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She gives me a small shrug. “I’ve seen you tutoring people, so I figured maybe...?”

I smile. “Sure.”

“Let’s go get my chemistry book,” she says. “It’s in the locker room. I’ll even give you a ride home after.”

She’s being nice. Ford said I was judgmental, and Kappy did too, in so many words. They were probably right. So maybe the first step toward self-improvement is to stop making assumptions about people I don’t know.

She tucks her elbow through mine and pulls me down the hall, chatting about how hot Tim from the party is and asking if I’ve had my colors done, to which I simply say no rather than admitting I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about.

I wish I did though.

I want to be like her. I want to float through the hallway, laughing and careless as I talk about boys I like and things I saw on TikTok. I just can’t seem to become that. I can’t seem to break free of this extreme self-consciousness, this rigidity. Even in New Hope, I could never fully relax. Maybe that makes sense, though. There, as here, a single poorly thought-out comment could lead to severe consequences.

She heads toward the small gym, which means we’re either going outside or we’re going into the boys’ locker room, and I assume it’s not the latter.

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” she says, walking away.

I frown, frustrated. “I really need to get⁠—”

A hand goes over my mouth. “If you scream,” the voice says, “you’ll be very sorry.”

I freeze. For a moment I hope it’s just a joke, but then I’m being dragged backward, through the boys’ locker room doors. My heart starts beating again, so fast I’m sick from it. I always thought that in this situation I’d struggle, but it’s as if my limbs have stopped working. I tell my arms to raise, and they don’t listen. I tell my voice to call for help, and the cry that emerges is weak as a new kitten’s.

My face is pressed to a locker and held there, a broad hand wrapped firmly around the back of my neck.

“Here she is,” says a second voice. “Welcome to the boys’ locker room, Prairie Girl.” A finger slides into the rolled-up waistband of my skirt. He’s not even touching my skin, but it wakes me up. I scream against the palm over my mouth and kick my leg backward.

He grunts, and his hand tightens around the back of my neck. “I told you⁠—”

I kick again. The door flies open.

“What the fuck?” shouts a voice.

The hands release me, and I turn to find Ford at the locker room’s entrance, his eyes wide and shocked. He pushes me behind him and then lunges forward, swinging his fist into someone’s face.

“Hey, man,” says another guy, whom I recognize. He’s dating one of the Kendalls. “We were just hooking you up.”

“How were you hooking me up?” Ford demands, grabbing the guy by the throat and throwing him against a locker. “How does raping someone help me in any fucking way?”

“She got your sister’s scholarship,” he argues. “And for fuck’s sake...we weren’t gonna rape her. Coach will be here any minute. We were just gonna scare her a little.”

Ford’s jaw is tight. “She has nothing to do with Leila, and the next time I catch any of you touching her, you’re fucking dead, understand? Dead.”

Ford puts his hand on the back of my arm and leads me out of the locker room and through the exterior door to the parking lot behind the school, which is mostly empty.

I sink to the ground as I start to shake—my limbs loose and rubbery, suddenly incapable of holding me upright. The whole ordeal probably took a minute at most, but it’s shattered me.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Nothing about this makes sense. It doesn’t make sense that Cora would set another girl up to live through that. It doesn’t make sense that they’d think what they did was okay, even if they only intended to scare me.

Most of all, it doesn’t make sense that Ford has wound up protecting me. And the only explanation is that I’ve been completely misjudging Ford for an incredibly long time.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

The absurdity of this makes me laugh, and sob, at the same time. The first guy who ever assaulted me is worried about me when someone else tries it. “Not really.”

After a moment, he drops to the curb beside me. He’s sweating, still wearing his pads from football. He must have come straight from the field.