Be a good Nightlight camper, Connor. Say yes.

“Yes,” I blurt.

“I messed up?” Lacrishia asks, overflowing with sorrow for herself as she fiddles with the bottom of her shirt.

“Can anyone point out Lacrishia’s mistake?” Miss Manners asks the room. Um, besides making me so uncomfortable I want to crawl inside my own nutsack?

“She was forcing it,” Marcos says, raising his arm. “It sounded fake. Sorry, girl.”

“I’m not, though,” Lacrishia replies desperately. “Honest. Connor’s a cutie. I said this before class, even. Ask anyone. I did the right thing. Finding a man cute is the whole point, ain’t it?”

“The point is control,” I catch myself whispering. Marcos’s cheeks flush as he battles another smile at me remembering his lesson.

“It’s not that it sounded fake,” Miss Manners corrects. “Anyone else?”

“Too forward,” Molly’s voice comes from behind Lacrishia.

The room is now pin-drop silent; I laugh to myself that anyone could think a gentle cat like Lacrishia, scared of her own shadow just to admit a boy is cute, could be too forward. Nevertheless, Molly’s insight has struck a chord. A shimmering light explodes in our teacher’s eyes. “Molly, that’s incredibly sharp for someone new to the program,” Ramona says. Her heels click closer. Molly inches backward, but the woman lands her painted claws gently under her elbow. Hairs stand rigidly upright on my friend’s arm. “Yes, Lacrishia was too forward. But my exact reasoning is more specific. Darcy, please expand on Molly’s wonderful insight.”

“Uh, women,” Darcy says, “natural, godly women, we don’t talk about men that way, all descriptive talking about his hair and him being a cute shorty. Lacrishia was talking up a boy, sure, but her behavior still screamed, ‘I know what I like,’ which screams, ‘I’m an in-your-face lesbian.’ She would’ve done better to, like, bat her eyes and smile. Say nothing.”

Lacrishia’s defeated shoulders drop, and Miss Manners erupts into furious clapping as she twirls away, back behind the coffee table. “Darcy, that is why you are Connor’s wife!”

Tension crashes upward through my body like an avalanche in reverse. I roll my neck in circles to release the building pressure. Darcy is my wife for fakes, right? If I weren’t so distracted by my own panic, I would’ve noticed the veins in Molly’s neck turning bright scarlet over the last twenty seconds.

“What a crock of shit,” Molly spits.

Marcos gasps. Terror contorts every expression in the room as Miss Manners faces Molly with a single pivot of her stiletto. “Molly, you have some constructive criticism?”

“Don’t—” Lacrishia warns.