Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf

by Hayley Krischer

  There’s a picture of Sean’s mouth. I can tell by his tooth. He has one crooked tooth from not wearing his retainer. It’s impossible to miss. A sophomore. Hunter something. SN, she writes as if no one will know. As if no one is looking for those initials. The initials SN are a giveaway. If someone’s bragging about a Nessel hookup, that’s the first thing to look for.

  Bae tired, the caption reads.

  I’m sure by the morning it will be taken down. Sean will confiscate that. He doesn’t like his hookups broadcast.

  Stupid me. Little stupid me. Thinking that I had some kind of line attached to him. Thinking that we had some connection. Some real meaning together.

  * * *

  * * *

  My front living room fills up with lights. It’s Dev’s Jeep.

  I open the door. Dev walks in, his hair wet. He’s showered.

  “Had to rinse the stank off you, huh?” I say.

  “What? No,” he says. “I was a ball of sweat.”

  “You weren’t driving Sean around to meet up with his little conquests? Pimping him out? I thought you went home with him.”

  He tells me that while I was taking care of Donnie, he and Sean and a bunch of freshman or sophomore girls went to some girl’s house with a pool. Probably the girl who posted the photo.

  “I got pushed in. Chlorine all over me and these stupid drunk girls. Someone’s going to drown. They were putting this guy on a raft, and he was passed out. It was a disaster, B. You would have hated it. I heard Chase and Cate had sex in the limo, so I didn’t want to go back in there. I walked home. And it was kind of nice actually. Just staring at the moon. It was so big, and then it just dipped down into the sky and disappeared. I don’t even understand entirely how that happens,” he says, his face full of wonder. “Do I have to really stand here in your doorway telling you this?”

  Dev does not deserve a girlfriend like me. Dev does not deserve a friend like Sean.

  I move out of the way, let him in. Flustered. Drunk. Stoned. Whatever he is, I know Dev is telling the truth. I know he didn’t want anything to do with what Sean was doing. That he was just trying to be a loyal friend, the bro friend, the bro prince, or whatever they are. And then find his way back to me.

  I tell him about Donnie. About the scene in the bathroom. Tell him what I heard. That Sean wants to rally the freshman girls and do his own Initiation. Get a bunch of blow jobs from fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds all at once.

  “Before you rip Nessel apart for mentioning the Initiation, believe me he was out cold by the time we got to this girl’s house. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying.”

  “We always make excuses for him, Dev. Don’t we?”

  Dev wipes his eyes. They’re bloodshot and tired with dark circles.

  “I see it as accepting his flaws.”

  “All the hooking up. All the girls he leaves by the wayside, like a fucking battlefield of girls—”

  “A battlefield? They’re not dead in the ground, B. They want to be there. These girls tonight were dragging him into the limo they had. He pulled me along because he didn’t want to get caught with a bunch of minors. Nessel always covers himself. That’s one thing about him that I’m always surprised about. He sees a situation, no matter how fucked up he is, far in advance. He’s ten steps ahead.”

  I slide between my memories of Sean and I making out in my backyard, and that night after the party, the way he was crying in the car, needing me to help him fix everything. Then another moment, the way he held my hand in the hallway, always needing me.

  Ten steps ahead.

  Did he know how all that would make me feel? How I want to feel needed? That I want to feel like I can fix everything? Did he know that right from the start? Has he known it all along?

  “It’s been a long night, B. Let’s just cuddle.” Slides his hands around my waist. Under my sweats, behind me. He massages my shoulders, trailing his fingers up and down my back. Just caressing me.

  He’s so gentle and good.

  And I’m a monster.

  * * *

  * * *

  In the morning, I check the sophomore’s Instagram story, the girl who Sean hooked up with, and the post is already gone.

  * * *

  * * *

  I meet Ali on Monday outside her class just like I’ve been doing. I don’t make one mention of the dance. She’s waiting for me to say something, I know it. She’s quiet now, more quiet than I’ve seen her.

  “Will you hate me forever, because I don’t know if I can take it?” she says.

  “I’ll only hate you for a little while,” I say.

  32

  ALI

  Everyone in school calls the school social worker Ms. Tapestry because she’s got all these “taps”—her word, not mine—hanging on her walls. By taps, I mean giant purple and paisley fabrics with a trippy, psychedelic quality. If I had more problems and met her sooner, and if she were a couple of years older, I could have introduced her to my dad. Ms. Tapestry, with her long flowy skirts and collection of hot pink Buddhas, would be right up my father’s alley.

  This was my father’s idea. That I talk to someone. I chose her because I heard she doesn’t make you cry. Other therapists, that’s part of their job. To pull out the tears.

  “So what’s going on with you, Alistair?”

  I have a list of things I could theoretically talk to her about, but I don’t even know where to start.

  “Do you want to talk about why you think your dad wanted you to see me?”

  “I’ve been kind of out of it lately. I think he’s overreacting.”

  “Sometimes being out of it is a symptom of something else.”

  “Like a manifestation?”

