“Hm, can it wait until later? I can’t be late for French.”

  Mariana’s face drops, but Ava absolutely beams. “We’ll totally catch you later,” she says as she tugs Lily away. It’s an endless territory war, and Ava has won this round. Except for one fact that both of them conveniently like to avoid: I’m actually Lily’s best friend.

  Ava is chattering about the upcoming French test as she walks, but Lily clearly isn’t listening. She’s stopped to frown at the new poster on Mr. Droesch’s door. Congratulations, Daniel! International Exchange Program Selectee.

  “Ugh, who would want to live in Finland?” Ava asks.

  Lily would. She doesn’t say as much, but I remember the lengthy presentation she’d made to try to convince her parents to let her go if she were selected. I’m not sure on their reasons, but she was in a hell of a mood the week they refused to let her even apply.

  I keep trying to remind her that she’s about fifteen months away from college, where she’ll have all the study abroad options you can shake a stick at, because Lily definitely has the grades to be choosy with her colleges.

  “Shit, Lil, we need to book it,” Ava says, and then she turns to Drishti. “Hey, you!”

  “Shoot, Drishti,” Lily says, touching her arm. “Do you have notes from history?”

  “Yes,” Drishti says, but she’s clearly in a hurry. “Can I get them to you later?”

  “Of course!” Lily waves. “You’re a lifesaver!” Then she turns to me with a final wink. “Did you see that the chem test scores are up? There’s a surprise in there for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Come on, Lily,” Ava says, pulling her by the arm.

  Lily rolls her eyes and mouths: My house after school?

  I nod in response.

  Where else would I go? Home to watch my mom pull off her clinic scrubs only to squeeze herself into a ridiculous bow tie and miniskirt for another night slinging whiskey sours and Long Island iced teas? I respect the hell out of the way Mom works two jobs to cobble rent together without a meep of complaint, but it’s hard to witness, especially since I can’t do anything to make things easier for her.

  The clock in the hallway informs me I’ve got less than two minutes to get to my last class. It might be enough time to check my chem test, and I’m sure as hell going to try. I pull up the classroom on my phone while I navigate down the hall and into the long, narrow stretch of classrooms that’s nearly impossible to navigate—the Clogged Drain.

  I move past a prom poster—gross—and watch my screen slowly refresh. Finally, it’s done. I spot the graded symbol on the right side of Test three and I freeze right there in the hallway.

  Test one: 95%

  Test two: 98%

  Test three: 91%

  Okay, not my best, but I was terrified of this test, convinced I’d fail. A 91 percent is so far beyond what I expected.

  I check my class ranking at the bottom, stunned to find that I wasn’t the only one who struggled with the test, because I am still in the number two position! Now, my shoulders slump in relief. I knew I wouldn’t overtake Hiba Chaudhry, of course, but I did worry that Vera Johnson or Henry Toussaint (who’ve been trading three and four all year) might pull into the lead and knock me down a notch. Hell, I had so much trouble with this unit that I thought Lily (landing at number five) might have pulled up a few spots.

  But number two is still mine. I grin to myself. Chemistry is still my ticket, and I intend to ride it all the way to a pharmacy degree and the chance to make sure my mother never works another night shift again. I hike my backpack higher and decide my day is taking a good turn. I pull up the email from John Carroll, figuring I can read a little more about the interview before I get to Mr. Cooper’s room. He’s an old-school teacher and a stickler about having phones out, so this is my last chance. The trick will be surviving the Clogged Drain while reading.

  I turn the corner and start maneuvering through the crowd. Of course my APUSH class is smack-dab in the middle of this mess, so there isn’t an alternative.

  I shoulder my way forward, steering around a kissing couple and Gretchen, who tousles her jet-black bob and gives me a little nod. I’m jostled this way and that, but in my mind I’m practically floating my way toward Mr. Cooper’s door in a haze of high-test-score-plus-chemistry-camp-interview glory.

  Oh my God, I forgot to tell Lily. Even the elbows jamming into my sides don’t stop me from tapping out a quick message.

