The projector hummed.
The screen flickered.
And the first photograph filled the wall — ten feet tall.
Daisy, hunched over in a bathroom stall, her face buried in her hands.
A wave of gasps rolled across the gym.
I felt my knees go weak.
Then the image changed.
Daisy, eating lunch alone at the far end of an empty cafeteria table while groups laughed behind her.
Then another.
Daisy standing beside her locker — and the locker covered top to bottom in sticky notes. I could read some of them from where I stood. Words that made my stomach turn.
Click.
Daisy at twelve, holding Biscuit, crying on the school steps.
My chest felt like it was being crushed.
All around me, students were murmuring. Some covered their mouths. Some looked away. A few, I noticed, had gone very, very pale.
On the dance floor, Daisy hadn’t moved. Her eyes were glued to the screen, watching the worst moments of her life play out in front of everyone she knew.
I couldn’t understand it.
Why would he do this?
Why would he take every private wound she’d ever had and put it on display?
I tried again to push forward. The girl with the flower crown held on to my arm.
“Please,” she whispered again. “Trust him.”
