Back in bed now, just starting to drift off, Penny heard someone whisper her name from her bedside table. She yawned, stretched to turn on her lamp, and found Ellen’s face looking at her from the mirror.
“Sorry … I couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s okay,” Penny said, hiding another jaw-stretching yawn behind a hand before picking the mirror up and lying down with it. “Have you decided?”
“No,” Ellen said, and Penny thought it pained her to say the word. Penny thought she understood Ellen a little better now than she had earlier that day. Ellen was popular without being a joiner, unconditionally friendly and outgoing to almost everyone. She strived for harmony, even within the chaos of emotion and uncertainty of a teenage girl’s life. She didn’t like conflict, and she sensed the coming conflic
