“Can I just say one thing, Mr. Peabody?” She doesn’t wait for him to say yes. She swivels around in her seat to face the rest of the class. “Before everybody votes, I just want to remind you guys of something. Homecoming queen isn’t a beauty contest, and it’s not about popularity. It’s about dedication, and school spirit, and making this a better place to go to school.”

As if planning parties not everyone is invited to makes this school a better place. Ugh. She’s so transparent, I can’t believe everyone else doesn’t see through her.

Rennie lowers her eyelashes, fake-humbly. “So please consider that when you vote, you guys.” As soon as she’s done with her speech, Rennie whispers to me, “This is so mine.”

“Nobody deserves it more than you,” I whisper back, showing her my ballot with her name checked off.

She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “You’re the best, Lil.”

*    *    *

My knee socks keep falling down. I wanted to wear sweats or leggings, but Rennie kept saying how knee socks are part of the powder-puff tradition. I was like, can’t we just dress up for the actual game? This is just practice. But no.

Like always, powder-puff is the day before the homecoming game. That’s when the senior girls play flag football, and the senior boys dress up like cheerleaders.

As soon as it came out that Reeve was coaching one team and Alex was coaching the other, Rennie volunteered to be captain on Reeve’s team. Ashlin’s the other captain and she won the coin toss, and I was praying that she would pick me, which she did. Obviously, I hate Alex, but Reeve is disgusting. I used to think his ego, his cockiness was a put on. No one could be that into himself. But now I know that it’s all true. I wonder if he’s thought about Mary once since that day. If he even realizes the hell he put her through. I doubt it. I doubt he’d even remember her name. Honestly, I think death would be going too easy on that monster.

Across the field Reeve blows his whistle. I watch him throw his head back and scream, “Suicides! I want suicides, men!” He’s loving this. Obviously, their team is going to win, since Reeve is Mr. Football, and both he and Rennie are super-competitive.

Alex doesn’t even have a whistle. Our team is basically just throwing footballs at each other, dropping them more often than we catch them. Ashlin yelps every time the ball comes near her face, and I can’t even get my whole hand around the thing. I don’t get why we can’t use a Nerf. People could get hurt.

“Girls!” Alex says, clapping his hands. “Run a few laps to get warmed up, okay? Then we’ll practice some plays.”

Some of the girls obey, but I ignore him and toss the ball to Ashlin again. It lands nowhere near her, and she goes running for it. “Sorry!” I call out.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around. It’s Alex. “Cho. I need to talk to you for a second.”

I can barely stand to look at him. Yesterday I saw him and Nadia talking in the courtyard. And I felt pretty stupid about the fact that I almost bailed on the Limp jersey plan. If anything, I wish we’d done more to Alex. But it’s not my turn anymore. “Um, I’m trying to practice,” I say.

“Now!” he barks, and stalks over to the bleachers.

I make a face at Ashlin, and she shrugs and jogs after the other girls on the track.

I follow Alex over to the bleachers and cross my arms. “Yes, Coach?” I say it as bitchy as I possibly can.

In a low, urgent voice he asks, “What is your problem with me?”

I stare at him. I just thought he was going to yell at me for not doing laps. “I don’t have a problem with you, Coach,” I say, but I’m glad he knows I’m angry. “Can I go now?”

“Stop calling me Coach! I thought we were friends, but lately you’re acting like you hate me. I don’t get it.”

Is Alex honestly this dumb? I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help myself. I look around to make sure no one’s in earshot, and then I say, “You want to be my friend? I’ll tell you how. Don’t call my sister. In fact, don’t talk to her ever again.” Alex opens his mouth like he’s going to defend himself, but I keep going. “Don’t come to our house in the middle of the night and get her to sneak out, don’t give her alcohol at parties, don’t—”

“You’ve got it all wrong! I didn’t give her any alcohol.”

“Hello! I found her shirt. And I know that she slept over your house that night. She’s fourteen, you pervert!”

