Kiera met me at my car. My joy at finally getting time with her was tempered by the inevitable mood-killing conversation we were about to have. No way was she going to react well to Mason telling lies about her. I ran through likely scenarios—sadness, shame, rage—and wondered about the best way to comfort her, to remind her all dudes aren’t trash like him.

She saw me coming, lifting her phone as if I could read the tiny texts from yards away. “People are saying you and Mason got in some kind of fight.”

Of course they were, despite Qwan’s warning.

“Get in,” I said, “I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

With the school in my rearview, I worried about a kill-the-messenger situation. She needed to know, though. When Taylor Burkin dropped that first #BabyGettersToo video, Kiera had been happy I hadn’t left her in the dark. Maybe she’d be happy again. We could figure a way to get in front of Mason’s lies. “Look, what I’m about to say, nobody’s going to believe it. Everyone knows Mason makes things up.”

“Things like what?”

Do it, Del. Don’t be a punk. “He was telling guys in the locker room that you two had sex in his car. They believed it because they don’t know you like I do. So, I stepped in. We had an altercation.”

She was quiet, processing it. I knew better than to expect a thank-you right away.

“He told people that?” she said.

I was outraged for her. At a stoplight, I turned to her, prepared for tears. Her face was slack. Unreadable. I asked, “You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“He can’t get away with making stuff up that way. That’s, what’s it called? Slander! I know it might be embarrassing, but maybe you should tell your parents. Or your brother!” I thought better of that. “He’d probably rip Mason apart. Not that he wouldn’t deserve it.”

The car behind me honked; I’d missed the light changing. I put us in motion again.

Halfway to her house, she still hadn’t said much. “What are you thinking, Kiera?”

She squirmed. I reached for her hand, trying to comfort her. When my fingers grazed hers, she pulled away. Her silence was suffocating.

“He was lying,” I said, “right?”

She said, “I didn’t think he was going to be talking about us like that.”

My throat constricted. My hands felt shaky on the steering wheel. “Us? You told me he was a friend.”

“He is. Was.”

“So you didn’t have sex with him? Because we were in a group that pledged not to do that, Kiera.”

“I didn’t plan to, it sort of happened.”

My emotions shape-shifted. Sadness, rage, shame. “Did he—did he force you?”

“No! I’m saying we didn’t plan it in advance. We were together and one thing led to another. I didn’t expect for him to act this way about it.”

“Well, you should’ve!” It was louder than it needed to be with only us in the car, not as loud as I felt like being. How could she?