  Can’t believe I didn’t tell you. I made it into the finalist round at JC. I get an interview!

  Someone lunges in front of me. Nate. It’s always strange to see him, so familiar with his cowlick and broad shoulders. We’ve been apart longer than Henry and Mariana, and there isn’t drama, but there is plenty of awkward. He offers me a small salute, and I give him a tight smile as I lurch left, bumping into two girls I couldn’t name if you paid me. They shove back into me so hard that I wobble to the right, off-balance. My backpack smacks into something, but I manage to stay on my feet, finding my center of gravity.

  And then someone screams. It’s shrill and shocking and close, the kind of sound that conjures images of car accidents or horror movies. I spin around, my skin prickled up in goose bumps at the sudden silence in the hall. Everyone is frozen, but I don’t see anything. Gretchen catches my eyes, some long-gone instinct from when we were friends I guess, and for a split second, she looks every bit as confused as I feel. But then her gaze shifts to my right and her face darkens.

  I follow her line of sight past the couple with their kiss-swollen lips, past Jackson Collins, who already has a phone out recording, past Nate, who looks truly shocked. Past more faces, all of them pointed at something beside me. Something on the ground.

  The first thing I see is blood. And then I see Vera. She’s holding her nose, but blood is dripping through her fingers, spotting the hallway floor with crimson drops.

  Vera’s eyes are welled with tears. She lets out a strangled sob, and that sound or maybe the blood—it drags me back to that terrible night two years ago. The smell of chlorine. The twinkle of fairy lights. The sound of Cadence screaming.

  Vera pulls one bloody hand away from her face and points in my direction. It plucks me right out of the memory, dropping me into the present.

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry,” I say, wincing. My backpack must have walloped her when I got knocked off-kilter. I reach for Vera, but she recoils.

  “What is wrong with you?” Vera’s voice is nearly a shriek.

  “Vera, I didn’t—”

  “Why did you knock me down?” Her scream cuts me off.

  I open my mouth to argue, but the streams of blood are trailing down her lips and chin. I want to tell her it was an accident, but isn’t that obvious? Can’t everyone see that?

  Vera scuttles away and I realize no one cares if this was an accident. Everyone in this hall is happy to put the blame on me.

  Three

  Vera sits in the nurse’s office with an ice pack to her face. I can see her from where I’m waiting outside Principal Chang’s door, so I try to plead my case.

  “Vera, I swear I didn’t shove you,” I say.

  “I saw your face, Clara. I looked right at you, and then you whirled around with that giant backpack.”

  “I know my backpack hit you. I’m saying it wasn’t intentional.”

  “I saw your face,” she repeats, enunciating each word. Then she drops her eyes and her voice. “And it’s not like you don’t have a history with things like this.”

  I recoil from her words and slouch against the back of the chair. So she doesn’t believe it’s an accident because of what happened two years ago? Wonderful.

  I glare at Ms. Chang’s door feeling extra sorry for myself. I tell myself it isn’t fair. That I’ve changed. I even consider the possibility that Vera might believe me if I wasn’t wearing thrift store jeans and Lily’s hand-me-down sweater. What I try to not think about is why Vera isn’t being completely ridiculous to suspect me.

  After all, I swore up and down the last time was an accident too. It was an accident. But I was still 100 percent to blame.

  There is a soft conversation inside the nurse’s office, and then someone closes the door. I’m alone for a few minutes until Officer Grimes strolls in. He’s a bald guy with broad shoulders and dimples. He seems far too friendly for a police officer, even one who spends his hours inside a typical high school.

  Grimes looks over at me with a frown. “What are you doing in here, Toosey?”

  I sigh. “I got bumped into Vera in the hallway, but she thinks I did it on purpose.”

  “In the Clogged Drain?”

  I nod.

  “That whole hallway is a disaster waiting to happen.”

