“Yes, ma’am,” Peter says, saluting like the ass hat he is.
Dr. Baylor rolls her eyes and I catch her as she comes up my row.
“May I have a bathroom pass?” I whisper.
She leans toward me, her glasses slipping down her nose. “I’m sorry, what?”
I clear my throat, swallow, try to force some audibility into my voice. “Um . . . the bathroom? Please?”
“Make it fast.” She glances at my half-completed paper while waving me toward the classroom door.
The classroom door all the way on the other side of the room.
I slide out of my desk, feeling Jaden’s and his crew’s eyes slide over me like curious fingers for the entire trek across the shiny tiled floor.
“She must hate Hannah,” Rachel whispers to Peter as I pass. The words are a firework in my ears, and my feet nearly tangle together. I brace one hand on a desk near the exit—?I don’t even know whose—?and then all but fling myself into the quiet hallway.
I take off running. Lockers blur in my periphery, a teacher on his planning period calls out to me from down the hall, but I don’t stop until I’m in the restroom, my gasps for breath fogging up the mirror above the sinks.
“Are you okay, Mara?”
I startle, but more from the syrupy tone of the voice than the voice itself. Greta stands two sinks down from me, calmly drying her hands on a brown paper towel.
“Fine,” I say, and run the water in my own sink.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“I’m not doing anything with you, Greta. I’m washing my damn hands.”
“Okay. But we need to figure out how we’re going to handle this at the Empower meeting tomorrow.”
I just stare at her, fighting to keep my expression blank, but something like panic begins a slow crawl up my throat.
“Handle . . . what?”
She lifts her perfectly defined eyebrows. “Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” I snap off the faucet, my fingers dripping water onto the floor.
She puts up her palms. “I know this has to be really weird for you.”
“Oh my god, Greta, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“One of us sure as hell doesn’t.”
“Look, I don’t—”
The main restroom door squeaks open, shutting me up. Charlie stands in the entryway, long legs in gray jeans. Her eyes dart between Greta and me.
“Everything good in here?” she asks.
“I was just leaving,” Greta says, catching my eye once more in the mirror. “See you girls in chorus.”
Charlie winces but manages a smile as Greta leaves.
When she disappears into the hallway, my knees buckle. I let myself go down, squatting so my feet are still on the floor and wrapping my arms around my legs. My hands are still wet, slippery hooks on my elbows.
“Shit,” I hear Charlie mutter. Then she’s in front of me, her hands on my shoulders as I gasp for breath again.