Alex’s jaw goes slack in disbelief. Then he rears up and says, “Pervert? You need to get your facts straight. First of all, I never gave her any drinks. She was sneaking rum with her friends, and by the time I caught them, she was already drunk off her ass. While you were at some other party, I was cleaning up her throw-up and making sure she didn’t leave and get caught by your parents!” His Adam’s apple is bobbing up and down, and his fists are clenched. “Her friends left her, so she had to spend the night. I stayed up the whole time to make sure she didn’t drown in her own vomit. So, you’re welcome.”

I cross my arms. “If that’s true, why were you sneaking off with her in the middle of the night on the first day of school? Don’t bother trying to deny it. I saw you drop her off.”

“Because she called me crying! She wanted to make sure you never found out she was drunk that night. She made me promise not to tell you. That’s how much she cares what you think of her.” He lets out an impatient breath of air, shaking his head. “I told her that you had every right to be upset. And that I was going to be watching her too. And that if she ever had a drink in front of me, I was going to make sure you knew about it.”

I don’t say anything. I just look back over at the field where all the girls are running laps. I’m shivering now.

“I can’t believe you would ever think that of me, Lillia. You and I have been friends since the ninth grade! Our families are friends! Nadia’s practically my kid sister. I would never think of her like that!” He pushes his hair out of his eyes. Now that the sun isn’t as strong as it was in summer, his hair is looking less blond and more coppery. And longer. “That’s, like, sick.”

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

“Don’t worry about it.” I feel this sudden urge to confess everything to him. To really apologize, the way he deserves. But I can’t. Because it’s not just me. It’s Kat and Mary. I had them put themselves on the line for nothing.

I’m shaking, because I’m cold and because I’m sick over what I’ve done.

Alex takes a step toward me. He unzips his windbreaker, shrugs out of it, and drapes it over my shoulders. It has a clean laundry smell.

“Okay?” he asks, standing close to me. So close we’re almost touching. “I can’t handle it, you and me not being friends.” Quietly he adds, “You mean a lot to me. Always have. Always will.”

I open my mouth to speak, but before I can say anything, he starts to back away, back toward the field. Jogging, he calls, “Don’t think I’m letting you out of running those laps, Cho!”

I run them. Every last lap. Because if I stop, I’ll have to start thinking about what he said, and how I felt when he said it.

*    *    *

On Thursday, game day, PJ surprises me with a Tupperware full of snickerdoodles. I’m pretty sure his mom made them, because they are wrapped up in wax paper, and they are so perfectly chewy and soft, but I’m fine with that. All Ashlin gets from Derek is a sleeve of Chips Ahoy!, not even the whole box. Still, she is excited because she likes him and she’ll take anything he gives her. Reeve made Rennie some kind of protein cookie. They are as hard as bricks and they look like manure, but Rennie makes a big show of eating them at lunch.

A ton of people show up to watch us play. Not as many as an actual football game, but still. The boys from the team dress up in cheerleading uniforms and wigs and cheer along the side. It’s pretty funny. PJ wears a long black wig, and he keeps trying to do toe-touches, my signature move.

Just like I predicted, Rennie and Reeve’s team wins. Rennie scores the only touchdown, and she just about clotheslines Teresa to make it to the end zone. After the game is over, Reeve throws her over his shoulder and carries her off the field, screaming himself hoarse. As if they won the gold medal at the Olympics or something.

They better enjoy it while they can. Because they’re about to lose, big-time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MARY

ACCORDING TO LILLIA, COACH CHRISTY KEEPS HER office locked at all times. Ten minutes and thirty-three seconds ago, she entered her office with the box of homecoming ballots. Her door is open a crack. She’s been typing on her computer for the past seven minutes and ten seconds. I know because I’ve been watching the clock at the end of the hallway the whole time. I’m leaned up against some lockers, and Kat is pretending to text on her phone by the water fountain.