  Officer Grimes is a good dude. He’s one of the few people who remembers (and still uses) my junior high nickname. If his friendliness is any indication, he may also be the only adult in this school who doesn’t still think of me as a criminal.

  Ms. Chang’s door swings open, and she appears, looking calm and professional.

  “Ms. Cutler?”

  I stand up, and Ms. Chang beckons me into her office. She is a slim-shouldered woman who favors old-lady hair buns but twentysomething shoes. Today she’s sporting bright purple heels with her gray pantsuit.

  Before I’m even fully seated, the words start tumbling out of me.

  “Ms. Chang, I swear I did not intentionally shove Vera down. It was super crowded in the hallway, and if we can just talk to her—

  “Vera is getting picked up for the day.”

  “I get it. I’d go home too if I got a bloody nose. I feel awful, but someone shoved into me and apparently my backpack slammed into her face.”

  Ms. Chang watches me with an even expression. “According to Vera, she made eye contact with you before you collided with her. She felt it was intentional.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. And she definitely didn’t make eye contact if she looked at me.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I was nose-deep in my phone. Besides, what possible reason would I have to hurt Vera?”

  Ms. Chang watches me closely. “You are both in AP Chemistry, correct?”

  There’s something about the way she asks that makes me uneasy. She already knows what classes I’m in, I’m sure of that. But why would it matter? Vera and I have never even disagreed in a class discussion that I remember.

  “You recently took a big test in that class, didn’t you?” Ms. Chang asks.

  “Yes, but I did well. There wasn’t anything to be upset about.”

  “Not even that Vera beat you despite how well you did? Not even that she moved into the number-one spot in the ranking? I know your performance in that class is very important to you.”

  I blink, trying to put it together. I didn’t even realize Vera moved into number one. Hiba must have bombed the test. Which is bizarre for Hiba but not impossible. And Vera could have aced it. That’s way less impossible. I know we’re separated by a pretty thin margin, so it wouldn’t take much to shift things around. But that’s not the point. The point is, I didn’t know the rankings changed. I only looked at myself.

  But I could have checked.

  The top-five rankings are right there on the class page, a not-so-friendly competition Mr. Philpot thinks is fun, but usually just induces anxiety for everyone involved. And yeah, I like being in number two, but I’m not about to make someone bleed for taking number one.

  “I didn’t even know. I only checked mine,” I say, and my voice sounds flat because it doesn’t matter what I say, only how it looks. After all, I am the girl who pushes people—or so the rumors say.

  Ms. Chang frowns like she doesn’t quite believe me. It’s a look I’m familiar with. Once the police haul you out of a classroom to handcuff you, people question every word that comes out of your mouth. To be fair, they weren’t too sure about me before all that happened. I’m one of the Apartment Kids, the lesser third of Tuskegee High School students, the ones who don’t live in houses with wraparound porches and West Elm furniture.

  A soft knock on the door interrupts us.

  “One moment,” Ms. Chang says, her eyes never leaving mine. “Clara, you’ve turned things around remarkably in this last year and a half. You were a Chemagination finalist and won honorable mention in our STEM showcase.”

  I lean forward, because if she remembers that, then there’s a chance she might see more than I’m giving her credit for. “I’m really committed to chemistry. I’m looking into pharmacy degree programs, and there’s a summer program at John Carroll.”

  “You applied?” Her arched brows indicate surprise. I get it; the programs run several thousand dollars, and I’m pretty sure the address on my school file makes it clear we don’t have several thousands of dollars lying around.

  “I’m a finalist for the full scholarships, so I’ll be interviewing for a spot. It’s a good opportunity for my college applications, right?”

  “It is. It’s also important for your resume that your record here at Tuskegee High remains unblemished for the duration of your tenure.”

  Especially since I blemished the hell out of it at the end of my freshman year. That’s what she doesn’t say.

  “I’d like to see you in college,” she says with a little sigh, as if she doesn’t quite expect it. Then she stands, apparently done with her wistful thoughts of my future. I stand too, a little uncertain as to what to do. Should I stay? Leave? Start pleading with her for mercy?

