They heard a commotion in the hall. Assembly was ending.

“Let’s get justice.” Sophie made a beeline toward the exit.

“Justice,” the two other girls repeated.

Sophie threw the doors open and headed off.

Justice. Sure. There was justice involved. The justice of her being back in her rightful place as number one. The place she’d earned. Did little Eve Hoffman deserve to be there? Not a chance.

As the bus rolled down Greer Road in the rapidly darkening evening, she pressed her forehead to the glass of the window and watched the landscape of Glisgold go by. Police department, fire department, Santa Maria Parish, Harmony Chapel, a big sign that read WE ALL SIN, JESUS SAVES, two McDonald’s restaurants, and a couple of outlets. The bus flew by her mom’s diner, and Sophie tried to catch her mom’s silhouette in the windows’ reflection, but all she could make out were groupings of families, warm and seated, probably waiting for her mom to bring them a meal.

She wondered if Brody Dixon’s dad had ever eaten at the diner and ordered a meal from her mom. She wondered if Brody had been there, too.

He really was a jerk. If she could talk to her mom about this, her mom would say Brody was just like her dad. Not that her dad was rich, or was used to things going his way, but he wanted things to go his way, and that was what he cared about most. And her mom said that, for her dad, if things weren’t going his way, he just left. Like how he’d been tired of Glisgold and had given up his job in town and taken up a touring gig playing bass for his old band. She’d never forget the fight her mom and dad had, going on two years ago now, as he packed his bags. He came every few weeks, for holidays and stuff, but less and less.

And she’d never forget the way Brody had pretended to laugh it off when she hadn’t kissed him back, but how he’d been planning something awful.

The bus neared the edge of town. As an old lady stepped off it, carrying several tote bags filled to the brim with who knows what, she gave Sophie a stare of concern, maybe, or disapproval. Sophie looked away.

She used to think of Brody as just … the boy who came with being at the top. Like the nude heels that go with a mint green dress. But maybe there were other options. Something funky or Christmasy, like red flats—a random boy in the school who no one expected she’d be with.

She certainly didn’t want him anymore.

Or even her “friends,” whose words—I mean, have you ever seen her without makeup?—echoed in her memory.

Sophie couldn’t wait to get home to Bella.

She leaned her head against the icy cold window, sleep overtaking her, only to wake up mere moments before the bus passed Silver Ledge. She threw her backpack on and hopped off the bus and into the apartment building, where Bella lay asleep in front of Mrs. Jackson’s TV, Cheetos crumbs all over her purple sweater.