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nicest person. The word “bitch” might not have been a total misnomer, and there were days when even I didn’t like me. Maybe I should have just let the poor girl use the bathroom, but come on! I was in crisis, and the second-floor bathroom was always open. And honestly, would it have killed Lissy to realize that I was probably the first person all year to call Mindy Morrison by her real name?
    I stepped forward and flipped the lock on the bathroom door. The last thing I needed was another silent battle with Lissy over whether or not the toilets were open for business. I didn’t have to justify myself to her.
    I just had to ask for her help.
    “Listen,” I said bluntly. “I think I may be in trouble.” I bit my bottom lip and looked away. Admitting weakness was as good as asking someone to use it against you, and there was no way that those particular words should have come tumbling out of my mouth.
    I waited, and Lissy said nothing. I’d actually asked for help (more or less), and her only response was some silent inner rant at the fact that I’d commandeered the bathroom for my own purposes. Asking another girl for help was never a good idea. I knew that. What was it about the James family that had me tossing all the rules out the window? What was I even doing, locked in a bathroom with the most recently Non-ed member of the sophomore class? I mean, there was such a thing as geek by association. And to top it off, I’d left Fuchsia alone with Tracy, the boys, a need to prove herself, and a skirt that was at least an inch shorter than mine.
    “Well, excuse me,” I blurted out in response to Lissy’s accusing silence and “you kick puppies” facial expression. “I’m sorry if there are bigger things going on here than some massive Non’s tiny bladder.”
    Somehow, that hadn’t sounded quite so horrible in my head. But before I could take it back and explain myself more calmly, Lissy turned, unlocked the door, and fled the bathroom. After everything I’d done for her, the one time I actually needed something she walked away without so much as a single word.
    “This is my swing, and you can’t sit on it.”
    The surface of the door quivered, and though I tried to fight it, I couldn’t help but step toward the scene I saw playing along its surface.
    The little girl’s darkly lashed eyes clouded over as the blond child on the swing issued decrees like a playground princess.
    “Only people who have purple shoes can use this swing.”
    The dark-haired girl glanced down at her own white Keds. Her mother had promised they’d go shoe shopping right after Mommy’s next big test.
    Her mother made a lot of promises.
    “I can too play on that swing,” the dark-haired child said bravely. She glanced over at the other little girls in their group. “Can’t I?” She hadn’t meant it as a question, but they took it as one.
    “No,” the girl on the swing said loudly. “You don’t have purple shoes, so you can’t play.”
    The other two purple-shoed girls remained silent and looked away.
    After a long moment, the dark-haired girl, a look of determination on her face, turned away from her silent playmates. “Fine,” she said. Head held high, she stalked over to the swing and gave the bossy little girl sitting there a good shove that sent her flying backward. The others stared at her, half in horror, half in awe.
    “Your shoes aren’t purple,” the dark-haired girl explained daintily. “They’re blue.”
    “Lilah?”
    My head was so full of images and memories that it took me a few seconds to recognize my own name. I hadn’t thought about that day on the swing for years, and now I hadn’t just thought about it, hadn’t just remembered it.
    I’d seen it.
    “Are you okay, Li?”
    Just like I’d seen the boy in the jeans.
    “Earth to Lilah, do you read me?”
    Just like I’d seen my four-year-old self staring back at me in the mirror and three girls with sad eyes holding hands over their