I spotted her before the car even stopped.
She was standing at the far end of the platform with her back to us. A duffel bag hung from her shoulder. A train was pulling in.
I demanded to know what was going on with my daughter.
I was out of the car before it stopped rolling.
“Lily!”
She turned. Her face was blotchy, and she looked so much younger than sixteen that something in me nearly broke.
I caught her arm before she could step onto the train.
“Mom, let go. Please.”
“Honey, no.”
She turned.
“I have to go.” She was shaking. “I already decided. I’ll find any job. Maybe I can be a designer’s assistant. I’ll figure it out.”
“Lily…”
“You saw it, didn’t you? Annie’s mom wouldn’t have come otherwise.” Her voice broke. “You’d be ashamed to have a daughter like me anyway. I’m just making it easier.”
The train doors hissed open and closed again. Behind me, Annie and Marissa had stopped a few feet away.
“I have to go.”
“Yes, I saw it,” I said. “And I’ll be honest, I never expected anything like that. But you’re my daughter, and I need to understand.”
She wouldn’t look at me.
“You and those girls were tormenting Annie. You were laughing, and you were filming it. They dumped out her bag and made fun of her mother for cleaning offices. Why?”
Lily’s face crumpled.
“You and those girls were tormenting Annie.”
“We used to be best friends,” she whispered.
“But I told her I liked her,” Annie said quietly. “I think not only as a friend.”
“And I panicked,” Lily said. “I didn’t know what I was feeling. The other girls heard, and I was so scared they’d turn on me, so I joined in. Every time, it got worse. I hated myself. And I still couldn’t stop.”
“We used to be best friends.”
I felt like the ground had been pulled out from under me.
“Then why the dress? Why would you spend three nights making her a dress?”
Lily looked at Annie. Annie looked at her mother.
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