Page 53 of TJ Powar Has Something to Prove

“Ha, ha. I notice you don’t have any notes.” She nods to his blank page. “Is Nate talking to you through an earpiece right now?”

Charlie taps behind his ear. “Nate, game’s up. You might as well come out from behind the curtain.”

The door of the classroom opens, and they both whip around, but it’s just Rajan, holding an enormous stack of papers.

“What are you doing here?” TJ asks bluntly. She’s not interested in talking to him, especially since he turned out to be right about Liam.

Rajan grins like he knows what she’s thinking, but he doesn’t comment. “Detention. I gotta file these away.” He pats the paper stack. “Mrs. Scott said to tell you she’s gonna be here soon.”

“Okay,” TJ says. “Go file, then.”

Rajan just strolls closer. “So what basic human rights are we putting up for debate today?”

“We don’t debatehuman rights,” TJ scoffs, but Rajan’s already bending to peer at her page.

“This House Believes That it is sometimes right for the government to restrict freedom of speech.”He casts TJ an amused look. She sighs. Point taken.

Rajan straightens back to his full height. “Don’t worry, dude, I agree with you. Some people just need to shut the hell up.”

TJ’s about to make a quip about Rajan being an expert on the right to remain silent when Charlie speaks. “Why do you say that?”

Rajan blinks as if surprised to be asked. But Charlie is looking at him expectantly. TJ sits up. Who knows, maybe he’ll give them an interesting perspective to work with. “Give an example,” she adds. “Something actually relevant.”

He grins. “I was gonna start talking about Nazis, but now you asked for it.” He hops onto the desk next to them. “That Northridge Confessions post about Simran Sahiba and you is prettyrelevant, isn’t it?”

TJ’s smirk freezes. Charlie’s sitting right beside her. She never thought it’d get brought up with him around.Shut up, she screams internally.

Rajan, of course, goes on. “So-called free speech on Northridge Confessions gave her a rough time. People say anything they want on there. People get hurt. You think that’s a good thing?”

She realizes it’s not rhetorical after a second, and clears her throat hastily.

“Well, good things can come out of that, too. Certain people exposed themselves through the comments of that post asassholes.” Not to mention, also in the aftermath of it. Particularly Liam and Chandani. She takes a deep breath, finding more fire with every word. “And it brought up certainissuesthat otherwise would’ve never been addressed. Like, why are girls expected to be hairless beings? Does no one see how screwed up that is—”

The door opens again.

“Rajan!” Mrs. Scott barks. “Distracting my debaters, I see.”

“Who says they weren’t distractingme?” Rajan winks, but Mrs. Scott isn’t charmed. As she starts laying down the law, Charlie taps his notepad with his pen.

“Sothat’swhy.”

TJ looks at him. She’d been afraid to, until now. “Why what?”

He waves his pen in the direction of her legs, still propped up on the table. She blinks.

“So you noticed?”

“Well, yeah. It’s hard not to.”

TJ tries not to flinch at his matter-of-fact tone. Despite everything, some pathetic part of her fantasized that she would display her biggest insecurities and people would say,Aw, but I didn’t notice that at all!

But no. Everyone sees it, including Charlie, who, until now, did an excellent job of acting like he didn’t. It’s there and it can’t be swept under the rug or ignored by anyone. Why had she ever hoped for different?

She clears her throat. “Well, that’s the point. I’m trying to prove something.”

“And what’s that?”

No way is she putting it in resolution form. “That I can exist as a hairy girl, and still be worthy of respect.” She cringesanyway because it sounds so cheesy out loud, even withoutThis House Believes Thatbefore it.