After third period, the student body made their way to the gym for the pep rally.

Normally, Alex and Benny and I would ditch pep rallies. They didn't take attendance, and our school gym didn't seem large enough to accommodate all the students, anyways. Plus, I had very little pep, especially concerning our boys' basketball team, the Crystal Shore Condors. They needed all help they could get. Our girls' basketball team was actually good, but since they were a girls' team, nobody paid much attention to them, even though they were the ones who brought home trophies.

Benny and Alex texted me saying that they were both going to the assembly, which was weird—something that should have made me question the situation more than I did. So I asked Dylan to ditch with me, but Dylan didn't like breaking the rules, no matter how much I tried to convince him there was no way we'd get in trouble.

"I'm going," he told me firmly. "We're going."

"Can we please not?"

"Dallas, this is our senior year, one of the last rallies we ever get to go to. We're going. We can't miss it!"

"I really don't see the point."

"We. Are. Going!" Dylan grabbed my hand and dragged me further into the crowd of bodies, and we squeezed past the point of no return: the gym doors. Not only was I feeling claustrophobic and suffocated by all of the other students in the gym, which was something I could only put up with at metal concerts when people wore black and head-banged; I was feeling suffocated by all of the pep, with all of the students in their red and silver, with all of the school spirit emanating from their hair ribbons and face paint. It was too much for me, because I didn't understand it. I didn't understand why all these people who always clustered in their cliques that hated on each other were now coming together for this cause—to cheer for our winter sports teams. How many of these students even cared about our winter sports teams? At least at a metal concert, all the people who were coming together were coming together because they liked the music and cared about the scene. This felt pretend.

Even the thought of seeing Valerie perform in a few moments wasn't making me feel better. As we found a spot on the bleachers, Dylan took out his phone and started taking a video of the assembly.

"What are you doing?"

"Live-streaming."

"Who in the eff would watch a livestream of our school's pep assembly?"

"I'm sure someone will."

I disagreed. Tolerating the assembly from inside the gym was only possible because I was stuck here. I couldn't imagine anyone tolerating a livestream of this red and silver chaos from a personal computer, not when they could navigate to something more entertaining and less suffocating with the mere click of a button. Too bad I couldn't simply click to disappear the scene in front of me.

I tried to go to that place inside my head where I could hide and think about anything else, like what my next vlog could be, feeling all this pressure after Valerie told me she "hoped" it turned out good. Her minty breath had left me tingly and inspired, and I wanted it to be perfect, and positive—I didn't want it to be another negative-nancy vlog. I wanted it to echo the sentiment of the #WhatLittleGirlsCANBecome thread.

And in the thought journey on which I traveled while I sat stationary on the bleachers, I realized that all girls—even those who were super feminine, like Valerie—could take on positions like those of aerospace engineers without sacrificing all of their femininity. As much as I hated to admit it, Adree was right; feminine women could bring some stellar stuff to the table. They didn't and shouldn't have to sacrifice their femininity. Valerie could be a kickass feminine engineer, one who modeled good listening and cooperation and encouraged compromise.

But where Adree was wrong was that it was better for the world to think we were born different. How did thinking that we were inherently different help women? The answer was simple: it didn't. And I was going to prove it.

How was I going to prove it? I never figured it out. Because suddenly the whole gym was shaking with the steady drumming of the bleachers. Only this drumming wasn't for the Crystal Shore Condors or accompanying our school song. This drumming was three steady beats, repeated over and over again. And with every beat, students were chanting, "Girls shit too! Girls shit too!"

I hadn't even registered the chant until it was loud and spreading wider. But it didn't take me long to see the loudest chanters were in the bleachers across from me, most of whom were wearing black, and in the center of that cluster of chanters were none other than Alex and Benny. I connected the dots: ●why they had insisted on coming to the pep rally when they normally ditched, ●why Dylan had dragged me here against my will, and ●why a fourth of the school was now cheering for my project.

The chant grew louder, encompassing the gym. Dylan told me, "Take a bow, Dallas!" and I realized he had his phone pointed right at me, making me the current star of his livestream. With the pressure on me, I reached over and tried to steal Dylan's phone, but he retaliated, stomping on my foot.

It was then that I heard Adree's cluster of girl friends, who were close enough to me that I could hear them trying to take over the chant with "Embrace Femininity!" But of course that title was ridiculous and had no rhythm, and they failed epically. I would have taken the chance to shove my humble pie in Adree's face, but I was in too much of a daze, because all these students—maybe over a third now—were cheering for my project.

Did most of these kids even care about my project? Maybe some of them did. Maybe they wanted to support me.

Maybe some of them just wanted the chance to scream out "shit" without getting in trouble, knowing that if the whole school was doing it, the staff couldn't get us all in trouble.

And maybe some of them knew they would get some of us in trouble. When there's a food fight, they would try to figure out who threw the first French fry, something that hadn't occurred to Alex and Benny.

It wasn't long before Principal Runsberger was out with his orange megaphone, telling us to be quiet, threatening to issue detentions. He looked like a fierce bird—with legs that were far too skinny considering how muscular his upper body was. Soon he asked Alex and Benny to come down from their spot on the bleachers, where they stood with him, in the middle of the gym floor in front of us. He probably hadn't seen them start the chant, but it only took one tattler to reveal the name of the first French-fry thrower.

Too bad they weren't actually the first French fry throwers. At least Runsberger wouldn't see it that way. He would want to know why they were screaming out about girls shitting.

And I knew that was probably why it looked like he was interrogating them: he wasn't satisfied with his catch, not yet. Luckily for me, Alex and Benny both smiled and shrugged, ready for their walk of pride to detention, unwilling to reveal any further details about their orchestration. Dylan was streaming the whole thing, the two of us shrunken down in our seats like scared animals in the savanna.

Runsberger grabbed one of his dudebros, Dennis, Chad's best friend. He asked him, "What does this mean?" and we could hear Dennis reply, "That? Oh, fucking Delaney..."

"Dallas..." Dylan said, pocketing his phone and grabbing my hand. He didn't need to say anything. Keeping low, we squeezed our way down the bleachers and out the door before Runsberger's vulture eyes could land on us.

Outside, we ran all the way to my car, which was closer than Dylan's, then we were backing out, then driving through the parking lot. "Dallas, drive! Drive! Drive! He's right there!"

I didn't look; I just drove, out of the parking lot exit and through the school zone, exceeding the speed limit of 25 mph, which in retrospect wasn't a good idea, because fines were doubled in the school zone. But at forty miles per hour, we made it out, and Dylan turned up the song to maximum volume, screaming, "That was so metal!"

I would've laughed at this scenario if my heart wasn't beating more erratically than a technical death metal song. "Damn it, Dylan, I told you I didn't want to go to that thing! Why would you let them do that?"

"I didn't think it would turn into that!" he said. "But that...that was so awesome! We just ran for our lives!"

"We didn't run for our lives. We ran away from me getting detention. Now I can look forward to it on Monday instead."

"You really think he can give you detention? You didn't even start it! You weren't even chanting! Besides, it's just a project. It was fine with Ms. Brooks, wasn't it?"

"That's what I'm worried about." My heart sank a little more. "What will he think of Ms. Brooks being fine with it?"