  “So what happens now?” I venture.

  “There will be a formal incident report,” she says. “There won’t be discipline, because we have reports from two opposing viewpoints, and without any staff witnesses, it’s hard to be certain of what happened.”

  “So I can go?”

  She’s already looking past me. I escape out into the cool, bright administration office without another word.

  Officer Grimes is eating a cookie and watching the fish tank when I emerge. He raises his brows at me.

  “Detention?”

  “A warning, I think.” I hesitate, shaking my head. “Actually, I’m not sure what that was.”

  Grimes leans back in his chair, watching me with a blank expression. He’s never stressed. “You don’t look too happy about it.”

  “Vera thinks I intentionally shoved her because she did better on a test than me. But I didn’t. No way would I have done that.” I smirk. “But my reputation apparently precedes me.”

  He nods. “Some people tend to get the benefit of the doubt. And some don’t.”

  He isn’t quite telling me he believes me, but it’s close, and it helps.

  I text Lily that I’m on my way down. She doesn’t reply, but she’s been in a super non-texting phase these last couple of weeks. Some sort of phone detox book she’s been reading.

  I’m just leaving the office when I almost run into someone. I stop short, sucking in a tight breath. Perfect, pricky Paxton. Once upon a time, Paxton and I were friends. In elementary school we lived a few duplexes apart and loved to make mazes for the pill bugs in our front yards. Then Paxton’s father hit some sort of investment jackpot, and they traded in their rusted Chevy for matching Volvos and their duplex for a four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in Lily’s neighborhood.

  Now, Paxton is the class president and maybe the only student the teachers love even more than Lily. In junior high, he was in Lily’s crowd. He used to throw these huge pool parties, but at some point after freshman year, the parties stopped. It wasn’t too long before he quit showing up at the cool kid table in the cafeteria. I don’t know the details, but I know he keeps his distance.

  Except from me, of course. He may ignore the others, but he makes no bones about his dislike for me.

  “Paxton.” His name comes out of me like a four-letter word.

  He, of course, doesn’t say my name. He looks at me like he sometimes lies awake at night dreaming of lighting me on fire. Hell, maybe he does, though God knows why. It’s hard to believe this preppy little shit with his sideswept blond hair once kneeled in a dirty yard setting up mazes for bugs with me, but it’s true.

  “I heard about what happened with Vera,” Paxton says with a sniff.

  “Oh, because you’re worried about her? Or is it just a great opportunity to kiss some random staff member’s ass?” I ask, my voice chipper.

  Paxton narrows his eyes. “You sure have a lot of attitude for someone leaving the principal’s office for another assault on a student.”

  My face feels hot. I step left, trying to move around him, but he’s standing directly in my path. “Do you mind?”

  “Do I mind being in the same room as you?” he asks. “Yeah. Every time it happens.”

  I have nothing else to say to this tool. Instead of answering, I brush past him, heading for the stairwell. He pulls back like I’ve punched him.

  “Now you’re happy to get out of my way?” I ask.

  He arches a brow, his expression mean. “No, I just don’t trust you around stairs.”

  I don’t say another word as I thunder down the steps. Maybe he’s right not to trust me. There’s not much on this planet I’d love to see more than Paxton Bryce taking a fall.

  Four

  I’m vibrating with rage when I push out of the exit doors. It’s gotten hotter than I expected since this morning. That’s April in Ohio for you. I scan the back section of the lot where Lily always parks her car. But she’s not there. And it’s looking really gray. As if on cue, a fat drop of rain splatters my arm.

  Awesome.

  Just then, I spot her car in the parking lot near the art wing doors. Weird. But it’s definitely her red Honda Civic with the faded Geldis Klein Tennis Center sticker in the rear window.

  The back door is open, and Lily is putting something inside, taking her sweet time about it despite the patter of a few more drops. Is she not noticing the rain? Wait, has she even read her texts? Does she know my ass has been stuck in Ms. Chang’s office? She closes the back and opens the driver’s door.