“Yeah, I guess. But look at her.”

Eve tried to remember if she’d ever assumed that Sophie was stupid. She had never really considered it, but if someone had directly asked her before that night if she thought Sophie was smart, she probably would’ve said no. Why?

“So do you think if I do this makeover thing that everybody will think I’m stupid?” Eve asked. “Will you think I’m stupid? Because of how I look?”

“No! Of course not. I just mean—forget it.”

A dancer fell midflip.

“OW!” both Nessa and Eve hollered, and then giggled.

They watched in silence as the judges assessed the performance.

“Hey.” Eve tried to sound casual, but one thing Nessa had said earlier that night kept coming back into her head. “It seems like you really hate Brody.”

“Um, yeah.”

“He hasn’t made fun of you in a long time, though, right? Like since we were kids?”

Eve heard a grunt on the other line.

“Just because I’m not sobbing about stuff all the time doesn’t mean I’m not getting made fun of, okay?” Nessa answered with a sharpness Eve hadn’t expected.

“Okay!” Eve backed off. “Sorry if I ‘sobbed’ tonight.”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” Nessa arghed into the phone. “Well, yeah, I guess I don’t tell you everything that everyone says to me sometimes. Brody’s not my biggest fan. I’m not his type of girl. You don’t get it.”

“What? I can get it, I—I—” Eve stammered before Nessa interrupted.

“Hey—why didn’t you tell me that Brody asked you to the Halloween dance? That’s huge, and you didn’t text me all day!”

“I’m sorry! I just … felt weird.”

They sat in silence.

“I should finish my homework,” Nessa told her, sounding far off.

“Yeah, me too.”

Eve wanted to cry again. She wanted to say to Nessa, “Tell me everything that everyone says to you, and I’ll come after them!” But she knew she wouldn’t come after them, because that was terrifying. And she wanted to say, “I kind of liked the feeling of Brody asking me, and I couldn’t tell you that,” but that, too, didn’t escape her lips. She felt like saying either would make Nessa angrier.

The judges huddled for their final elimination process. Teeny wept in anticipation of getting cut. She really needed that scholarship if she wanted her dance dream to come true.

“We’re not in a fight, right?” Eve asked.

“No, no. Come on. We’re best friends.”

But instead of Teeny getting axed, the girl whose ponytail had been pulled got cut! Apparently, she had let the ponytail pull affect her final dance performance, which the judges deemed unacceptable. After Nessa and Eve ranted about the inequity of this for several minutes, they blew kisses into the phone and said good night.

Within seconds Eve’s phone buzzed, and she instinctively went to pick it up, but what she saw made her drop the phone as if it were piping hot. Another boy. Another text. This one gross. So gross it was mean.