wall, but Ahmed grabbed her arm.
“No, Ryann, no. It’s not worth it. Let’s just go,” Ahmed pleaded.
Ryann dropped the bottle, curled her hand into a fist, and went to punch the guy again, but stopped short.
Jenny’s boyfriend flinched.
“You’re a coward and you’re way too old to be here, you pompous piece of shit.” She got up, rolled her shoulders, and stalked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Shannon ran in after her.
“So … you guys should probably leave,” she said, putting a hand gently on Ryann’s arm. “But Jenny’s crying now, so I’m having a great time. I’ll grab a ride home with one of the pom-squad.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay,” Ryann agreed, shaking her head, trying to pull herself out of the fog. “We’ll take off.”
She called out to Tomas and the rest of her friends. Then she paused, leaned down, and patted Shannon on the cheek. “Night, Greenly.”
Shannon grinned. “Get home safe!”
30 MINUTES
Ahmed was driving everyone home down a road in one of the nicer parts of town, when Tomas spotted something strange.
Ahead of them, balanced precariously on the edge of the roof of a house, was the new kid from their history class. Alexandria’s hair was crisp white in the moonlight, and she wasn’t wearing a jacket even though it was getting cold outside.
She was holding her arm up high in the air, and there was something in her hand.
“Pull up next to the house,” Ryann said.
Ahmed looked at her warily but did it anyway.
Ryann hopped out of the car and cupped her hand around her mouth.
“Hey, new kid, what the fuck are you doing up there?” she yelled.
The girl turned, looked down to see who was talking to her, then turned completely back around. She didn’t respond.
“Yo. Asshole,” Blake yelled.
Alexandria didn’t even turn around this time.
“Chill out a bit,” Ryann hissed.
“Why are you so fucking rude?” she called out instead.
“Who just sits on their roof staring at the sky? It’s like one a.m. We have school tomorrow,” Tomas muttered.
“Just let it go.” Blake rolled his eyes. “She’s a dick, you’re a dick. Everyone in this school is a dick. Just look her up in the yearbook at the end of the year, or fight her and get it over with.”
Ryann glared at Alexandria’s back.
“Well now we know she’s into astronomy. At least you two have that in common,” Tomas said thoughtfully.
“If I don’t get a name, I’m making one up,” Ryann yelled.
The girl sat so still, but after a second, her head turned—just a little bit—to catch the sound.
Ryann grinned victoriously. There we are. She opened the car door and slid inside.
2 DAYS
You couldn’t nice some people open. Ryann knew that well.
Sometimes the only way to pry your arms away from tightly holding yourself together is when you’re given a reason to hold up your fists. Fighting for yourself is another way of loving yourself.
That’s the sort of knowledge you have to earn through experience.
It was indelicate, but it was honest. Angry people like Alexandria preferred that kind of honesty. Angry like Tomas had been. Angry like Ryann had been.
NEXT WEEK
They began to bother her.
It was little things at first: bumping her shoulder in the hallway, laughing whenever she said anything in class, mimicking her until her face got red. Eventually, it began to escalate. Tomas knocked her hat off while he was walking by. Ahmed flicked water at the back of her neck for a full class period. Blake filled her locker with bits of paper by painstakingly shoving it all through the tiny slats.
Ryann kept her hands clean.
She never did anything directly, just watched—curious—as Alexandria took it all in silence and rage. Curious, when Alexandria pushed Tomas down the stairs and walked away. When she threw her water bottle at the back of Ahmed’s neck when he got up to leave, drenching him as well as he had drenched her and giving him a welt on top of it. When she cleaned up the mess from her locker wordlessly, and then when Blake showed up for school the next day, his entire locker door had been removed from the hinges.
It was like nothing Ryann had ever seen before.
At the moment, Ahmed was casually tossing bits of paper at the back of Alexandria’s head—trying to get them to stick in her hair. She was sitting stock-still, only flinching when pieces would tumble free and brush her neck.
Ryann watched dispassionately for a while.
Suddenly, Alexandria gripped her pen like she was ready to stab Ahmed, so