No answer.
“Do you know my mother?”
Madison’s lips parted.
Then closed.
Nora felt her heartbeat quicken.
There was something in the other girl’s face that had not been there a moment earlier.
Recognition.
Or perhaps Nora was imagining it.
She could no longer tell which of her fears were reasonable.
“Please,” Nora whispered.
Madison looked away.
“Just leave it alone.”
Nora shook her head slowly.
“I can’t.”
And she knew she meant it.
Even if Madison destroyed the phone, even if the messages disappeared, Nora would remember them.
She would remember the exact words.
She would remember the timing.
She would remember the frightened look on Madison’s face.
No one could ask her to forget something that had already changed the way she understood the day.
And perhaps the way she understood her own life.
Suddenly, a heavy sound came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Both girls turned.
Nora heard someone approaching the restroom door.
For one brief moment, she wondered whether Madison had been expecting someone.
Then the door swung open.
BANG!
The vice principal rushed inside.
“What is going on in here?”
His authoritative voice echoed against the tiles.
He was a lean man in his mid-fifties, with neatly combed silver-gray hair, rectangular glasses, and a charcoal suit that made him look formal even in the disorder of a school afternoon.
Nora recognized him immediately.
She had seen him in the hallways countless times.
He was usually calm, serious, and careful about maintaining order.
Students tended to straighten their posture when he approached, even if they had done nothing wrong.
Now he stood just inside the restroom, looking from one girl to the other.
His eyes moved to the damaged mirror.
Then to the scattered glass.
Then to Nora.
For a second, his expression was one of ordinary professional alarm.
“What happened here?”
Nora opened her mouth.
Madison spoke first.
“She pushed me!”
The accusation came so quickly that Nora almost expected it.
The vice principal turned toward Madison.
“Slow down.”
“She knocked me down!”
Nora stared at the blonde girl.
Even after everything that had happened, Madison was still trying to present herself as the victim.
The familiar anger returned.
“She grabbed my hair,” Nora said.
The vice principal looked toward her.
Nora lifted the tissue from her forehead.
“She pushed me into the mirror.”
His expression changed.
He took one step forward.
“Good Lord, what happened to—”
The sentence stopped.
His eyes had settled on Nora’s forehead.
For a moment, she assumed he was looking at the injury.
She expected him to ask whether she felt dizzy or needed medical attention.
But his gaze was fixed slightly above the scrape.
On the tiny crescent-shaped birthmark.
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He became completely still.
Nora watched the color leave his face.
It was so sudden that she forgot what she had been about to say.
The vice principal’s mouth opened slightly.
He stared.
Then he lifted one trembling hand toward his glasses.
“No…”
The word was barely audible.
Nora frowned.
“Sir?”
He took a small step backward.
“No, that’s impossible.”
The restroom seemed to fall silent.
Madison stood beside the wall, holding her phone.
She was no longer trying to explain the fall.
She was watching the vice principal.
Nora looked between them.
Something about the adult’s reaction frightened her in a way Madison’s insults never had.
He was not simply surprised to see an injured student.
He looked as though he had recognized something he desperately hoped never to see again.
Nora touched the mark above her eyebrow.
“What’s wrong?”
The vice principal’s eyes followed her hand.
His expression tightened.
For a moment, Nora thought he might reach toward her, but he stopped himself.
She lowered her fingers.
“Are you looking at my forehead?”
He seemed to struggle to answer.
“Your injury…”
His voice trailed away.
Nora felt her heartbeat quicken.
“Is something wrong with it?”
He shook his head almost automatically.
“No.
I mean…”
He looked at the birthmark again.
Nora saw his hand tremble.
A grown man who had entered the room with the confidence of someone accustomed to solving school problems was suddenly unable to finish a sentence.
That terrified her.
She glanced toward Madison.
The blonde girl was watching him with a rigid expression.
For one strange moment, Nora felt that the other two people in the restroom might understand something she did not.
She knew it was only a possibility.
But it was becoming harder to dismiss.
“Please,” Nora said.
“What is going on?”
The vice principal swallowed.
His eyes lifted to meet hers.
Nora had never seen him look so distressed.
He seemed to be searching her face for something.
Not simply studying the crescent.
Her eyes.
Her features.
The shape of her forehead.
Nora felt suddenly exposed.