  She jots something down on her yellow pad. A dragon ring curls around her index finger. “Yes. Like that,” she says. “So tell me about yourself. Your dad has told me a little. But I’d like to know why you think you’re here.”

  So I start to lie. Well, not lie, but I tell her things she’d want to hear. Things that have nothing to do with Sean Nessel. “My mother hasn’t lived at home in four years.”

  “Okay. Your father didn’t mention this. That must have been very disruptive for you.”

  She looks up from her notepad and starts filing through her folder.

  “It wasn’t that disruptive, actually,” I say, which, of course, is not the truth.

  “No?” she says. “Can you explain?”

  “My father—he’s a great guy. He and my aunt help me with everything.” I think of my aunt Marce dropping off Plan B. Dragging me to the gynecologist. “Plus my mother and I talk a lot. Even though she doesn’t live at home.”

  “You see her on holidays? In the summer?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s good. So you have a strong support system.”

  “Yes, and friends and lots of people to talk to. Except . . .”

  “Except who?”

  “My friend Sammi. Who I— Things have been different for us lately.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because I’ve become friends with someone she doesn’t like.”

  “Why doesn’t she like them?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s not entirely good for me.”

  Blythe Jensen is a drug. That’s what I want to tell her. A drug I don’t want to stop taking.

  “Is that why you think your dad wanted you to come here? Because of this new friendship?”

  I shake my leg, pump it up and down uncontrollably. I could give her countless reasons for why I’m here. I’m sure she’s heard them all.

  “Well, maybe I have some things to talk about. I just don’t necessarily want to talk about them this second,” I say, sort of satisfied with that answer.

  “I’m a slow mover,” she says. �
�We can take our time.”

  “Okay. Just do me one favor?” I say.

  “Sure.”

  “Just don’t tell me that I’m being too hard on myself.”

  “Is that how you feel sometimes, like you’re too hard on yourself?”

  “I feel like that a lot,” I say. “Sometimes, I just want to shut my brain off.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  She agrees to not tell me that I’m being too hard on myself but wants me to do a few things that will help my brain “unwind.”

  She wants me to write in a journal. Spill my feelings.

  * * *

  * * *

  At home later that night, I open a new composition book and write two words.

  Sean Nessel.

  I hate those two words. And I don’t want to see them ever again. I scribble over them so hard that I rip through the page and throw the stupid journal across the room.

  I shove my pillow to my face and scream. My body is hot and clammy. I hate you, I scream, my face stuffed in my pillow. I hate you.

  * * *

  * * *

  An hour later. I try again. Pretend it’s about someone else. A stranger. Remove myself from the equation. How are you doing? I write to the stranger.

  Not great. I was raped.

  I shut the journal.

  It’s enough for tonight.

  33

  BLYTHE

  I ask Sean to meet me in the parking lot.

  Donnie would scold me for it. She’d tell me how I was under his dark spell. Yes, Sean rounded up these three girls, an initiation of his own, but he was wasted. We were all wasted at the dance. Donnie in a drugged-out haze. Cate had sex in the limo. No one was in their right mind. He hooks up with girls. This is what he does. What was he supposed to be—loyal to me? The girl with the boyfriend she loves? His best friend? We just got caught up. That’s all it was. Sean and I are friends. Close friends. That’s all we are.

  “You recovering from that dance?” He leans on my car window. When Sean smiles, it’s almost impossible not to smile back. I want to touch his golden arm hair. His cheeks are flushed from the cold air.

  “Yeah. Still a little blank.”

  “I wanted to talk to you. I’m glad you told me to meet you.”

  He slides in on the passenger side, close so I can feel his breath.

  “I wanted to talk to you too.”

  “About the dance?”

  “About the dance . . . about a lot of things. You first.”

  He pulls his hair back, leans his head on my seat. That innocence. Vulnerable Sean. This is the real Sean. It has to be.

  “I never really talked to you about this.”

  “What is it? You can tell me anything,” I say.

  He licks his lips nervously. “I have feelings around this . . . this thing. This topic. I have thoughts around it.”

  My heart speeds up. Very briefly, I think that he may tell me he’s in love with me. For that slight moment. My mind floats to the two of us in that kiss outside my house. By the shed.

  “It’s about the Initiation.”

  “Wait. What? The Initiation?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The Initiation?”

  “Yeah, why do you keep saying it like that?” he asks.

  Just minutes ago I was convincing myself that we were all wasted. That I was acting like a jealous girlfriend. That we were all out of our minds at the dance, Donnie passing out in the bathroom stall, even. I was so sure. And now I hear it in Suki’s slurry voice that night. He can get three girls working on him on his own. Here he is, with a straight face, bringing it up.

  “I guess I’m just surprised.”

  “I felt weird talking to you about it because I know the girls set it up,” he says.

  “Actually, I was told that I was going to be the one to set it up.”

  “Oh, you? I didn’t know that.”

  Bullshit. Of course he knew it. I feel my stomach, that deep pit of dread. How could he say this? How? Everyone knows I was going to be in charge.

