“Grandma told me it had to be my choice. She asked me three times if I was sure.”
A few people laughed through their tears.
“I was sure.”
Then Tessa looked out across the auditorium.
“I
wanted to thank Grandma because she came when we called.”
Those words cut straight through me.
She came when we called.
Not Mom.
Grandma.
Nadine had been the one Tessa trusted to come.
Because Nadine always came.
I looked down at my hands.
Suddenly, I understood what Nadine had been trying to tell me.
After the performance, the principal asked Tessa and June to stay behind.
The note I had found hadn’t been written to Tessa.
It had been written to June.
The girls responsible for the gum had apparently slipped it into June’s locker afterward.
Tessa had taken it because June was terrified her parents would see it.
By the time I reached the hallway, two sets of parents had been called, and the school was already discussing suspensions.
