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“At least come sit with us at lunch,” Zoe says.

It’s kind of her to offer, but I just can’t see the Kendalls or Ford’s friend group leaving me unmolested through an entire sit-down meal. I tell her I’ve got unfinished homework and head outside.

I sit against my favorite tree and watch the other kids out here. The couples dreamily staring into each other’s eyes. The girls who get their lunch delivered and stretch out on blankets while they wait—their shirts tucking into their bras—showing each other reels.

I couldn’t begin to count how many rules they’re breaking, about food and phones and the dress code, but that fierce desire I felt on the first day of school to see the rules enforced was, I can now admit, jealousy. I wanted the rules enforced not because the rules mattered to me, but because if I couldn’t have those things, I didn’t want anyone else to have them either. I’d like to be stretched on a blanket with a group of friends. I’d like to watch makeup tutorials and try those bowls from Chipotle they’re always eating, or walk into first period with an iced coffee from Starbucks like Kappy does.

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to be a role model when I’m so envious of them.

Ann and I talk on the phone Saturday afternoon, for the first time since the day after the pool party. She is full of stories about what I’ve missed, which I’d expected. But she’s also full of stories about what people have done wrong, and after the two weeks I’ve spent in school here...the infractions seem sort of laughable.

Lisanne quoted an “inappropriate” Shakespeare verse in a paper, and she and her parents had to meet with the school.

Margaret Fuller admitted to friends that she’d downloaded a Taylor Swift album to her phone and one of them told on her.

She no longer has a phone.

Daria’s older sister, just back from her mission in Bolivia, was caught holding hands with a boy at the park. After watching couples grope each other in the hallway and lick each other’s faces, holding hands seems sort of sweet.

I know what Ann would say if I suggested it, however: if people are allowed to hold hands, then they are soon tongue-kissing in the park instead. If they’re allowed to tongue kiss, then heaven knows what comes next. One bad seed spoils the bunch. Bright Covenant’s rigidity is a protection against chaos. Except...I’m viewing that chaos firsthand. And it doesn’t look entirely terrible.

“How’s your school?” she asks.

“Surprising,” I reply. “We have a dress code and no one follows it. The girls all roll their skirts up at the waist.”

“Isaiah three,” Ann recites. “The women are haughty, flirting with their eyes. Instead of fragrance, there will be a stench; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth.”

She doesn’t have the quote right, but I know what she’s saying. It’s the passage where Isaiah discusses what happens to sexually immoral women, how they will be stripped bare of their finery and branded. Except...nearly all the girls roll their skirts up.

Kappy and her friends roll their skirts up. I don’t think they deserve to be punished for it, and they certainly don’t deserve to be stripped and branded. None of them do, even the Kendalls, whether I hate the way it makes me stand out or not.

“I don’t think they mean any harm,” I reply mildly. “They’re just following the crowd.”

“Broad is the gate that leads to destruction,” she quotes back. “Please be careful. If you start making excuses for them, you’ll wind up wanting to be them.”

I’m not about to tell her that a part of me already does.

7

Our homework over the weekend was to write about a book that changed our lives and be prepared to speak about it.

“Ten bucks says at least five people choose Catcher in the Rye and five choose To Kill a Mockingbird,” Kappy says Monday with a roll of her eyes.

“What book did you choose?” I ask.

She flashes a grin. “To Kill a Mockingbird. I couldn’t exactly get up and tell everyone it was Fifty Shades.”

My face heats at the mention of Fifty Shades and I avert my gaze.

“You’ve read it, right?” she asks.

I shake my head. I wasn’t even allowed to read Anna Karenina last year because it had infidelity as a plot point. “Half the books on our reading list for this class were banned at my old school,” I tell her. “I’m pretty sure Fifty Shades isn’t in the cards for me.”

Mrs. O calls the class to order and asks for volunteers. Three of the first ten presenters use To Kill a Mockingbird as their book and two use Catcher in the Rye. Kappy raises an I told you so brow at me each time.

Toward the end of class, Ford rises and saunters to the front of the room with that easy, swaggering grace of his, long and lean. It’s only nine in the morning and his top button is already undone, his tie slightly askew.

“Ford, fix your tie, dear,” says Mrs. O, as if he’s an adorable baby she’d like to coo at instead. He smiles at her—a half smile, high on one side. There’s a sharp tug deep in my stomach—half pleasure and half pain, and I resent it. I should be above a physical response to him. Who cares if his face is lovely when his soul is so corrupt?