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“What was that?” she asks, and I see a smear of glittery pink across her front teeth where the lipstick dug in a little. Her eyes are wide, totally clueless. She’s waiting for me to say something, and the entire class is listening. But I don’t have the words, and Branley’s glance shifts over my shoulder to someone else.

Alex’s voice is in my ear. “You should stop now,” she says quietly.

“I don’t want to,” I say, eyes still on Branley, who looks concerned.

“What did I do?” she asks, and now Jack Fisher is with her, one hand on her elbow. Park immediately joins them, loyal as hell.

“Leave it alone, Bran,” Jack says, and tries to pull her away, but she’s still locked on me.

“What did I do to you?”

“You took my boyfriend,” I say, hating the childishness of the words the second they leave my mouth, the fact that the word boyfriend makes tears come to my eyes.

Branley’s face changes then, the honest confusion replaced with a smug mask, the one she wears so well. “No, sweetie,” she says. “I didn’t take him. He left you.”

I swing. It’s so simple I don’t understand why I never did it before. My fist is on an arc that will break her perfect nose when it’s stopped in midair, my elbow locked with Alex’s, her strength so superior to mine that her arm is like a steel pipe and mine the pipe cleaner.

“Get your shit under control, Preacher’s Kid,” Park says, and I lunge at him before the last syllable is out of his mouth. Alex spins me into the wall, the knuckles of her fist in my spine pinning me in place like a butterfly.

“You need to calm down, Claire.” It’s the same voice she uses on the cats at the shelter, the one that makes them melt a little bit. I kind of get their reaction, because I understand that if I’m unable to do it on my own, she will make me.

I take a shaky breath. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

Alex relaxes her grip and I turn to see Branley nestled behind Jack, her boobs pushed up against his back. Sara rustles around in the corner and picks up Branley’s lipstick. “Here,” she says, handing it over as if restoring it makes everything better. Branley takes it as Miss Hendricks walks into the room, the bustle of the hall dying behind her.

“What’s going on?” she asks, eyes narrowing at the sight of the tears that finally spill over onto my cheeks.

“Peekay lost her shit,” Park says.

“Parker Castle,” she screeches at him, but he only shrugs. She narrows in on me. “What happened?”

“Nothing, it’s fine,” Branley says suddenly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m the one who decides what’s worth worrying about,” Miss Hendricks snaps back, but Branley walks away, leaning into Jack more than necessary.

My breaths are coming deep and heavy now, the tears running down my cheeks freely. Sara has one hand on my shoulder, and Alex stands on my other side in what feels like support, but I’m pretty sure she’d gladly face-plant me right into the tiles if I flipped again.

“I think I need to go to the guidance office,” I say.

Hendricks nods. “One of you go with her.”

“I will,” Alex volunteers, and I swear there’s the tiniest bit of relief on Sara’s face when she does.

We’re halfway to Miss Reynolds’s office before I get my breath to stop hitching in my chest and it occurs to me to wipe my face. “Bathroom,” I say, ducking in because a cold sink and some running water sounds a hell of a lot more comforting than trying to decipher what kind of judgment Miss Reynolds’s eyebrows are delivering. Alex leans against the wall, eyeing me in the mirror while I splash my face.

A flush of embarrassment rises up my neck and into my cheeks, underscoring the hot tear tracks. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“Why?”

I watch the water sweeping away the salt on my face, the drops collecting on my chin as I lean my forehead against the mirror. “Because that’s not me,” I say, closing my eyes. “I don’t hit people. That’s not who I am.”

And Alex’s voice in the darkness. “Wrong. That’s exactly who you were in that specific moment. That was Claire at her most basic, unaltered by expectations.”

I open my eyes, the blue of my irises so much more intense now that I’ve been crying. “But you stopped me.”

“Venting your primal self in an emotional moment can be more than your socially constructed self can handle after the fact,” Alex says, her eyes gliding over me. “Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your voice is weak. And your conscience is reasserting itself.”

I heave a sigh and pull back from the mirror, my forehead leaving a smear behind. “Yeah,” I admit. “It totally is.”