This time, I’m happy to serve as Maura’s dress-up doll—the dress is a dream—so I zip myself in, make myself up as best I can. When I come back downstairs, Ben’s standing with Maura in the foyer, looking smart in dark-wash skinny jeans and a black blazer, over one of his signature band tees.

“Wow, I should have worn a tux,” he says as I step onto the landing.

“No, you’re perfect like that. It’s you.”

“And if this is you…I like it.”

“You do?” I pick up the periwinkle skirt and twirl.

“Bunch up, you two. You know I’m going to take photos!” Maura orders, and so we pose on the stairs while Maura fiddles with her iPhone. I can’t help but think about poor Suzanne again, who would have been the person in charge of photos if she were here. Odds are good Maura’s photos will turn out crooked or blurry, or both.

The jitters start once we’re in the car, cruising the short blocks to Seaview High. I bounce my knee nervously, snap down the visor mirror, and needlessly reapply my lip gloss.

Ben pulls into a parking spot, kills the engine. “If you really don’t want to go in, we don’t have to. We can drive to the beach, dance on the sand.”

It’s tempting, but as I stare through the windshield to the school, I know I can’t run away. There’s nowhere to go. I’m an orphan. I spent so much time trying to escape Seaview, but despite the damage I’ve caused, it has become my home, too. It’s Maura and Seaview or bust. I’ll have to walk through those doors now or on Monday morning. At least now I look fucking amazing in this dress—and I can walk in with Ben on my arm.

The gym has been transformed: bleachers pushed flush to the wall, round tables dotting the fringes of a dance floor, fairy lights and streamers over every conceivable square inch of the walls, and even a mirrored disco ball hanging from the ceiling, casting fractures of blue light in every direction. No, it’s teal, I realize. The lights have been fitted with filters the color of Natalie’s last homecoming dress, so the whole gym looks like an underwater grave.

And I’m a dead woman walking. They’re here, somewhere. The friends I’ve hurt. Yeah, I’m getting a few sideways looks, excited whispers about how they can’t believe I showed up. But random kids at school don’t matter. Bronte, Amber, Morgan, Gabriel, and even Luke matter.