The crowd around the list was most of the senior thespians. I was sure that word would soon trickle out to everyone else, but for right now, it was just us. Somehow, a list had gotten printed out and taped to the door, so either Mr. Campbell had been here to do it or he’d emailed the list and gotten someone else to do it for him. But he wasn’t anywhere that I could see, and I was very grateful for that at the moment.

It felt like the walk to the double doors had never been so long, and I was trying to tell myself that whatever it was had already been decided. There was nothing that could be done about it except for me to cross from not knowing into knowing. Teri was standing right in front of the paper, and as I got close, I tapped her shoulder. She turned, and when she saw it was me, her eyes widened and she took a step back. I could feel her—and most of the other seniors—watching us as Stevie and I stepped up to read the list.

It was already covered in blue and black pen signatures of people indicating they were accepting their parts. The black letters on the white page swam in my vision for a second as I tried to make them make sense. Jayson had gotten Lear, as we’d all known he would… Erik was Gloucester and Eric was Kent…

… and Stevie was Cordelia.

I drew in a breath without knowing I was going to, forcing myself to keep reading. Teri was Regan, Emery was Goneril… I scanned down the page, looking for my name, faster and faster, and there at the bottom, after the list of the ensemble and understudies:

Kat, please see me about assistant directing.

“Oh my god,” Stevie breathed. Her hand was over her mouth, and I turned around to see that all the other seniors were staring at me, with looks ranging from baffled to pitying to horrified, or some combination of all three. I could see just how shaken everyone was by this—this was not supposed to happen in a world they understood.

And in that moment, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was payback. If I’d been able to lie last night—if I’d been willing to say the right things—I would have been looking at a list with Cordelia across from my name.

“Kat,” Teri whispered, and I could see there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t…”

“He’s such an asshole.” I turned to see that Stevie was looking angrier than I’d ever seen her. She was practically shaking with fury. “He’s such a fucking asshole.”

“Who?” Aminah asked nervously, looking around, like we were being bugged. “Mr. Campbell?”