They made it to the car.
Lucy lasted until her seatbelt clicked.
"Okay," she said, attempting Lucas's voice. "'He chased me down a hallway with a stick.'" She turned to face Alice with the full attention of someone who had been sitting on this for the last ten minutes. "Alice."
"I heard it too," Bryan said, starting the car.
"What happened," Lucy said. "I need the whole thing."
"I handled it," Alice said. "Using a stick."
"That's not what I'm looking for."
"It's the one you're getting."
Bryan pulled out of the parking spot. Lucy sat back for about four seconds before leaning forward between the seats again.
"You actually chased him," she said. "Down the hallway. After the principal's office."
Alice said nothing.
"With a stick," Bryan said.
Still nothing.
"Alice, I need you to say it out loud," Lucy said. "For me personally. I just need to hear it."
The campus moved past the windows. Bryan slowed for a group crossing without looking and said nothing about it.
Then Alice said, "He tried to touch my hair."
A beat.
"So yes," Alice said. "I chased him."
Lucy made a sound that started as an attempt at responsibility and collapsed almost immediately. She pressed both hands over her mouth. Her shoulders went. Bryan said nothing, but one hand came briefly off the wheel before going back.
"He ran," Lucy said, through her hands.
"Yes."
"He actually ran."
"He ran while telling me to stop," Alice said. "But I was already committed."
That finished Lucy off. She went sideways in the backseat with no further attempt at composure, laughing the real kind, the kind with no shape to it at all. Bryan pulled over, put the car in park, and sat there for a moment.
Then he laughed too.
Not his usual quiet thing. A real one, full and unguarded, filling the car before he got it back under control and pressed his hand briefly over his mouth. Lucy, who had just started to recover, went right back over the edge the moment she heard it.
Alice was looking out the passenger window.
His ears had gone pink. The particular color of someone who was embarrassed and was very aware of it and found that second part even more embarrassing.
Bryan caught it in the reflection off the glass. He didn't say anything. He didn't point it out or make a thing of it. He just looked at Alice sitting there with his ears pink and his eyes on the middle distance, wearing the expression of someone only now fully processing what he had done, and Bryan stopped laughing. He smiled instead. Quietly, to himself.
Lucy was still going in the backseat.
Bryan put the car back in drive.
"He deserved it," Bryan said.
Alice said nothing.
"I'm being serious," Bryan said. "He had it coming."
Alice kept his eyes on the road ahead. The pink hadn't gone anywhere. Bryan didn't mention it. Lucy recounted the whole thing twice over in a voice that kept breaking. Bryan listened and drove. Alice sat with the window and the amber light and the specific experience of being known by two people who had known him long enough that there was no version of anything he did that they wouldn't eventually find out.
He was dropped home. The car pulled away from the curb. He stood at the gate a moment longer than he needed to, then went inside.
Three days passed.
Friday arrived the way Fridays did, with the feeling of something finally loosening. Alice had not gone back to the room. Not a decision exactly. He'd just found other things to do with the after-school hours. Reading, mostly.
Lucas was in that room. Every time Alice had started to think about going back, that fact was the first thing he ran into, followed immediately by the image of Aunt Mathilda's office ceiling.
He was not going to the principal's office again because of Lucas.
Then his phone buzzed.
Anna: Come back. ignore Lucas he's always like that. We're friends now so you have to.
He read it once. Set his phone down. Picked it up again.
Ethan: Please come back. Lucas is unbearable when there's no one to be annoyed at and honestly it would be funny
Then, twenty seconds later:
Ethan: Also anna genuinely misses you I think. Also I do too. Anyway that's all.
Alice showed Bryan. Bryan read both and said nothing. Lucy appeared over Alice's shoulder from nowhere, read them in four seconds, and said, "We're going."
So they went.
The room looked the same. Billiard table, counter, good light, high ceiling. Lucy saw the table from the doorway and went directly to it. Bryan walked in like he'd been coming here for years. Alice stepped through after them.
"Why is he back."
Lucas. Sofa. Arms crossed. Not even looking up, which somehow made it worse.
"I invited him," Ethan said from near the counter, cheerful.
"I didn't say you could do that."
"I know."
Anna was already crossing the room toward Alice with the expression of someone who was genuinely glad and not trying to hide it. Whatever Lucas said behind her, she didn't acknowledge it. Not even slightly.
Alice glanced past her.
Steven was at the counter. He was not alone at the counter. He had his back to the room and was kissing someone, looking like he had either forgotten other people existed or remembered and decided he didn't care. Xavier stood nearby with a drink, as if this was completely normal.
Alice looked at Ethan.
Ethan shrugged. "He does this. Like a lot."
Alice looked at Xavier. Xavier met his eyes and gave the same shrug.
Anna had reached Alice by then and pulled him further into the room. Bryan had already found Xavier. Lucy had already picked up a cue and was inviting Ethan to play.
Lucas's voice was going in the background about something. Nobody was listening.
Alice sat down.
Just like that. They were back.