Pat shouts, “You ran into me, Abbey!”

Bullshit.

I say loudly without turning around, “If that’s what you think, then maybe don’t have a fireside chat in the middle of the hall.”

Pat shouts out a “fuck you” before a nearby teacher scolds him for his language. We’re too far away from one another to keep combating. Thankfully.

Willow keeps muttering “sorry” every five seconds, and by the time we make it to her locker, I feel relieved for her. She wipes her forehead with the back of her arm. A strand of her hair is still stuck to her damp cheek.

I motion to her face. “Can I…you have something…?”

She’s confused for a second and tentatively nods at me.

I pick the strand off and tuck it behind her ear.

She swallows once and stares at her feet and then her locker.

“Are you going to pass out on me?” I ask with concern, already trying to figure out the distance from her locker to the nurse’s.

I think I could carry her there, no problem.

Willow shakes her head. “I’m not good at this…I forgot to warn you.” Maybe she means that she’s not good at being the new girl in a school full of strangers. Or maybe even more general: being surrounded by a lot of people at one time.

“You’re doing alright.”

She glances at her skirt. “How’s the bow?”

My lips pull up a fraction. “Without a doubt, you have the best bow in the entire kingdom. If I were a princess, I’d even be jealous.” I pass her schedule back as she begins to smile. “Fifteen, thirty-seven, twenty-seven.”

I don’t ask if she wants me to open it. I figure spinning the lock will be a nice distraction for a second.

While she turns the dial, I’m about to ask about her last school. I assume it was public and smaller than Dalton.

Just as I open my mouth, I spot someone familiar in the corner of my eye. Carly Jefferson. She whispers to a group of three girls, about fifteen lockers down from Willow’s.

I’d like to think I’m more observant than paranoid. That this isn’t all in my head. But I have this feeling. You know the feeling—the one where everything stills around you. Just for a moment. Where every crack and flaw that frames a photo suddenly magnifies ten million times over.

It’s happening. Right now.

The hallway noises deaden in my mind. Leaving excruciating silence. Their furtive glances like sharp knives. Their smiles like snarls. Carly giggles and nudges her friend’s side. A couple guys join the huddle of girls. They lean against lockers and smirk. Taking a front row seat to a show.

Wrong.

Everything is wrong.

“Willo—” I start and grab her arm to stop her from opening the locker.

The dial has already clicked, and the blue metal swings back.

It should be empty. But it’s not.

Hundreds of tampons fall out, most in their wrapper. A handful have been torn open and soaked in what I hope is red dye.