The next day, I got up and my nose was stopped up and I could barely think straight because my head hurt so badly. I went into class anyway, because I didn’t want to miss a day but by the time I got to my English class with Becky, I wanted to just go home.

She cornered me as the class ended and dragged me down to the diner. “I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

She’d hissed the words in a way that told me she wasn’t just trying to get me to go eat with her. She really had something she needed to tell me.

“Listen,” I...