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“Josh.” Carver grabbed his arm. “Don’t engage. She’s not worth it.”

Josh shook him off, unable to stop now that the truth had started to trickle out of him. “Bigotry has no place in a school. You don’t give a crap about kids or books. That’s an excuse. You’re angry, Myra. You’re jealous. Because of your empty, withered, pathetic life.”

Someone else was trying to tug him back, to make him calm, but he shook them all off. His voice slid out of him like a sword, deadly calm and right in Myra’s blotchy, blushing face.

“You people,” Myra sputtered, breathing fast and trying to backpedal. “This is the work of that godless library.”

“Whose god, Myra? I know facts are inconvenient for you, but throughout all of history, the good guys have never banned or burned books. The Nazis did. The Confederacy. Stalin. Slavers and rapists.” He looked her up and down. “Well, if the shoe fits.”

“How dare you—”

The security guard took Myra’s arm and tugged at her, but she braced herself and wouldn’t budge.

“An ugly hypocrite and a disgrace,” Josh said. “Leering at me and fondling me in the halls for the past six years. I didn’t file a complaint because I felt sorry for you.”

“I won’t stand here and be insulted by the likes of you!” Myra shouted.

“How can I insult you? Your life is an insult to everything decent. Look at you. The full pathetic horror of you.” He gestured at himself, at his own face. “This is pity. I’m sorry for you.” He shook his head. “You’re so jealous of Tyler’s success, of him trying to help this school, of our happiness, that you chained yourself to him in print, praying for a Fox News segment and masturbating over the misery you made. Desperate. Ugly. Pathetic.”

One of the shocked kids in the doorway nodded. “Boom.” A father next to her looked genuinely startled but didn’t move.

Myra’s eyes watered, but she didn’t so much as blink.

Carver took a tentative step toward him, but no way was he letting her walk away from this in one piece.

Josh squared his shoulders. “This ‘worthless faggot’ has met plenty of empty, envious hypocrites like you. You’re the kind of hideous fraud that cripples lives, that makes innocent kids run away or kill themselves.” He slapped his chest. “I could’ve been one of those kids, but I got lucky.”

He couldn’t stop himself, despite Carver’s panicked face, despite the security guard’s gentle hand on his back. He knew they wanted to help. He knew they couldn’t.

The crowd had grown further, watching in horrified fascination as his rage crested. His anger and anxiety flooded out of him in a horrible torrent of undiluted clarity. “You think they don’t know what you do in the dark? All these smart people?”

Myra seemed to realize that a large mob now stood watching her abject humiliation, wishing her harm. She turned, peering at them with watery eyes, as if expecting a rescue, but there were no takers.

“Worthless? Faggot?” Josh nodded. His voice got no louder, but he leaned in to make sure she heard every ugly syllable. “Just know this, Myra. You are loathed. The kids. The parents. Whether they tell you or not, every person you meet detests you. They wash their hands when you touch them. Everyone standing in this room right now. Look at their faces. You repulse them.”

The gathered crowd was silent, eyeing her like they might something runny in a bedpan. She gulped, breathing hard, as though she was trying to make herself hyperventilate.

“Know that every time you step out in public that people you don’t even know will cross the street to escape. That random strangers will spit on your shadow until they can piss on your grave.” Josh stopped, breathless and exhausted as though he had vomited up something jagged. “A parasite.”

Myra quivered before him, her wet lips buckling as she tried to face him and not flinch.

“That’s the problem with envy, Myra. You drank poison, wishing everyone else would die. Except nobody’s dying to make you happy. No one will ever even care. Because you are”—he whispered, stretching the word to make it last—“worthless.”

At that she rocked back on her heels and fled.

She moved so fast that she knocked into Mr. Chan and then backed into a junior hall monitor chewing gum, who cackled at her distress until she’d exited the building.

The crowd parted to watch her go and then pressed forward to make positive sounds at him. “You told her, Coach.” Josh didn’t understand why everyone seemed so pleased… and then he realized it meant they all must have seen the article.

This would only get worse.

Breathing hard, Josh sat down suddenly like his bones had vanished. The rage had left behind a strange, sad numbness. He couldn’t quite believe he’d done that, but he refused to regret it for a second.

Carver and the security guard cleared the office of the muttering bystanders and closed the doors.

“Are you okay?” Vicky asked softly and touched his shoulder. Her eyes were red. She offered him a paper cup of water, which he swallowed dutifully. “Can I call someone? Is Tyler home?”

“I know why you did it.” Carver pressed his lips into a grim line. “I wish you hadn’t.”