Nobody answered.
Then Tiffany appeared in the hallway.
She had apparently followed when she saw me get called out. “What is this?” she said. Then she saw the necklace and went white. “Are you serious?”
The principal said, “Tiffany, we need to speak with you.”
She looked at Mrs. Kim, then at Evelyn, then at me. “So now everyone gets a turn to make me the villain?”
Nobody answered.
Tiffany laughed once, hard and ugly.
That was the mistake. Silence made her keep going.
“It was not supposed to turn into this,” she snapped. “I was mad.”
Evelyn’s voice stayed calm. “Mad enough to cut apart something her grandmother spent sixteen years building?”
Tiffany laughed once, hard and ugly. “Oh my God, yes. Because I’m sick of it. I’m sick of her acting like that necklace makes her special. I’m sick of everything being about her dead mom, her dead grandma, her feelings.”
A couple of students had drifted into the hallway by then. Then more. Prom had not stopped, but enough people noticed that the secret was over.
That hit him hard because it was true.
The principal said, “That’s enough.”
But Tiffany was already falling apart in public, and she knew it.
My dad came rushing down the hall a minute later. He had been called by the principal once Mrs. Kim and Evelyn explained what happened. He looked sick when he saw us.
Tiffany turned on him instantly. “Don’t act shocked. You never stop me anyway.”
That hit him hard because it was true.
I looked down at the pearls.
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
