She took a step. Away from the door.

“Marcy . . . ” she said, softening her voice. “Are you okay? What happened?”

The girl stopped trembling.

Just like that. She froze.

Yeah, thought Dahlia, you heard me that time.

She wanted to roll her eyes at the coming drama, but there was no one around who mattered to see it.

Dahlia tried to imagine what the agenda would be. First Marcy would be vulnerable because of whatever brought her in here. Break-up with Mason, her studly boyfriend du jour. Something like that. There would be some pseudo in-the-moment girl talk about how rotten boys are, blah-blah-blah. As if they both knew, as if they both had the same kinds of problems. Dahlia would help her up and there would be shared tissues, or handfuls of toilet paper. Anything to wipe Marcy’s nose and blot her eyes. That would transition onto her clothes, which were wet and stained. Somehow Dahlia—the rescuer—would have to make useful suggestions for how to clean the clothes, or maybe volunteer to go to Marcy’s car or locker for a clean sweater. Then, as soon as Marcy felt solid ground under her feet again, she would clamp her popular girl cool in place and, by doing that, distance herself from Dahlia. After it was all over, Marcy would either play the role of the queen who occasionally gave a secret nod of marginal acceptance to the peasant who helped her. Or the whole thing would spin around and Marcy would be ten times more vicious just to prove to Dahlia that she had never—ever—been vulnerable. It was some version of that kind of script.

Marcy still, at this point, had not turned. Dahlia could still get the heck out of there.

But . . . she had reacted. She’d stopped sobbing. She was listening.

Ah, crap, thought Dahlia, knowing she was trapped inside the drama now. Moving forward was inevitable. It was like being on a conveyor belt heading to the checkout scanner.

“Marcy?” she said again. “Are you hurt? Can I . . . like . . . help in some way?”

An awkward line, awkwardly delivered.

Marcy did not move. Her body remained absolutely still. At first that was normal. People freeze when they realize someone else is there, or when they need to decide how to react. But that lasts a second or two.

This was lasting too long. It wasn’t normal anymore. Getting less normal with each second that peeled itself off the clock and dropped onto that dirty bathroom floor.

Dahlia took another step closer. And another. That was when she began to notice that there were other things that weren’t normal.

The dirt on Marcy’s red blouse was wrong somehow.

The blouse wasn’t just stained. It was torn. Ripped. Ragged in places.

And the red color was wrong. It was darker in some places. One shade of dark red where it had soaked up water from the floor. A different and much darker shade of red around the right shoulder and sleeve.