CHAPTER 2: I Didn’t Steal It

Hana’s voice came out quiet, but it carried through the frozen classroom.
“I didn’t steal it.”
Whitney gave a soft laugh meant for the audience, not for Hana.
“Then why is your sketch in my folder?”
The question landed like evidence because Whitney knew how to perform certainty. She knew how to let silence do half her work. She knew people often believed the girl who looked expensive before they believed the girl trying not to cry.
Hana looked down at the torn page in her hands.
It was only one piece of the full drawing, ripped from the corner where the blue wash of morning light crossed the kitchen window. The edge was wet with paint that had not fully dried.
Mason noticed something then.
Not the drawing.
Not Hana’s tears.
Whitney’s right hand.
She had curled her fingers slightly, as if trying to hide them beside the satin folds of her dress.
There was blue paint smeared across two fingertips.
The exact blue from Hana’s torn sketch.