Chapter 19: The Screen

I showed Cassie the message on Thursday morning, and I showed Drake that night.

He read it on my couch, with his jaw tight, and handed the phone back.

"She's going to put it on the screen," he said.

"I know."

"Cassie can kill the feed."

"I told Cassie not to."

He stared at me. "Why?"

"Because I'm not going to hide from it," I said. "If it comes out, I want to be standing there when it does."

The homecoming dance was on Friday, in the gym, under a ceiling of gold paper stars.

I wore my mother's black dress again.

She had taken in the waist a second time, and she had pinned a small brooch of her own to the strap.

"For luck," she said at the door. "Don't need it, but take it."

Cassie was already in the booth with her headphones on.

She had a glass wall behind the dance floor and four monitors, and her hands rested on the board.

"The stage cable is the problem," she said, when I went up to see her.

"Teagan's friends have a laptop plugged straight into the projector. I can't cut it without pulling the whole wall."

"Then let it run."

"Maisy."

"Let it run, and have the house lights ready." I squeezed her shoulder. "I'll tell you when."

The gym was full of silk and noise and spotlights.

Nobody looked at me. That was new.

Nobody called me a name or made a mopping motion. They just looked past me, carefully.

Drake stood alone against the far wall, in his one dark suit, with a paper cup.

The boys from his team stood in a knot ten feet from him. They had left a gap around him.

Teagan was at the center of the floor in a gold dress, with a crown on her head.

She had been voted court queen two weeks ago. Nobody had taken it away from her yet.

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