  “I know for a fact that it’s always happened before Christmas. Some guys used to call it their Christmas present—”

  “Wait, stop. A Christmas present?”

  “Okay, fine. If you’re Jewish, then it’s your Hanukkah present.”

  “It’s not supposed to be pleasurable, Sean. It was created to stop senior boys from attacking freshman girls.”

  In my head I start thinking about my mother when I’m listening to her on a rampage. And I sound like her. Not making any sense. It’s not supposed to be pleasurable. Listen to how I’ve brainwashed myself. Lying to myself. Letting myself believe that there was a real agreement. That the guys can somehow be robotic and turn themselves off. Five years they’ve done this. For five years all these girls—or maybe not all the girls?—are walking around traumatized, believing that somehow we could deter sexual assaults. That somehow we could control the narrative.

  And this guy. Sean. Right here in front of me.

  What he did to Ali.

  None of it mattered. It happened anyway.

  “I know it sounds weird asking this. Or bringing this up. But a few girls brought it up the other night at the dance. A few sophomore girls who didn’t get their turn.”

  “Didn’t get their turn?”

  “Why do you keep repeating everything I’m saying?” he says, with a nasty tone. “These girls, they brought this up to me. And I always thought it was something they were forced to do. Something that they didn’t want. That’s what Dev said. That’s what he said you told him. But they asked me for it. They wanted to know when the Initiation was.”

  I shouldn’t be so stunned. When I was a freshman, I brought it up too. I heard they had done it the year before. Anything to get the older guys to pay attention and take me seriously. I would have done anything to feel in control. That’s what I was promised. That’s what you get in return. You were in control of it. You were choosing to do it.

  Except now, there’s just me wanting to hurl and hit and cry until there’s an empty hole that’s black and scarred.

  Thoughts race in like thunder. The week before the dance and how Sean had been so eager to be around me, touching me and whispering to me, There are so many things I want to say to you, how at the department store it felt so crazy, how he took my hand and said to me, I’m not scared, B. Now I can’t help but wonder if he did it all to get to this moment. If he knew he had to get me on his side, not just so I could help persuade Ali to change her story but to make sure the Initiation was secure. So that he could get his Christmas present, as disgusting and vile as it sounds.

  “Everything you said to me about . . . the way you feel about me. It was all a lie.”

  “No! I could hardly stop that night we kissed. When I ran to your house,” he says, squeezing closer to me. “Look, B, you have to understand. This Initiation. It’s a natural curiosity. Do you understand that?” He edges even closer. I can smell his breath. The Italian sandwich he had for lunch. “And if I can’t have you. Do you understand what that does to me? How messed up I am about this. So I’m like, sure, you want to have an Initiation? Let’s do it.”

  Sean. This creature. He’s had everything handed to him. He deserves. He expects. He’s on his throne. Taking and taking. And expecting. Expecting all the girls to kneel down. Ali Greenleaf. I brought her under my wing for him. For him.

  “The Initiation wasn’t meant for you, Sean.” I’m yelling now, pushing him back.

  He shifts around in his seat. His body so big, barely fitting in my tiny car. When he shifts, the whole car jiggles. That’s what you get when you have a giant soccer player in your car. Who is the threat of the school. With his thick, muscular legs, his chest, his speed. We should all fear him. But I don’t. So I sit up in my seat to
o. I can face him just as easily.

  “It’s no big deal. Don’t make this a big deal, B.”

  “It’s HUGE! You’re asking girls to give group blow jobs to boys who are three years older than them. Some of the guys are eighteen. It’s a world of difference. And to get what in return? A promise of safety? So we have to hand ourselves over to you to be safe?”

  I see them in front of me. Flashes. Hair on their inner thighs. Muscles and knees. Smirk between each other. Amanda Shire chiding them for their laughter. Donnie staring down at the floor, ashamed.

  “Hold up. Rewind. Is this about me and you? That you don’t want to share me with those other girls?”

  “I know you slept over at that sophomore’s house after the dance. I saw her post a photo of you on Instagram. I know how much you’re with other girls—”

  “And you’re with Dev! So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Jesus, Sean—you can get blow jobs from anyone in this school without it being humiliating for her. Without her having to sit in a room filled with guys. Without me standing over them. Screaming at you not to look. And telling them how to wrap their virginal little mouths around your dick.”

  But it’s the game for him. It’s the act of bowing down that he likes.

  For a second. Just a brief second, because I can’t bear to take it anymore than just a second, I think about Ali that night. Tearing down the stairs. I remember the terror in her eyes.

  “So then change the Initiation, B. You have the control. So fuck it. You’re right. It’s stupid. Sick.” His mouth smacks of anger. He flings open the car door. Slams it shut. He stands there, his big-man body and his big-man muscles and his big-man sexy hair and his big-man cheekbones. He’s hypnotizing. Evil.

  “I will,” I say.

  God forbid one of those fourteen-year-old girls tells their parents they’re giving eighteen-year-olds head. And that I set it up? That I’m attached to rape or something worse? It’s a fucking miracle that it hasn’t gotten out in the past five years.