And what had she, Thea, done? Had she yanked the fire hose from the hall wall and doused them both with it, hoping the water pressure might be strong enough to send the cheaters sailing down the hall on a wave? No! Spineless, sniveling coward that she was, she’d simply gone mute, spun around and stumbled out the door without so much as a hiccup. She’d seen enough movies to know that people in shock shut down, that their whole bodies turned off and that if they moved at all, they moved like someone in a dream, silently, numbly. That was it. She’d been in shock. Correction: She was still in shock. Which was why she was now wandering down Spencer Road, a good half-mile away from school, in her floor-length, purple satin prom dress with a pair of blisters the size of quarters on her heels. After seeing Patrick and Karen glued to each other, she had walked straight out of the gym and kept walking, her feet swollen and aching, her immaculately applied make-up probably sliding down her face like a deranged mime.
