“Is that right…?” Briggs closes the distance that Drew opened, and his hand disappears somewhere south. Whatever he’s doing, it forces a gasp out of Drew, momentarily suspending the boy on his tiptoes, until ecstatic smiles spill over both of them. Oh my God, these two. “Just stay on the Reverend’s good side, Blondie.”

“If I don’t?” Drew whispers, his lips hovering a centimeter from Briggs’s.

“Then I’d have to choose between you and the Reverend.”

“Who would you pick?”

Their bodies tense and clasped, neither moves except for Briggs’s slowly rising hand. Flick! A switchblade opens next to their near-kiss. Drew doesn’t flinch; he pets a slender finger across the edge of the blade. “It’ll be a bad day for the Reverend,” Briggs whispers. They engulf each other’s mouths, and I’m about to look away again when the kiss ends abruptly. “Wait five minutes, baby. Then head back to class.”

“’kay,” Drew says from the countertop, hugging his knees to his chin. Briggs shuffles backward, grinning like a wolf, until he reaches the front door, unlocks it, and kicks it open. Drew settles back onto the countertop. As the rain dissipates and a thick silence finally drops over the clinic, a familiar disturbance brews among the lab coats. Guuuurrrg. Marcos and I turn to each other. Gurllllggglgle. It comes again. Marcos’s eyes shut in horrified embarrassment, and he cups his stomach as it groans again. Guurrrg.

The countertop creaks as Drew bolts upright, newly alert.

Marcos covers his mouth as he seems to silently berate himself for having a functional digestive system at a time like this. I’m on my way to check the slatted door again when it batters open. A rush of fresh air washes down my cheeks and frees my lungs. Terror and fury kaleidoscope over Drew’s expression as he clocks what exactly is going on here. Marcos’s mouth hangs open as he debates running for the front door with or without me.

“You,” Drew stammers, “you—you’re sick! You watched—?”

“I’m sorry,” I confess at a mad clip. “We had nowhere to go. We turned our heads away, I promise.” Purple-necked and spittle flying, Drew struggles to find the next words he wants to hurl at us, but I’m certain they’re going to be, “I’m calling my boyfriend right now to come beat you up.”

Those words never come, though, as a second creaking noise behind Drew forces him to whip around again. Molly—creeping toward the door, now caught just like the rest of us. Puffy medical gauze lies taped across her cheek where Miss Manners sliced her.

“I didn’t hear anything,” she whispers, frozen mid-sneak.

Drew wheels around at the three of us, drowning in the awful reality that we heard EV-ERY-THING. On a final spin toward me, the model explodes into a trillion wilting flower petals as vulnerability consumes him: