He’s right. He’s reasonable and he’s right. Lulu knows this. She’s the one yelling at him in his classroom. It’s just—it’s so—it’s so frustrating! It’s so frustrating. To have to be thankful that she is being included, that she is being listened to, that she’s being encouraged. To be grateful that someone cares enough to give women a week. To have to be the one who speaks up, who takes time, who goes to a dean’s office and lobbies about her feelings. Boys never have to do that.

But then, boys don’t have to do so many things.

Lulu steals a glance at Kiley, but Kiley isn’t looking at her. Probably she’s thinking: White girls don’t have to do so many things.

She’s not wrong.

“Lulu’s taken a renewed interest in women’s issues,” Doug says, and his voice is just loud enough that everyone can certainly hear him, but not so loud that it sounds like he’s making a point of it or anything.

“And I applaud that,” Mr. Winters says.

Lulu knows he didn’t have to take that at face value, to pretend that Doug wasn’t implying Lulu’s a lesbo now. He saw the pictures. He gets the joke.

But he decided to pretend he didn’t, because he’s woke, sure, Mr. Winters, and he’s patient, and probably he’s trying, but he’s still a man. Deep down inside, he’s still a boy, and his instinct is always to belong with them, to think their jokes are funny. To think their jokes are just jokes.

Lulu catches up with Kiley after class. “Thanks,” she says. “For having my back in there. Made me feel less crazy for speaking up.”

“You’re welcome. But it wasn’t about you,” Kiley says. “Sometimes things aren’t, you know.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

IF SHE’S GOING to be a full-time feminist crusader now, there’s someone she should be talking to, so that night Lulu calls Naomi. She can’t remember the last time she called anyone—much less her sister. For advice.

The world really has been turned upside down.

She doesn’t know how to start telling the story, though. Instead, she says, “Naomi, you’ve read the book I got Cass for Christmas, right?”

“Yeah, a couple of years ago,” Naomi says. “When I thought I might be a lit major freshman year, I took a course on fairy tales. Did she not like it or something?”

“No,” Lulu says. “She liked it.”

“What about it, then? Just curious?”

“Cass said something about it. About how many stories we tell about women getting murdered.”

“Oh, yeah, the SVU thing.”

“Law & Order?”

“A whole television show about violence against women. And you know, those serial killer podcasts and stuff? People are obsessed with hearing about ways women die.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay, Lulu?”