Lindy took her hand, which was so cute. Anyone who saw them would know that Lindy was her friend. She must be a little special to have a friend as cool as Lindy. They stopped in front of the Piercing Pagoda.

“Today’s your lucky day,” Lindy sang.

Jillian laughed.

“Which pair do you want? You have to get gold or your ears will get infected or something gross.”

“Oh, I’m not. I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“My mom says—”

“Are you going to let your mommy tell you what to do your whole life, Jilly Billy? What a sad life that would be.” Lindy called the woman behind the counter over. The woman wore a white lab coat, as if she were a doctor. “She’d like to have her ears pierced,” Lindy said.

The woman looked at Jillian. “Is that right?”

All of the advice she’d ever gotten about peer pressure wafted out of Jillian’s head, leaving her powerless. She nodded yes.

“You’re going to need your mom’s consent.”

“She’s sixteen. She just turned it,” Lindy said, but the woman shook her head no.

So Lindy texted her mom, who came over from another part of the mall laden with shopping bags. She winked as she signed the form giving permission for “her daughter” to have her ears pierced. Jillian smiled back, hoping Kaye would understand it was the smile of a girl being held hostage, but she didn’t. What was going to happen to her when people started pressuring her to drink or do drugs? She’d become an addict, out on the street with a bottle in a paper bag all because she couldn’t say no.

She held both Kaye’s and Lindy’s hands as the woman came at her with the big gun. They all promised it wouldn’t hurt, but it did. She yelped and her eyes welled, and then they did it on the other side. Lindy sent her mother off again and dragged Jillian to the food court.

They sat at a metal table with pink milkshakes, the smells of hamburgers and cinnamon buns floating around them, fear seizing Jillian’s body. She was so going to be in trouble. Hanging out at the White Elephant, skipping after-school activities, and going to the mall without permission suddenly looked like minor offenses—jaywalking—compared to the crime she’d just committed. Her parents were going to kill her—she, who had never done anything worse than reading under the covers with a flashlight, until this fall. It wouldn’t matter to them that it was Lindy’s fault. She felt her ears throb, pulsing reminders that she was bad.