She had no idea what had happened after he’d made his confession. Had he been suspended? She finally saw him in the hallway on the way to social studies. His hair was a mess, there was a hole in the bottom of the T-shirt he was wearing, and his shoelaces were untied—so he looked pretty much the same as always. Alex couldn’t tell if something bad had happened or not. She wove through the crowd to talk to him, but Max saw her out of the corner of his eye and actually broke into a jog to avoid her. He obviously didn’t want to speak to her. He quickly darted into class. When Alex entered, she saw that he had his notebook open and was pretending to study something very intently. Alex tried to approach him again at lunchtime, as he walked out of the lunch line. But he made a sharp turn in the opposite direction, and Alex didn’t follow. He was clearly avoiding her, embarrassed by what had happened. But Alex really wanted to thank him. Copying her homework—that had been wrong. But telling the truth to keep Alex out of trouble—that was really brave.
