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I read it twice, because apparently I enjoyed suffering.

“Is that really what everyone thinks?” I asked.

Sadie took her phone back. “Everyone doesn’t think anything. Everyone repeats things.”

“That’s somehow worse.”

“Sometimes.”

I started walking again. “I have questions.”

“About which part?”

“Mostly the twins.”

She nodded solemnly. “I know. You read my mind. Scientifically irresponsible.”

I looked at her. “What?”

“Assuming identical dick size without collecting data.”

“That’s your contribution?”

“You said you had questions.”

I started laughing despite myself.

Sadie smiled once, satisfied, and let it die there.

That was why we worked. She could land a knife and didn’t feel compelled to keep twisting it.

Unfortunately, Travis High had no such restraint.

We weren’t even through the front doors before I noticed people looking. Not staring exactly.

Looking, whispering, looking away.

At me. At the Bishops.

Back at me.

A sophomore boy held the door open and visibly started to say something. His friend grabbed his sleeve and pulled him along before he got it out.

Good instincts. Everybody knew the Bishops.

Everybody knew me.

Sadie and I had our own place in the school ecosystem too.

I’d once overheard two girls explaining us to someone new.

“That one’s crazy,” one had said, nodding toward Sadie. Then she pointed at me. “And that one’s a mental case.”

Sadie had been delighted. “Perhaps I’m less misunderstood than I thought.”

I had not. “What do these people think they even know about me? It’s bullshit.”

Sometimes it was convenient, though. Usually that particular reputation kept people polite.