That last week at school had been difficult for Danielle, I knew—anonymous notes had been passed to her in class, a used tampon placed in her PE locker. The Gay-Straight Alliance had taken up Danielle’s cause, actively campaigning against hate speech. Well-meaning students had conducted class visits preaching tolerance and calling for a stop to the shaming. Although the message was a good one, it kept implicitly reflecting back on Danielle and the crush she didn’t have on Kelsey Jorgensen. All she needed was two weeks off, I figured. In January, the silly rumor from Winter Formal would be yesterday’s news, replaced by some new drama. That was the way scandals worked in the adult world, too. Politicians banked on our short memories. In the meantime, she’d struck up a friendship with Hannah Bergland, who’d brought over some of her mom’s homemade peanut brittle. The two of them ate the entire plateful watching a movie in our den.
