She clasped my shoulder, and her touch was like electricity. It was the first time we’d had actual physical contact since—when? Elementary school during some stupid playground games? Damn, she smelled good now. Like sugar.

Jameer told her she was being too hard. He really was holding up his end of our agreement. But was it going to matter when Taylor Burkin’s bomb hit?

Kiera withdrew her hand, sensed . . . something from everyone around us. “What, guys? You act like you’ve never seen me apologize before. I know it’s rare, but . . .” She let her thought trail off, forced a chuckle in the midst of the strange vibe.

So, nobody was going to tell her?

Jameer gave a slow head shake. His intuitive ass must’ve sensed me already deviating from his simple Win-the-Pledge strategy. I couldn’t play dumb, though. I wouldn’t want people knowing stuff about me that I didn’t know about myself.

“It’s not about your apology,” I said. “Can we talk over there?”

I motioned to a nearby pew, tried to make my voice even, or sympathetic, or something other than the confrontational tone we’d both had during our last private chat so she knew this wasn’t a fight. She moved with me. When she sat, I opened IG and pulled up Taylor’s story. I passed it to her, then sat, waiting. My phone volume was low, but everyone else had already heard. They flitted toward the Purity Pledge room, Jameer the last to go, his eyes wide and apprehensive.

I don’t know what comes next either, bro.

Taylor’s story reached its thrilling conclusion. Kiera immediately tapped back to the beginning and watched it all again. I stared at the lectern Newsome preached from each Sunday because I didn’t want to look at her face.

She pressed my phone back into my hand, and I dared a glance in her direction. I prepped for whatever. Tears. Rage. Her face gave nothing away.

Kiera stood, brushed phantom lint from her jeans. “We should join the class.”

As she scooted past me into the aisle, I wondered if I’d created a kill-the-messenger situation, completely trashing all her apologetic goodwill. She said, “Thank you for showing me, Del. I wouldn’t have liked finding out everyone but me knew later.”

Those were words I was happy to hear. I hoped she meant them.

In the Purity Pledge classroom, Sister Vanessa asked someone to start with a prayer. Helena volunteered, and we got right into more prompts on why we should remain pure. There was reading, and crafts, and conversation, and though Sister Vanessa often looked to Kiera to jump in, she didn’t utter a word the whole afternoon.

Over the next couple of weeks, though, Green Creek High had a lot to say.

Chapter 9

#BABYGETTERSTOO.

It was a thing, coined by another new Green Creek mom who took Taylor’s lead and called out her baby’s daddy on Snapchat: a freshman at Commonwealth University, where my sister attended. A third Baby-Getter did the same, her kid’s father being a local burnout who’d been a senior at Green Creek last year, but never actually graduated. We all sat back watching the debacle with equal measures of glee and horror, speculating on how bad (exciting) it could get. What if one of the dads was a perv-teacher like at the school where that nosy photographer chick was taking sneak pictures of everyone’s business for her secret blog? Or what if one of the dads was Vice Principal Terrier? (That theory was immediately met with mad vomit emojis and no one wanted to bring it up again.) So far, Colossus was the only guy currently in school with us who’d gotten called out, and he loudly denied even knowing Taylor. Bullshit, basically. Green Creek wasn’t that big.