They are all watching me, my classmates. I can feel them zeroing in, talking, wondering.

“Wow, you’re a lively bunch today.” He waits. “Who wants to go first?”

He scans the room. A couple of tentative hands go up. Those people who want to get it over first, who might be more nervous than anyone about speaking in public, and also those who are proud of the work they did.

I put my hand straight in the air. This is my moment. This is my time. My ears are roaring as Pete’s eyes meet mine. He raises his eyebrows and I see his mouth is saying Stevie?

I stand up. The room falls silent.

It is now.

I shirk off my jacket, and some people gasp.

I am wearing a white T-shirt. It’s the best kind to show off the red marker, the big, capital letters I scrawled on the front.

CRAZY BITCH

I look straight at Aidan. He stares back, his chin up, his face betraying nothing, but I see his Adam’s apple jump as he swallows. I walk to the computer on Pete’s desk to call up my presentation video. People are whispering and holy-shitting. I see a phone in my peripheral as someone takes a picture of me. Pete tries to regain control. The projector light is in his eyes. He raises a hand to shield them.

A picture of a face is frozen on the screen. It’s me, passed out. From one of the pics taken of me at the party. It’s blurry, but it’s me. My mouth lolls open; I look like a little girl dozing. There are more gasps, exchanged looks.

Pete glances at it, too, but is focused on my shirt right now. “Stevie, that’s not an appropriate T-shirt, even if you’re wearing it as part of your presentation. I mean,” he says, “I’m all for edgy commentary, but let’s please be mindful of offending or triggering anyone.”

I smile, then, thinking about my secret, my special thing, lying in my bag, ready to pounce. Pete doesn’t know. He knows nothing of what’s been going on. Like every other grown-up around here, he’s the last one to know about the burbling undercurrent of activity outside his radar. He was always there for me, but now he’s so far away that he might as well be a stranger.

He’s leaving me like everyone else.

I laugh, and it sounds strange in my ears.

And then I say, looking at my peers, my classmates, my friends: “Want me to take it off? I have the same thing written on my body, and it seems permanent.”

Everyone is still. You could hear a pin drop. No one will tell. No one says anything.

I didn’t do anything, they’re thinking.

They did everything.

They did nothing.

“Stevie? Is this part of a character? Is this a theme?