Stephanie stood frozen inside it, and then she looked around, wildly, searching the two thousand faces for a single one turned toward her in sympathy — and she found not one.

Every face in that hall, students and faculty and strangers, was turned toward her with the same expression, and the expression was not sympathy.

It was disgust.

And finding nowhere at all to land, my sister turned, and she ran, her high heels clicking frantically down the long aisle until the heavy double doors at the back of the hall slammed shut behind her — where, on the other side, two county sheriff’s deputies were waiting.

Chapter 14 — The Empty Seats

My mother sank back down into her chair beside my father, and the two of them sat there, in the third row, at the center of a spreading circle of whispers, and neither of them looked up at the stage again.