“I think I can make up my own mind about these things,” I told her.

“Ha!” she said. “As. If. If I wasn’t here you’d already be dead.”

This is just the type of melodramatic thing she says. “You’d be dead” or “I’d rather be dead” or “This is the worst thing in the entire world” or “I hate/love that more than anything in the world.”

Then to make her point she brought up her stupid list of ways she’s “saved” me, which started with a trip our day school took—how was I supposed to know some kinds of toads are poisonous?—and ended with her writing the personal essay part of my Emerson application. Which I did not even ask her to do and how can we know that has anything to do with whether I’ll get in or not? I was completely exasperated with her.

Finally I just said, “What the hell do you want?”

“I want you to stay away from Graham! How many ways do I have to say it? He did some creepy thing with Becky—filming her and writing about it in a little notebook—and I think he’s got some weird fucked-up stuff going on. I’ve been watching him.”

“It sounds like YOU have some weird stuff going on,” I told her. “It sounds like you’re the one people should watch out for, spying on him. Maybe he should watch out for you.”

She slapped her forehead dramatically. Another thing she always does.

“Listen,” I said, quietly and reasonably. “Why don’t you just try being honest for once in your life and admit that you don’t want me around him because you’ve got a crush on him.”

“That’s not true! I totally do not have a crush on him. C’mon, have you seen Declan Wells? Do you think I need someone like Graham when I’ve got Declan? Hello? Declan Wells? Dec. Lan. Wells?”

“You’re jealous,” I said simply. “I don’t know exactly how or why but you are.”

She said, “Just try to use your head, okay?” Another thing she says all the time to me: “try and use your head”—as if I’m a complete idiot. I was starting to lose my patience.

“And you try to calm down,” I whispered fiercely. “You can’t come to my work. You may get away with everything at home, but you can’t bring your weird problems here. Okay? Can’t you just wait until I get home to talk about this stuff? Why don’t you listen to anyone EVER?”

“Why doesn’t anyone listen to ME?” She actually looked pained, like she might cry. It was the first time since we were children that I saw her look so vulnerable. And that of course is my weakness. No matter how hard it is to deal with her, I always have compassion for her in the end. Somewhere deep down I know she means well. I wanted to listen to her, I wanted to work it out. But this was my job. She could disrupt our home life, but she couldn’t come around disrupting my job.

“All right. All right,” I said, coming around the desk and putting my arm around her. “We’ll talk about this at home, okay? We can talk all about it. I’m serious.”

“Forget it, Ally.” Her face was calm again and she looked around as if she didn’t know why she was there either. She started putting her headphones back on.

I reached out and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Even though we live in the same room in the same house we barely touch each other. We don’t usually hug. We don’t dance or wrestle or put our arms around each other anymore. She pulled away and in that moment she looked like she totally understood about why she had to go.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me. And that was another first.

Richards called me into her office again and I swear if it was anyone else I just would have skipped it entirely. I was really beginning to be sick of all this go-to-the-office bullshit. They could threaten me all they want. I have to do this or I have to do that. But really, what are they going to take away from me? I am second in the class behind Declan and if he keeps on smoking weed the way he does, I’ll be valedictorian by senior year. Even if I stop going to detention what are they going to do? Kick me out of school? And find someone else to win the Odyssey of the Mind competition for them all? Hardly. This stupid school owes me more than I owe it. Rules are for people stupid enough to follow them.

So anyway talking to Richards is not that bad because I think she actually gets all that stuff. She’s not like other teachers. With her weird licorice candy and her cigarette breath and her funky shoes, she kinda stands out. I bet she’s got tattoos underneath those pretty blouses she wears. Richards is cool. And if I ever doubted it, that day she called me in to talk about my “attitude” confirmed it.

“Tate, you are killing me,” she said as she shut the door. “Are you trying to kill me? I swear you are.”

“I assume this is about Letorno’s class?”

She raised her eyebrows and sighed heavily. “Oh, great. Is there some new report I haven’t gotten on you yet?”

“Maybe,” I said, and laughed a little.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “This isn’t about Letorno. It’s about skateboarding between classes, not wearing your shoes, and taking down flags that are hanging in the classroom. I have six different reports today alone about you skateboarding in the halls, skating on the front steps at lunch, and smoking on school grounds. Once again, girl: that board is supposed to be: In. Your. Locker.”

I shrugged.

“Listen. We got just a little more time to get through and then I swear to God, Tate, I swear. Look at me. After that you can go be a professional skater or an astrophysicist or whatever the heck it is you want to be, but here at RHS you gotta. Chill. Out.”

“Why?” I didn’t mean to sound like a snot or to just be contrary. I really was just curious. “I mean why do I have to stop all the things I do?”

“Because when you apply to schools you will have a disciplinary record that makes you look like someone who can’t handle the organization and pressure of academia. You’ll look like someone very inconsistent—why do you think? I’m not worried that Letorno is pissed about something or that you might fall and get hurt boarding in the halls. I don’t care what you wear or if you don’t wear shoes. I don’t care about that stuff. I know you’re competent at what you do. I know you understand things really quickly and you want to go outside instead of reviewing things in class. But I just care about you being able to leave Rockland and go where you’ll be happy and get a good education and be around people who will appreciate you for who you are.”

I nodded. No one had said anything like that to me and it actually made sense and I really did want Richards to feel better. I did. But I honestly didn’t know if I could do what people at school wanted. That was Ally’s job.

I shrugged. “I’m not one of those girls who does what everybody wants,” I tried to explain, and for some reason my voice came out all hoarse and weird.

Richards nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Exactly. I see what’s going on. There’s the problem right there. Thinking that there are kinds of girls who do kinds of things. Let me ask you something: You might not be doing what other people want, but are you actually doing what you want?”

I shrugged again.

She said, “You know, Tate. There are no kinds of girls. That’s something people make up to get women to behave in certain ways. Something people make up so they can control what you do.”

“The slut or the virgin,” I said. I knew about that stuff. I knew there were double standards. Big deal. I didn’t think I really had any part in those things.

“Right,” she said. “There’s lots of stupid ideas about girls, but we don’t have to pay attention to them, because they don’t make sense. And the more we ignore them, the more we tell people they’re wrong when they try to tell us there are two ways of being, the freer we all get. Got it? This attitude of yours doesn’t make a lot of sense either. You’re not going to become some obedient, weak person if you just follow some of the school rules so you can get into a good college. You’ll still be yourself. You use what the school gives you to get somewhere else. Hell, Tate, I don’t think you could get a bad grade if you tried. But you can sure make yourself get stuck here by other means, and you seem to be working hard at it. You don’t have to wrestle with being a certain way, with being good or bad. You’re just who you are.”