerleading squad of girls, Cara—how are we not behind the girl we should be cheering on the most?”

“God, you don’t get it, do you?” I’ve never seen the look of disgust on Cara Whelan’s face right now, not when Sara’s pit bull peed on her tennis shoes or when we got food poisoning the first and only time we tried oysters or when Matt Devlin wore an all-denim suit to the Sophomore Swing dance on a dare. “She’s not one of us! She’s never gonna be one of us! And you’re acting like you have some big gay crush on her and it’s pathetic.”

The blood goes cold as ice in my veins, and I’m so not used to this version of Cara that I don’t know how to read whether she’s trying to insult me or she’s genuinely calling me out. Which means there’s only one thing I can do, and that’s go harder.

“Is it more pathetic than bullying the new girl because you’re hanging on to a dead boy?”

Unlike Cara, I don’t mask whether I’m calling her out. I see the exact moment she realizes I know, because all the color drains from her face.