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He looked at me. “Mom.”
“We’re leaving,” I said. “Right now. I’m going to talk to the principal, and then we are out of here.”
I thought the night was over. I was wrong.
Mason just stood there, his eyes filling with tears.
“No. I’m okay. I just need five minutes.” He said. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
I searched his face for the boy who used to cry into my shoulder after school. I couldn’t find him.
The look on his face should have told me that something had changed.
“Five minutes,” I whispered.
He nodded once, then turned and walked away.
If I had known what he was about to do, I would have followed him.
“I’m okay. I just need five minutes.”
Behind me, Brielle was already high-fiving a girl in a silver dress.
“Did you see his face?” she squealed. “Oh my God, I’m dying.”
I wanted to march over there and say every single thing I had been swallowing for months, but something stopped me.
It hit me too late. The way Mason had walked away didn’t suggest defeat. He had walked like a person with a purpose.
I turned my head to look for him.
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