But there won’t be a Molly at my new school. I’ll be joining a class full of strangers, who all know me as the girl who was outed online and then got herself expelled. Eleanor won’t be there. Rose won’t be there. I’ll be alone. Actually, totally alone, not just almost.

I can’t handle this. I’ve lost too much, and there hasn’t been enough time to catch my breath between it all. I can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” the headmaster says again.

I almost don’t hear him at all.

Instead of going to my room to pack like the headmaster wanted, I make a beeline for the bathroom block nearest to the class I just left and text Rose to meet me there. She saw me get taken out of class, and I’m sure she was wondering what it was all about, so she reads the message right away. While I wait, I grip the edge of the sink and try to slow down my breathing, but it gets faster and faster the more I try. Then the tears come.

By the time Rose gets there, I’m pretty much hysterical. There’s a half wall separating the sinks from the doors, so we’d have time to separate if anyone walked in on us, which is good enough for Rose, I guess, because she swoops in to wrap me up in her arms as soon as she sees me.

“Hey, hey, what happened?”

“I’m expelled, he says I’m expelled, and I have to go, I have to leave tomorrow, he said I have to go pack now.”

“Wait, slow down.”

“It was something to do with the, um, the alumni association, and he kept saying he’s sorry, but there’s nothing he can do, and I’m expelled. He said it’s done and it’s too late, and I can’t leave, Rose. I can’t. I can’t.”

I trail off into a high-pitched keening as she tightens her grip on me. “Okay,” she says, her voice soothing and honeyed. “You’re not getting expelled. You’re going to call your mum, and then you’re going to have a shower or something, and you’re gonna put on a movie or read a book and distract yourself. I’m going to handle this.”

“N-no, I can’t, I have to pack. He said I have to leave tomorrow. I—my whole room, I—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” she says, holding my face so I look right at her. Her green eyes scan mine, and there’s a self-assurance in them that makes me want to believe her. But I don’t know how to.

“I don’t think this is fixable,” I say.