“It’s not just you!” she bursts out. “Do you know I got a demerit yesterday because I was showing my shoulders in class?” She’s building up steam. “Mr. Elliot sent me back to the dorm to change, but I refused and I told him, ‘You care more about boys getting an education than you do about girls,’ which is true, and he gave me another demerit, and it’s all bullshit, Addie; it’s not right.” She grabs my hands, and she looks so distressed. “Like, you can’t just not say anything about how hypocritical they are. We are so mad, Addie. I don’t care what my mother says. You don’t have to mentor me anymore if you don’t want to, but I am on your side, all the way, and I am telling everyone that, and also you are my friend.”

I look at her pale, angry face, her fierceness. And I think about how the boys’ soccer team stripped naked last semester and ran across the entire campus, screaming and waving their jerseys above their heads, their dicks bouncing in the late fall sunshine, and you could see everything, and how everyone just said, boys will be boys! Did they even get detention? Or just congratulated for winning their match?

And I realize I haven’t really gotten mad yet, not about the right thing. I pull Zoe into a tight, swift squeeze.

“You’re amazing, kid,” I say to her, and she ducks her head.

“Well, it’s just all true, and that’s the important part, right?” she says. “It’s the worst thing, what they’re saying about you, and it’s such bull crap, and they can’t do this to you.”

“They can,” I say. “And they will. But it’ll be okay,” I promise her. And now that means I have to make sure it is.

The fourth-floor common room after dinner, the ugly brown couches, the place we decided we were going to do something amazing—not that long ago. Just a few weeks ago. And it looks just the same, but how ridiculous is it to think anything would be different? No matter how different I feel. I want to draw a map from that moment to right now as Taylor smooths the crumpled photo out flat on the floor with his palms. Map out all the changes. How we got here. This was not what I expected. We all stare at it.

“So, what do you think they’re trying to get across?” I say. “I can’t really tell.”

“It’s so subtle,” Taylor agrees.

“I think the dean agrees with them, that I’m a fat slut,” I say.

“What the fuck?” Nevaeh says.