And I tell them—Katherine, Nevaeh, and Taylor—how I marched to the dean’s office after my encounter with Zoe, the ball of paper wadded up in my fist. Ms. Flores was there, telling me to wait, that she didn’t know how long it would be, that perhaps I could come back later. I sat, folding and refolding the paper on my knees. Thinking about Zoe and my mentees and ignoring the rapid beating of my heart, the urge to say yes, okay, I’ll come back another time.

“No,” I said. “I have something to show him.”

He looked irritated when I entered his office. I put the folded paper on his desk.

He picked it up, held it between his fingertips like it was distasteful.

“I found it on the bulletin board in the lobby of my dorm,” I said.

He glanced at it for just a moment and shook his head, dismissing me.

“Sir—”

“What do you expect?” he said. He slapped his hand on the desk. “Are you truly surprised?”

“That someone would call me a fat slut?” It was rage, I thought, the reason I was trembling. This man who was waving me away, the look on his face completely disdainful. A little disgusted. The dean of my school. I waited for him to answer.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Say what you need to say at your hearing. Stop bothering me with this nonsense. And keep your clothes on if you expect to be treated with respect.”

“Or expect to be called a fat slut,” I persisted.

“As you say, Ms. Grant.”

I snatched the paper off his desk, was shaking when I left. There’s a hollow in my chest, still.

“I’m going to kill him slowly, Adeleina,” Nevaeh says.

Taylor is muttering, not joking, and Katherine has snatched the paper, tearing it in half and in half again.

They’re here with me. I am here with them. And I’m not bulletproof anymore, I remind myself. It’s not a shell; it’s a confidence that’s burning at my core. I’m a star, a nuclear furnace, solar flares and all, and I will go supernova.

“We can shred him at the hearing, to start,” I say.

We’ve been talking about that for the past two days, and what we need to tell them. What I’m going to stand up and say. Adding things to the bonfire. We were supposed to just be working on that, not getting worked up about the photo, the dean. Because screw that.

“I need a pen,” I say.