Shaking, Girl headed in the opposite direction of Instructor Madsen's class and Virgo followed. She wanted to make sure she was okay and ensure the Pretty Punishers weren't going to try and trap her around the next blind corner. Besides, next time, there might not be a Virgo nearby to make them kept it cute with the pinking shears.

Girl sniffled noisily into her armful of books.

"I don't need you to look after me. I can take care of myself."

Virgo shrugged. "So can I. You think that makes you special? I think it makes you wet and covered in what I hope is garbage." She picked a pink paisley wrapper out of Girl's hair. Definitely Kotex.

"They dumped the tampon disposal box on me."

"That's nasty."

"They're pretty nasty themselves." She tugged at her drenched hair. "I'd done it special today."

"Any particularly reason?"

Girl pursed her lips and stared at her shoes. "Doesn't matter now. They ruined it. They're always ruining things for me. I should have known better than to think they'd just leave me alone for one day."

"The fastest way to lose something is to let somebody know you want it."

"I just wanted one good day. Just one." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm sorry I made you late. Um, can you tell Instructor Madsen I'll be in later?" Her face crumpled as she glanced down at her soaked peasant blouse. "Or maybe not today but I'll come after school. I have to change."

"Do you have anything to change into?"

"Probably in my gym locker. It'll be weird, but no weirder than anything they've already seen me in." Girl was hurt. Her bold brows kept twitching. Her mouth was pursed tight. Her arms were bloodless she hugged her books so hard. Her eyes kept welling up and Virgo wasn't supposed to see, so she pretended not to.

"You want me to come along?"

"I'm good."

Girl attempted to save face. She pasted on that persona she had introduced to Virgo two days ago. All haughty 'don't give a fuck'-ery and madame president of the unbothered society of 'too good for your shit' teas. It sat weird on her trembling features, like a shapeshifter trying to figure out who her watcher expected to see. Keeping your head up when you wanted to die was hard. Trying to curry favor with your audience at the same time? Impossible.

"Let's go to my locker first. I've got tissue. It'll help you get dry," she added when it looked like Girl might still refuse her help.

Virgo had tissue in her pockets and in her bag, but she figured Girl could use the time to pull herself together. The halls had emptied out with the sounding of the second bell. It was the just the two of them, the burnout stragglers loitering at the stairwell, and the janitorial staff that didn't get paid enough to rat on kids skipping class.

Girl kept to her heels. She was playing with a striped hair tie, twisting it between her hands.

"How'd you do your hair this morning? I bet it was nice."

"Top knot. Like a ballerina."

"You do ballet?" Like that mattered. Ballet was a fashion statement these days. Ballet flats. Ballet buns. Leotards. Tights. Crossbody bags. It was a Look. The dancing was secondary in the mainstream.

"I used to, when I was little."

"Were you good?" Probably not. Once you hit eleven, they stopped letting you do fun stuff you weren't that good at. Suddenly, it was too expensive to waste money on. As if happiness had ever come free anyway for most people.

"You can guess. Not graceful enough. Not thin enough."

"You're pretty stringy from here." She looked average to Virgo who was used to orange jumpsuits that could keep a pregnancy secret for seven months. Everybody was small in her eyes if she could identify their waistline. Girl didn't have a waist small enough for Virgo to get her hands around or anything, but Virgo's hands were pretty petite, all things considered.

Girl rolled her eyes, saying, like she'd memorized it: "I like French fries. Milk shakes. Bacon. Hate protein shakes. Don't like getting up in the morning. Hate shaving. Madame Babineaux didn't think I had enough heart to be a prima. That means you're not worth their time. None of them, not even the theater company washouts wants a part-time ballerina who wouldn't mind being other things too. You bleed ballet or you just bleed."

"Sounds like a cult." Virgo laughed at her own inside joke. Everything sounded like a cult when you broke it down to the religious devotion it took to sustain a cause or an interest. Didn't people notice that? Rhetorical question. People didn't notice anything they didn't want to see. Nobody wanted to be a zealot except the ones behind pulpit bullying the ones sitting in pews.

"It's not so bad. I made a lot of friends there."

"Still friends with them?"

Girl shook her head. "They don't have time for me and I don't have much to talk about with them. I just do my own thing."

"You seemed to have a lot of folks hanging around at lunch yesterday."

"Everybody loves a weirdo. They have the best stories."

"You did ballet. That's not weird."

"I was eight. Everybody did ballet or gymnastics. Try your best. Be your best. Be better than the very best."

"I want to be the very best that no one ever was?"

"Gotta catch 'em all."

"You like old kids shows?"

"I like everything for a while."

When she looked at Virgo, her eyes lingered.