Nessa blocked her exit. “You think I cared about ‘justice for all’ or something?” Nessa confessed.

For the first time since Sophie had met her, Nessa appeared a little less confident.

Nessa took a breath. “Brody hurt my feelings that day. Before the assembly.”

Sophie saw Eve snap her head toward Nessa. “What?”

Nessa nodded. “Yeah. He made it sound like Mr. Rhodes was doing me a favor for giving me the lead in the show. ’Cause I’m not a supermodel, I guess.” Nessa didn’t face Eve as she went on. “I’m just really tired of guys like Brody thinking they can be jerks like that and it’s all good, you know?”

“It’s not like I wanted to catch Brody for the good of everybody or anything!” Eve broke in loudly. “I was just thinking about myself! At first, I just wanted the attention to stop. I wanted to stop the stares. The endless stares. And then … I guess I liked some of Brody’s attention, I think. But I should have known that something like this would happen … I’m so sorry. I can’t believe what he did to you tonight, Sophie.”

“Me either!” Nessa took Sophie’s arm and led her back to the piano bench. Eve hurried along behind her.

“Okay, so none of us were thinking about how each other or other girls felt. Like I thought everyone was overreacting. And then the other day when I saw Lara Alexander crying…” Nessa sat down, and Sophie and Eve sat on either side of her. “I mean, how did I not think about how bad this felt for everybody? Really bad!”

“Wait, she was crying?” Sophie didn’t know why, but that made her feel like crying again, too.

“Yeah! And Erin was just as upset, too…,” Nessa continued.

The three girls sat in silence.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get any evidence of who wrote it,” Sophie said, finding herself wanting to break the quiet.

“Yeah, probably not,” Nessa acknowledged.

“He’s not going to admit it,” Eve said with certainty. “He was never going to get close to me or anything, anyway. I don’t think he’s that kind of person,” she added in a near whisper.

“Yeah,” Sophie agreed. “He was always going to get away with it.”

“And I mean, for all we know, he didn’t even write it,” Nessa offered.

“Time to give up,” Sophie announced. “Brody wins.”

“But he did write it,” a voice said, drifting toward them from the back of the choir room. A boy’s voice.

Eve let out a little yelp and hopped up from the bench.

“For Pete’s sake, what is it with people lurking in the back of choir rooms?” Nessa hollered with a hand to her heart.

Sophie felt a fury rise in her. Who would listen in on her? How dare they?

“Show thyself!” Nessa marched over to the lights to turn them all on.

In the back of the room, Winston Byrd leaned his elbows over the back of a chair, hands clasped together.