“I know, I’m pushing my luck,” I joke. I pull up the video Rose sent me last night and forward it to Molly. “So, it’s kind of weird, but I was wondering if you could … post this. I know it’s not exactly on brand or whatever, but—”

“Sure,” Molly says. “Of course.”

She lifts her phone to her ear to listen. Behind her, Rose and Eleanor walk into the classroom. Rose catches my eye and holds it for a second too long, and my stomach swoops so violently I almost forget how to breathe.

“It’s just, I have a new goal,” I say, forcing my attention back to Molly, “to get comfortable with being perceived.”

Molly’s got a funny expression on her face. “Well, I have plenty of people who’d be happy to perceive you,” she says, putting her phone away. “Rose filmed it?”

“How did you know?” I ask, before I remember the very end of the video, where Rose says I did great. “Oh, right. Her voice.”

Damn it. And even though Molly never asked me to boycott Rose or anything, I still feel like I’ve been caught betraying her somehow. I brace myself, wondering if Molly’s going to feel the same way.

Instead, she just looks kind of sad. “How is Rose?” she asks. “Is she doing okay?”

“Oh, um, yeah. She’s good.”

Molly looks as though she’s going to ask something, but then she shrugs it off. “I’ll post it after class,” she says. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

And she does. After third period, she lets me scroll through the comments as we walk. It’s early, so there’s only a handful, but they’re all really nice. It’s mostly people complimenting my playing. That, and one person pointing out that the videographer is Princess Rosemary herself.

In PE, she sends me a whole bunch of screenshots along the same lines. These ones are sprinkled in with the odd person calling me pretty, which shouldn’t make me glow as much as it does, but I guess I’m a sucker for validation from random strangers. As much as I admire people who don’t need external feedback to feel awesome about themselves, I can’t relate. While the teacher is distracted, I text Molly to ask if she’s had any horrible comments yet, and she insists she hasn’t.