She lowers her voice and growls, “You made a fucking video about my life?”

“What?” I shrink back. “No!”

Paige snorts. Lottie shakes her head.

“‘Brave Trans Film Heroes’?” she spits. “You didn’t do that? You didn’t make a fucking video where you talk to the camera about how you ‘even have a trans hero in your own life’?” She opens her eyes wide, mocking innocence.

I blink quickly. “Well, no, I mean, no one would know that it’s—”

“You have no loyalty, Stevie. You keep no secrets. Fuck. You.” She turns, hair whipping in a curtain of fury.

“And by the way,” says Paige, “we were all talking about you last night. And guess what? Aidan said you threw yourself at him at the hockey game. He is my fucking boyfriend, Stevie. I trusted you! I thought you were my friend. Stupid skank. Like I wouldn’t find out. I should have known: ‘What’s up with you and Aidan?’” She puts on a simpering imitation of me.

“What?” I manage.

“‘What?’” she mimics again. “Yeah, I heard all about it. Go to hell, you betraying little asshole.”

And she’s gone, leaving me on the steps with my mouth hanging open for all the thoughts and words to fall right out of me and onto the pavement, where they break into a million pieces.

*   *   *

The day is a sickening torture. I eat lunch alone, in a corner, and watch as they laugh with each other carelessly. I am called out repeatedly in class for daydreaming.

Breanne stops me in the hallway between classes.

“You thought you could blow Aidan at the game and no one would find out?”

“I did not—”

“Right. Like it wasn’t obvious that’s what you were doing from the beginning. Attention whore. Well, actual whore, too. Lots of guys are talking. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you get all the attention you deserve,” she says ominously.

I am frozen, my mouth opening and closing.

“You know,” she says, picking a nail, “I saw your channel last night. We all did. Paige showed it to us. She saw all your weird geek equipment at your house, with your ‘scripts.’” She throws back her head and lets out a laugh. “It sucks. We couldn’t stop laughing at your stupid little episodes,” she says, with a lisp that I know comes from my early videos when I wore braces. “Oh my God. Seriously, you have zits all over your face in half of them. You are disgusting.” She laughs again, then turns serious, staring at me hard. “Listen, I’m very protective of my friends. So stay the fuck away from them, Stevie. Stay away from all of us. You”—a finger, pointing—“are garbage.”

I cry in the bathroom three times. And at the end of it, there is no one to walk home with. I don’t know this is just the beginning.