At exactly four o’clock Lillia comes flying past Kat and me, her ponytail swishing from side to side. “Coach Christy!” she calls out frantically. “You have to come right now! There’s a cheer-mergency in the girls’ locker room!”

“What’s going on, Lillia?” Coach Christy asks, stepping out of her office.

“Please just hurry!” she says, tugging on Coach Christy’s arm. “I think one of the freshman girls is having a breakdown or something. She’s totally freaking out!”

The two of them disappear down the hallway.

Kat and I grin at each other, and after a quick glance around to make sure no one’s watching us, we slip inside. I stay crouched by the door while Kat makes a beeline for the ballot box. She said Pat taught her how to pick locks when she was a kid. All you needed was a piece of a soda can. It seemed crazy to me, but she opens it in almost five seconds. She dumps the contents out on Coach Christy’s desk.

“Looks like Reeve won without our help,” Kat grunts as she sifts through the piles.

“I’m not surprised,” I say. “He’s definitely the best-looking guy in the senior class.” Kat gives me a weird look, but it’s true. She stuffs some slips of paper into her messenger bag. Votes for Rennie, I assume. Rennie won’t get to stand up there on that stage with him now. Too bad for her. Maybe she shouldn’t be such a bully.

I train my eyes back on the hallway. Lillia and the coach could be back any minute. “Are you almost done?” I whisper.

“I’m just counting to make sure Ashlin has enough votes,” she says, her head down.

That’s when I hear Lillia’s voice coming down the hallway, high and hyper. “Oh, my gosh. I thought she was crying, but I guess she was just laughing!”

“Kat!”

Kat’s head snaps up. “I’m not done counting!”

I shake my head. “We have to hide!”

Kat stuffs the ballots back into the box and then looks around the room frantically before she sees the supply cubby. She gestures at me to follow, but when she opens the door, we see that it’s way too small for both of us.

Lillia is babbling, and now they’re right outside the door. “It’s so weird! I mean, I think I even heard rumors she was a cutter or something, but I guess not! Maybe it’s just multiple personality disorder.” She giggles nervously. “We’ve all been kind of crazed, with all the stress of homecoming.”

I dart behind the office door, and peek out to the hallway through a tiny sliver between the door hinges.

“Well, I appreciate you keeping me in the loop, Lillia. It’s important that I know what’s going on with my squad.”

“Oh, totally.”

“Is there anything else?”

Through the crack Lillia’s and my eyes meet. Hers go huge. And then the phone sitting on Coach Christy’s desk rings.

“I’ve got to get that,” she says. Coach Christy grabs a hold of the door. I see her fingers curl around it. She’s going to close it, take the phone call in private. If she does, I’m done for. I am trying so hard not to breathe. I curl my feet in as tightly as I can and close my eyes. We’re going to get caught, and it will be my fault.

“Wait!” Lillia cries out.

“Just a minute, Lillia,” Coach Christy says. “I’ll be right with you.”

Coach Christy stops talking suddenly, and my heart almost stops. I open my eyes. But Coach Christy hasn’t seen me after all. She shouts, “Lillia!” and rushes out.

I peek through the crack again. Lillia has fainted. She is a small heap on the floor of the hallway. Coach Christy is shaking her, trying to wake her up. Lillia flutters her lids. “I don’t feel so good,” she whispers. “Can you take me to the nurse’s office?”

Coach Christy practically sweeps her off the floor, throwing one of Lillia’s arms around her shoulders. And then they’re gone.

“They’re gone!” I whisper loudly to Kat.

She crawls out of the cubby. “That was way too close.” I figure she’ll go back to the ballots, but instead she runs into the hallway. I follow her.

“Boo-yah!” Kat yells when we get outside.

“I thought she saw me for sure.”

“Well, obviously she didn’t!” Kat pumps her fist in the air. “I just wish I could’ve seen Lillia’s performance.” She mimics, “‘I don’t feel so good.’”

I try to smile, but something doesn’t seem right. “Did you make sure there were enough votes for Ashlin to win?” I ask.