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Act Two

In Which Mistakes Are Made

Nine

According to Kayla, Corrine had a “thing” during lunch and that’s why she wasn’t eating with us. I saw her a few tables over, talking to people I know she’s in clubs with, so maybe she wasn’t just avoiding me. Regardless, she can’t avoid me at cheerleading practice since she’s the captain and I am a dutiful minion who really needs to make up for the fact that I missed a game to spend the night with her ex-boyfriend—and then his family.

In the gym, Kayla and I stretch next to each other in our practice clothes while others talk and goof off, waiting for Corrine and Coach Hartl to show up.

“I have a joke for you,” Kayla says, stretching her arm across her chest. She’s been lobbing them my way all day because she can tell I’m nervous about something. “Do Christian schools play football?”

“Yeah?” I mimic her motion with the opposite arm.

“What’s their mascot?”

“It depends on the school—”

She cuts me off with an excited smile. “The Devil’s Advocate.”

“I’m not sure that one makes sense, but A for effort.”

“Okay.” She switches arms. A light brown scar wraps around her elbow from a nasty fall off Corrine’s trampoline freshman year. “What about ‘The White Savior’?”

I drop my arm. “I’ll see you in hell.”

“Thanks. You know how nervous I get when I have to go places alone.”

“Hey,” Corrine says, walking up to us with a smile, almost like things are normal. Coach Hartl is nowhere in sight. “Can I talk to you, Saine?”

Here it is. The longer version of what should have occurred on Saturday—or even Sunday, but I carefully avoided my phone by spending the day transferring footage and hacking together what I’ve got so far. I knew things weren’t good between us. I was stupidly optimistic earlier.

I stand.

“Good luck,” Kayla says quietly, but not quietly enough that Corrine doesn’t hear.

She looks between Kayla and me. “Does she know?”

“I want to answer truthfully, but I’m not one hundred percent sure what we’re talking about here.”

“The documentary.” The smile has slipped off her face, replaced by a thin line of unhappiness.

“Then, yes.”

“Did she know before me?”

Kayla looks like she’s ready to get away from this conversation, even if she has to crab-walk to do so.

I lower my voice. “Yes, but not because I wanted to tell everyone before you—”

“Everyone?Who else knew before me?” She crosses her arms, and I know it’s taking everything in her not to tap tap tap her tightly tied sneakers against the gym floor. This awful conversation needs to happen quick, before she reaches too-high levels of sad, mad, and uncomfortable.

“Just Devon Miles Smith and Juniper. You left the cafeteria for some club-related crisis and Holden came up, and it just came out.” I shrug, trying to relieve the tension in my shoulders. “It wasn’t intentional. I wanted to tell you.”

“So why didn’t you tell me at any point before or after other people knew?”

“Because you didn’t bring it up and then the longer I went without saying it, the more I felt like not having said it was going to make it worse when Ididsay it. I worried you’d be mad.”

She drops her arms with a sigh. “But why would I be mad?”