By the time I reached the front doors Wednesday morning, the story had already outgrown its original shape.
I could tell from the hallway before I even got my coat off. Clusters of students stood closer together than usual, phones angled toward each other instead of down at their own screens, voices dropped to that specific register people used when a rumor was too good, or too awful, to say at full volume. I caught fragments as I passed. Did you see it? I heard there's a video. Someone said her old school actually covered it up.
None of it was quite right. All of it was close enough.
Maya found me at my locker, phone already in hand, scrolling with the grim focus of someone triaging a disaster.
"It's everywhere," she said without preamble. "Like, everywhere, everywhere. Someone screen
