Chapter 4: A Splinter of Light

The diagnosis was a new kind of sentence, a life term handed down in sterile medical language. But unlike the one I lived under, my mother was invisible, a secret war waged inside her own body. We became a household of two convicts, learning the routines of our respective prisons. Her new medicine joined mine on the kitchen table, a different kind of pill bottle with a different, staggering co-pay. We didn’t talk about the future. We talked about the next dose, the next meal, and the next day.

The Spring Fling loomed, a surreal beacon in our gray landscape. The day of, my mom insisted on helping me get ready, a ritual that was equal parts heartbreaking and absurd.

“Your hair,” she said, her voice still raspy but firm. “Let me at least braid it.”

So I sat on a kitchen chair, naked, while my dying mother carefully wove my hair into an intricate crown braid. It was an act of profound, defiant love. She was adorning the billboard. When she was done, she turned me around and smiled, her eyes glistening. “There. Now you look dressed up.”

It was the most beautiful and terrible thing anyone had ever done for me.

Duane, true to his word, arrived with Leo and Sarah. He was wearing a simple button-down shirt and looked endearingly nervous. His eyes met mine, and he didn’t look down, didn’t flinch. He just smiled. “You look nice,” he said, and it felt utterly genuine.

The gymnasium had been transformed. Strings of fairy lights twinkled overhead, trying to disguise the sweat and bleach smell that always lingered. The music was loud, the bass a physical thump in my chest. For the first hour, it was exactly what Leo had promised: strength in numbers. We claimed a corner, a territory of our own. We danced in our little group, a chaotic, laughing mess. For stretches of time, surrounded by my friends, the music swallowing the whispers, I almost forgot. I was just a girl at a dance, the lights strobing across my skin like just another special effect.

Then came the announcement.

“Alright, Wildcats!” the student council president yelled into the mic, his voice echoing. “It’s time to crown our Spring Fling Royalty! Let’s bring our nominated court up to the stage!”

A spotlight swept across the dance floor. It landed on the usual suspects: the quarterback, the head cheerleader, the class president. And then, it stopped on Duane and me.

My blood turned to ice. This wasn’t part of the plan. We weren’t supposed to be in the running. We were just ... us.

Duane looked as shocked as I felt, but he recovered faster. He took my hand, his grip warm and steady. “Come on,” he said softly. “We don’t have to win. We just have to stand there.”

The walk to the stage was the longest of my life. The music had died, replaced by a buzzing, anticipatory silence. Every single eye in the gym was on us, on me. The fairy lights felt like interrogation lamps. The crinkly paper seat cover in Biology was a universe away. This was exposure, raw and absolute.

We climbed the steps to the stage, lining up with the other nominees. I stood beside Duane, my hand still in his, focusing on the grain of the wooden stage floor. I could feel the heat from the stage lights baking my skin.

Then I heard it. A sharp, hissed whisper from the line of girls a few feet away. It was Chloe Summers, flanked by her usual court of A-listers. They were shimmering in sequins and silk, their makeup perfect. I was in a braid and my own skin.

“This is disgusting,” Chloe spat, not even bothering to lower her voice. “They can’t actually expect us to stand up here with ... that.”

Her friend, Maya, nodded, her face twisted in a sneer. “It’s a joke. She’s making the whole thing a freak show. It’s supposed to be an honor.”

Their words weren’t meant for me; they were a performance for the audience, a reassertion of the social order I had transgressed. But they landed like shards of glass. The old shame, the one I thought I’d buried under layers of defiance and paper seat covers, rose hot and swift in my throat. On this stage, under these lights, I wasn’t Elaine who struggled in Chemistry. I was the naked girl again.

Duane’s hand tightened around mine. He took a half-step forward, his body angling slightly in front of mine, a human shield. He didn’t say a word to them. He just looked at me, his gaze blocking out their venom.

“Ignore them,” he murmured, his voice a low anchor in the storm of my humiliation. “They’re nothing.”

The principal, Mr. Davies, looking deeply uncomfortable, hurried over with the crowns. The tension on the stage was a live wire. As he moved down the line, placing a glittering plastic crown on each queen’s head, he reached Chloe. Then he turned to me.

For a horrific, suspended second, I thought he was going to crown me, to place that tangible object on the head of the “billboard.” But he faltered, his eyes darting from my face to the utterly hostile glare of Chloe Summers. The moment broke. He moved past me to the next person.

We hadn’t won. We were never meant to. We had been put on stage to be put in our place.

But as we walked off the stage, the applause was scattered, confused. I kept my head high, my hand locked in Duane’s. The A-list girls had tried to strip me bare all over again, but they had failed. I was still clothed in my braid, in my friend’s hand, in the quiet loyalty of my small group waiting for me at the edge of the dance floor.

The sentence was still there. The shame could still bite. But as the music started up again, swallowing the memory of the hissed insults, I realized something had shifted. They could put me on stage, but they could no longer define the performance. I was still here.

The music swelled again, a pulsing pop song meant to erase the awkwardness on stage. We retreated to our corner, the bubble of our group feeling both safer and more fragile. The adrenaline from the confrontation was still buzzing in my veins, a bitter cocktail of humiliation and defiance. I could feel the phantom burn of Chloe’s glare from across the gym.

Then, a movement at the edge of our group caught my eye. One of Chloe’s shadows—a girl named Isabelle who was always two steps behind Maya, her laughter always a half-beat too late—was detaching herself from the glittering cluster. She moved through the crowd, not towards the bathroom or the punch bowl, but directly towards me.

My guard shot up. Sarah tensed beside me, and Leo took a subtle step forward. Was this a second wave of the attack? A delivered message?

But Isabelle’s face held none of Chloe’s venom. It was pale, her eyes wide with a nervous intensity. She stopped in front of me, her hands twisting together. She didn’t look at Duane or my friends; her gaze was locked on me, but it wasn’t a stare. It was a plea.

“Elaine,” she said, her voice so low I had to lean in to hear it over the thumping bass. She swallowed hard, gathering courage. “I just ... I had to tell you.” She took a shaky breath. “If I were charged as you were ... if I had to go through what you do every day ... I would want to be as strong as you are now.”