Crystal had always sat behind Carlos in class, so this was a familiar view of her. In the self-study classes, they had worn the same style of headphones, and Crystal had often stared at the back of his head for the whole class, with no sense at all of the passing time.

Crystal looked away in disgust, and when Joyce saw that she no longer had an audience, she quit performing. After a few minutes, she looked at Crystal and said, “I heard that you almost got kicked out of school. yesterday” ...