“They’d text each other all day,” he went on, hardly catching a breath. “He would laugh at me when I talked about stuff we both used to like. It was just Rose and Caleb, nonstop. But, like, I started to get it. I got why they liked each other. Because Rose was a girl version of Caleb. She wanted to be friends with Sophie Kane, and Caleb wanted to be friends with Brody Dixon, and that was all that mattered.”

Eve nodded.

“So one day, Caleb told me to meet him at the library during breakfast. When I met him there, he was writing the”—Winston paused, like it was a bad word—“list. He told me he’d made the list for Rose and he was going to put her in the top five. He said she’d be so excited.”

No, no. This couldn’t be happening. Eve got up to leave.

“No, wait! I told him that it was a really bad idea. I swear. I told him that everyone would think she wrote it, and he was like, ‘That’s why I’m making her number four.’”

“That’s why it was a bad idea?” Eve fought the urge to shriek.

Winston kept going. “He said that nobody would suspect number four wrote it. He put Sophie Kane as number two, and you as number one.”

“But why?” she rasped.

“He said you … he said you had ‘a body.’” Winston couldn’t look at her, staring instead at the light switchboard. His words slowed. “He said over the summer you’d … changed.”

Eve felt tears begin to shoot down her cheeks even as her face remained still and no sound came out.

“Eve, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you then.”

“And why does it matter if you knew me or not?” Eve spoke in such a low whisper she couldn’t be sure if Winston even heard her.

“I thought, ‘Oh, that girl seems nice. Sure.’ I thought you’d like it. I mean, I thought that any girl getting called the prettiest would be, like, the greatest thing ever for them. I actually even remember thinking that the only good part about what Caleb was doing was that”—he sighed—“that someone who wasn’t popular would get such a big compliment. Like maybe it would change your life.”

“It did,” she whispered.

“I know, and I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry.”

“Okay. Okay.” He rubbed his temples. Down below, Nessa sang.

“What happened next?” Eve asked. She had to know.

“I don’t understand why he put certain girls in certain spots, exactly. He didn’t want Lara on there because she ‘seemed too full of herself’ or something, and not Miranda Garland because she was annoying, and it went on and on, and I was hardly listening to him, I promise! I was just sitting there!”

Back to the switchboard. Adjust the lights. Then back to her.

“Listen, I knew from the day of the assembly that I was wrong about it being a great compliment. I knew it when I saw you run out. And I found your poem.”