REVENGE WEARS MY NAME

The gates of Crestwood Prep hadn't changed. Wrought iron, polished until it gleamed, topped with gold spikes meant to look like crowns. They had always looked like a warning to me. I stood outside them with my backpack strap digging into my shoulder and waited for something inside me to break. Nothing did. Good. The guard booth beside the gate was occupied, but not by the man I expected. Mr. Dobbs used to sit there with his thermos at his elbow, waving at me every morning and calling me "Miss Hale" like it was a title. This guard was younger, with a sharp haircut and a bored face. Maybe Mr. Dobbs retired, I told myself. Or quit. People leave jobs all the time. Relief and a strange pang of grief tangled in my chest. I hadn't realized how badly I'd been bracing for his face. "Name?" the new guard asked, not looking up from his tablet. "Nova Wren," I said. "Transfer student. I'm expected at the front office." "Wren, Wren." He scrolled, then pressed a button, and the gate began to hum open. "Straight ahead. Try not to get lost. It's a big place." I know, I almost said. I know every inch of it. "Thank you," I said instead, and walked through. Behind me, the gate clanged shut. The sound went through my bones like a bell. I had rules for today, worn smooth from repeating them on the bus. Rule one: don't look like you're looking. Rule two: don't stop walking. Rule three: no matter who you see, your face stays blank. The driveway curved past a fountain nobody drank from and a line of black SUVs where drivers in sunglasses waited for kids who had never opened their own car doors. The air smelled like cut grass and money. "Is she new?" The whisper came from a cluster of girls on the steps, legs crossed at the exact same angle. I didn't turn my head. "Who transfers senior year?" "Someone with a really good reason," another voice said, and they all laughed. I almost smiled. You have no idea. I climbed the stone steps. Halfway up, a girl hurried down with folders hugged to her chest. Hannah Briggs. Chemistry partner, second row, left side. She used to copy my homework and pay me back in gummy bears. For one terrible second, we were an arm's length apart. My chest locked. Hannah's gaze slid across my face the way it would slide across a vending machine. "Sorry," she said, stepping around me. "Excuse me." Then she was gone. Three years ago, that girl had sat on the edge of my bed and cried with me. Now she couldn't pick me out of a crowd of one. It turns out you can walk straight past the people who ruined you, and all they'll say is excuse me. I pushed through the heavy doors. In the front office, Mrs. Pruitt was typing with two fingers and a frown. She had once slipped me a granola bar during finals week and told me not to tell anyone. "Good morning. I'm Nova Wren. I'm here for my schedule." "Wren, Wren." The printer coughed out a page. "Senior year, transferring in from Ohio?" "Ohio," I confirmed. A small town, a small school, a very forgettable girl. I had built the whole file myself, one forged record at a time. "And your parent or guardian?" Mrs. Pruitt asked. "My aunt signed everything online. She's traveling for work." The aunt was fake, and so was the signature. I'd practiced both until my hand stopped shaking. Mrs. Pruitt nodded and typed it in. No one at Crestwood ever checked what rich parents signed. She slid the schedule across the counter. Then she stopped, fingers resting on the paper, and looked at me properly for the first time. A tiny line appeared between her brows. The air in the room went thin. "Have we met, dear? You look so familiar." Here it was. The first test, the one I'd lain awake imagining for weeks. I let my face do exactly nothing. "I get that a lot. I think I just have one of those faces." A beat. Two. I watched a memory try to surface behind her eyes. Then she laughed softly and shook her head. "Of course. Forgive me, old age. Locker 212, combination's on the back. Don't let the hallway scare you." "I won't." The bell rang as I stepped out, and the whole school poured into the corridor like water breaking through a dam. I let the current carry me. Above the main staircase hung a banner in Crestwood's gold and navy. FOUNDERS' DAY: ADDRESS BY SCHOOL BOARD CHAIRMAN VICTOR CALLOWAY My steps faltered. I'd have known that name with my eyes closed. I'd have known it at the bottom of the ocean. My hand slid into my blazer pocket and found the folded paper that lived there, soft at the creases from being opened and closed so many times. Five names, in my own handwriting, pressed so hard the pen had dented the page. Stay calm. Don't stop walking. That was when I heard the laugh. It came from somewhere to my left, warm and easy and a little too loud, the laugh of a boy who had never wondered whether he was welcome anywhere. I had once fallen asleep to that laugh on the other end of a phone call. I didn't turn. If I turned, my face would do something, and three years of work would crumble in a hallway full of witnesses. So I counted my steps. Seven. Eight. Nine. At the foot of the staircase, I stopped, as if I were checking my schedule like any lost new girl. The glass trophy case beside me held the whole hallway in its reflection: Flashing lockers, a blur of navy and gold. And a boy at the top of the stairs. He leaned against the railing, a dark varsity jacket hanging open over his uniform. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't talking, or pretending to look at his phone. He was watching me. Everyone else in that hallway had looked at me and seen a stranger. A blank page. He was the only one who looked at me like he'd been waiting. I spun around to meet his eyes. But the top of the staircase was empty. Nobody at Crestwood remembered Nova Hale. That was the whole point. That was the plan. So why did it feel like someone had just said my name?