Aviana nods slowly. “I was kinda pissed about that.”

“I say we make her resign,” I add, encouraged by Nikki and Aviana’s support. “What she did was bullshit.”

“We can’t just kick her off. That’s not the way this works,” Owen says sharply. I look at him incredulously, and he’s looking right back at me. He’s annoyed with me. With me.

“CJ, I hate to say it, but Owen’s right. I’m not saying what she did was okay, but we can’t afford to kick her off,” says Zach.

“We can,” I say.

Zach shakes his head. “We can’t. The administration loves her. Her mom’s on the fucking city council. She used to be on the school board.”

“So?”

“If we kick her off, we’ll be accused of reverse racism. We have to get this past the school board, and the school board is all white. They need to see white kids involved, or they’ll brush this off as another minority issue,” says Mizhir, who I was hoping would be on my side. I stare at him and he shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

“Brynn has so much to offer, Ceej,” Emily says, which doesn’t surprise me. “She led the March for Our Lives walkout last year. She headed that fund-raiser to help the families whose houses burned down in the wildfires. She organized LGBTQ-plus Education day. I know she’s not perfect, but can’t you just let this go?”

“No.” I’m sick of people—especially Emily—going on about what a #winner Brynn is, like that makes her special, like that’s a reason to forgive anything she does. Bullshit. She’s not that special. “Nikki led the Black Lives Matter protest last year, and she was sophomore-class president. Lilianna organized those activities to educate people about undocumented immigrants, and she cochaired that wildfire fund-raiser with Brynn. And Mizhir, weren’t you involved in that charity basketball tournament thing?” Mizhir nods. “But people who saw him on the announcements were like, ‘That’s the dude who did Ask a Muslim Day.’”

Lilianna sees where I’m going and jumps in. “It’s true, though. We can be involved in anything, but people pay the most attention when we’re leading ‘minority groups’ and ‘minority causes.’ They only see us as ‘minority leaders.’”

“Right? You’re all total leaders,” I say. The gray ache of inadequacy pulses briefly in my chest—I’m not a leader. I ignore it and press on. “Brynn’s no better than any of you. Why should she get all the airtime? Why does she think she gets to be in charge?”

“Brynn is a minority leader. Queer people are marginalized, too, you know,” Emily says quietly.

“The QSA is like, eighty percent white,” counters Tulasi.