Alana did not say anything for a while.
It was, she thought, the first completely honest thing she had ever heard Madison Cross say. She was surprised by how much she believed it. She was surprised, too, by what she felt about it. It was not forgiveness. She was not ready for that, and she was not sure she ever would be. But it was not hate, either. It was something smaller and more tired and more complicated than both.
"Okay," Alana said. "I believe you don't know."
Madison looked at her.
"But you should know something," said Alana. "My dad says words are just the beginning. You can say sorry to anybody. It costs nothing. It's what you do after that counts." She shifted her weight on the crutches. "So I'm not going to tell you it's okay. Because it isn't. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don't know either. But if you want to actually be sorry, I'll tell you what I'd want."
"Okay," Madison whispered.
"Take the video down. The greatest hits one. Not because it'll make it go away. It won't. I have screenshots. But because it's yours, and you should be the one who does it." Alana held her eyes. "Tell the investigators everything. Not just about me. About all of them. Kenya. Grace. Sofia. Destiny. Everything you did. Even the parts nobody knows about. Especially those. Don't let your mom's lawyer tell you what to say."
Madison went white. But she nodded.
"And the four of them," said Alana. "Write to them. Not a text. Not a post. A letter. With a pen. Tell them what you did. Don't ask them to forgive you. Don't ask them for anything. Just tell them the truth. They should hear it from you. They deserve that."
Madison stood very still. Her eyes were wet. She did not wipe them.
"Okay," she said. "I'll do it. All of it."
"Okay," said Alana.
They looked at each other for a moment longer. Then Madison nodded, once, and turned around, and walked away down the hallway, alone, past Coach Williams, past the people at their lockers, past the phones, with her plain ponytail and her old gray sweatshirt, and nobody said anything to her, and she did not look back.
Coach Williams watched her go. Then she looked at Alana.
"You all right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The coach was quiet for a moment.
"Your father said you'd do something like that," she said. "I didn't believe him." She unfolded her arms. "The spot's yours, Johnson. Whenever you want it. No rush. I'll hold it till spring if I have to."
"Thank you, Coach."
"Don't thank me. Heal that ankle." The coach turned to go, and then turned back. "And Johnson. Next time you go over a railing, warn me first. I'm too old for that."
Alana laughed. It surprised her. It was the first time she had laughed in three days.
That afternoon, at three-forty, the account with no name and no profile picture was deleted. Kelsey Tran walked into Principal Harrison's office at four o'clock with her mother and her phone and sat down and said she wanted to talk about some things she had filmed. Britney Walsh came back to school the following Monday with a navy blue cast on her right arm from her elbow to her knuckles, and walked up to Alana's locker in the morning in front of everyone, and handed her a Sharpie, and said, "You first. You earned it," and held out the cast. Alana thought about it for a long moment. Then she wrote, in her small, neat, even handwriting, in the space just above the wrist: Stay tight. Trust your bases. A.J.
* * *
Six months later, on a warm Saturday in April, the gymnasium of the new wing of Westfield High School was full.
It was full of people who had not usually been in it. There were families in dress uniforms, Navy and Army and Marine Corps and Air Force and Coast Guard, little kids in clip-on ties and fathers with ribbons and mothers with their hair done. There were old men in VFW caps. There were teachers. There was the football team, in their jerseys, sitting together in the bleachers, taking up an entire section. There was Dr. Pruitt in a bow tie. There was Mr. Ostrowski, who still called her Alanna, with two n's, and still apologized every time. There was a reporter from the Virginian-Pilot in the back row with a notebook, and a photographer, and there was a small table at the front of the gym, in front of the gold letters on the navy wall, with a white cloth on it and something under another cloth, about the size of a large book.
A great many things had happened in six months.
The district's investigation had taken eleven weeks. Its report was forty pages long and was not made public in full, because it concerned minors. But some things became public anyway, the way things do. Madison Cross was removed from the varsity cheerleading squad for the remainder of the school year. She was required to complete one hundred hours of community service, which she chose, without being asked, to complete at the Fleet and Family Support Center at Dam Neck, where she spent most Saturday mornings that winter