The Senior Pledge

The phone buzzed against my nightstand at 11:47 p.m., and I knew before I opened it. I knew because I had lived this exact night before, down to the humidity pressing through my bedroom window and the taste of toothpaste still sharp on my tongue. I picked it up. The screen glowed with a photo of a rooftop pool, string lights, and a banner that read ONE NIGHT ONLY. Cassidy: everyone. we are adults now. act like it. tonight. the clubhouse on Harbor Street. 12:30. Cassidy: bring your own bottle and your own nerve. The group chat erupted in green bubbles and fire emojis. Twenty-three people, the entire senior class of Ashford Prep who had bothered to stay in touch after graduation, all of them suddenly brave at midnight. Then, three dots, and the message I already knew was coming. Cassidy: @Nora you're class president. you gonna ruin this too? My chest went tight. Last time, I had ruined it. I had called every parent, emailed the head of school, stood on the sidewalk outside that clubhouse in my pajama shorts until eleven cars turned around and went home. The party died. Cassidy lost the vendor kickback she had already spent. Everyone blamed me. And four days later, she was dead, and they carried me up to the roof of the Ashford parking garage and made me kneel in front of her photograph. I still felt the cold concrete on my knees when I closed my eyes. This time, my thumbs hovered over the keyboard. I could say nothing. I could let it happen and pretend I had never seen it. The party would go on. Cassidy would get her money. Nobody would die. Or I could do the one thing I had never tried, the thing I had been too proud and too scared to do before. Cassidy: well? I typed slowly. Nora: I'm in. The chat went silent for a full ten seconds. Then it exploded. Devin: no way Priya: Nora??? Cassidy: screenshot that. everyone screenshot that. the perfect Nora Kellerman is coming to the party. I set the phone face down and stared at the ceiling. I was not going to stop that party. I was going to be inside it, where I could see everything. Because last time, I never learned who bought the pills. I never learned who filmed the back room. I only learned what they wanted me to believe about myself. That I was the girl who killed Cassidy Webb by being good. Tomorrow at midnight, I would know the truth. Or I would be on that roof again. Either way, I was done being the one who knelt.