“Adeleina,” Madame George says again, looking up from the yellow sheet of paper. Her voice isn’t any less terrible. “Gather up your things and go to the dean’s office.”

I stare at her, my brain trying to catch up to the pounding of my heart. The rest of me already knows—my body is in fight-or-flight already. We’ve been caught.

Angles.

My thoughts are slow. Disconnected. Far away. We were so close. It was just one more show. How can time be up already, inches from the finish line?

The class is murmuring, and I feel them staring, and the gossip machine is ticking into gear, gearing up to be a roar, if anyone connects this summons to the whispers about the burlesque club.

“Addie,” Madame George says. “Right now.”

“Yes, sorry,” I stammer, shaking my head, pushing myself to move, to clear out the ringing in my head. I’m clumsy as I pull on my warm-ups. My hands are shaking. We knew it could happen. We knew we could be caught, but it didn’t truly seem possible. Katherine and Nevaeh, a few doors down—have they gotten theirs? I can still hope that it’ll just be me, my idea, my punishment.

Maybe this is nothing. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe my heart will stop clawing at my breastbone and give me space to take a full breath.

Worth it, it was worth it, I remind myself. Whatever happens, it was worth it.

22

When I push through the door of the locker room to get my stuff, Nevaeh and Katherine are there, packing up their things. Nevaeh looks perfectly calm, and if you didn’t know her, you’d think she was bored. Katherine looks furious, her lips tucked in and bright spots of color on her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

Katherine flings her arms around me. “I am not sorry at all,” she says fiercely. “And I am going to tell them that.”

“It’ll be okay,” Nevaeh says. “They could’ve waited just one more week, but it’ll be okay.”

She squeezes my hand.

“I texted Taylor. He’s pissed,” Katherine says as we stuff our feet into our boots. We don’t bother changing, because we don’t know what’s going to happen yet. Maybe we’ll come back here for the rest of our morning classes. “He says to plead the Fifth.”

“I don’t think we can do that,” I say, pausing midlacing. “Can we?”

“I would like to know who turned us in,” Katherine says. Then adds, “Although, I think I do know,” and I look at her, surprised. I had hoped I’d be the only one to think the dick pic was a threat.

“‘Sorry not sorry,’” I say.

“There is still time to superglue his—”

“Katherine!” I say.

“We will just keep that in mind as plan B, then,” she says darkly.