Chapter 12: Open to Every Student

By morning the video had nine thousand views, and Brightwater has fewer than four thousand students.

Somebody had cut it to forty seconds.

It started with me saying, "Take your hand off me," continued with me saying, "I'll see you at the panel," and cut every word Keeley said in between.

Under it, the captions said: "Marlo goes feral on a girl for her birthday."

Dani read the comments out loud over her toast and then stopped.

"Don't," I said.

"I'm only going to read the nice ones."

"Are there nice ones?"

She scrolled for a while.

"There's one that says you have good posture."

I put my head on the desk.

In the cafeteria, people looked at me and looked away.

A girl from Statistics nudged her friend and whispered something, and the friend said, "Hot take, but I'd hate to be her roommate."

"I'm right here," Dani said, loudly, passing with her tray.

A boy I'd never met stopped at my table and put a notebook in front of me.

"Hey, since you're so good at it," he said, grinning. "Mind filling this in? I'll pay you in a bagel."

His friends laughed.

I looked at him calmly.

"No," I said. "But you're welcome to take your own."

"Wow," he said. "Bitter."

He walked off, and his friends gave him a fist bump.

I ate my yogurt, one spoonful at a time, and tasted none of it.

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