I get closer to him, and I can smell the sadness. His despair. It reeks through him. I just want to touch him. Hold him. But he keeps backing away from me.
“And you know what—it all trails back to you, B. Connect the dots, and it all goes right to you.” He’s pointing at me, angry and mean, and underneath, I can see it. He’s so hurt. Wounded. “How could you do this to me, B? How could you?”
“That day at your house. You told me it was over. You haven’t answered any of my texts. My calls. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard to reach out to you. To make it up to you.” I touch his face. His scruffy face. “I didn’t want this, Dev. I still don’t want this. I need you. Do you understand how I need you?”
I feel sick to my stomach. I have to press my hand against the car to hold myself up. I bend down to the ground. Maybe I’ll puke. Maybe it’ll all come up and wash out of me.
People are staring. Some girl chants “fight, fight, fight” under her breath as she walks past with her phone out, recording the whole thing. Everything’s so different now. All of us, like prey. Dev opens the door and gets in his Jeep but then stops. He turns around, searching for something in the parking lot, but nothing is there. There’s just an empty, wanton feeling of dismay and sadness. Garbage piles. Old cars. Gum stuck to the ripped-up gravel.
“What am I to you?” he says. His foot out of the Jeep. One limb that I think he’s giving to me. And I reach for his thigh. Rest my hand on it. Stroke his knee.
“You’re the most supportive person I’ve ever met,” I say.
“So I’m your safety blanket? That’s what I am?”
“Dev—”
“Did something happen between you and Nessel?”
And I realize in this moment that whatever I say isn’t going to change anything between me and Dev. He’ll always wonder if something happened between me and Sean. But it wasn’t just a kiss. It was the connection, however brief, that makes me more guilty. I have to tell him. I have to say it. I can’t blame Sean. I can’t blame Ali. I can’t blame anyone but myself.
I nod my head.
“I’m a bad person, Dev. I’m rotten to the core. An awful person.”
“You weren’t always this way.”
“Yes, I was. You just didn’t see that part of me.”
“I saw other things. I saw beautiful things.”
The tears explode in his eyes. I reach for him, but he retracts, like I’m an illness.
He pounds his fist on the wheel. Turns the ignition in his Jeep, backs into reverse, and peels away. And just like that he’s gone.
50
ALI
I’m back in the hammock again. The glow of the pink neon sign from the motel across the way lights up the street. I haven’t wanted to look at my phone. Fearful of more retribution. Or I don’t know what.
But I turn it on. I have forty-six new DMs. They file into my phone with a fury. Also, a text from Terrance that says: I SENT YOU AN EMAIL; READ IT.
Hey, Ali! How’s Truth or Consequences? Is it like Truth or Dare? (My lame attempt at a joke.) Get ready to sit down. Your article went viral on Twitter. Shared over 9,000 times. The Underground is going to become a real paper. Like an online paper. With more articles than just three. Maybe comments too. (I don’t know if I want everyone’s opinions, but whatever. That’s why I’m the editor! I get to shut the comments off when I want.)
There are a lot of people talking, Ali. I heard what happened at your house. But your article did something. A lot of people are really upset. And not just in our school. You’ve reached people. They heard you. I hope you know that.
Anyway, I have some other news. There are tons of other girls writing to us about how they had the same shitty experience. They want to talk to you. They want to hear more from you. And I want to hear more from you! I think you’re a rock star. You should probably also look at the comments on the Underground’s Instagram feed. They’re really supportive.
See you when you get back.
—T
* * *
* * *
I scan all the comments on Instagram where he posted it.
This sounds real.
I wish she would out the guy.
She had bruises on her arms just like me.
She sounds scared. I understand. I see his face every time I go to my school.
He said “she wanted to do it”—I’ve totally heard that.
This sounds like my life, and now I don’t know what to do.
I’ll never be over it.
I call my mom over. Show her everything. Give her my phone, shaking. The air is so still tonight. I can hear myself breathe. She pulls me out of the hammock. Brings me inside. My hand in hers.
We sit down together, sink into her sofa. She’s close to me. Stroking my arm. My fingers. Her sniffle, choking up. We read through comments and more comments and more. Hundreds of stories from hundreds of girls my age. Women my mom’s age.
It’s the first time that I really miss my dad. He’s always around, so I never have to miss him. But he reacts. When he sees this, he’s going to emote. He’s going to be upset. I’m not ready for that yet. My mother is more quiet. She’s what you’d call an active listener. My father is more like an active interrupter.
It feels like hours. My mom and I sifting through sexual assault articles. Organizations. Websites. Survivor groups. Countless affirmations. An overflow of relief washes over me. That I’m not alone. I didn’t know how much was out there. I didn’t know.
We end up on a website filled with photos of women holding up signs. They’ve all been raped. And their signs are quotes from their attacker.
Attacker.
I never thought of Sean Nessel like that. As an attacker. But he attacked me. I was attacked.
These girls and women (and a few men). Different body shapes and sizes. They cover their faces. Their signs are handwritten. The cruel and careless words they hold.
I think of what my attacker said to me.
How are we gonna clean all this shit up?
I scroll down through some of the signs. The words blare out like bloody screams.
One woman with long blond hair and a peaceful smile. She holds a large sign with perfect handwriting. You can only see her smile. It’s a lot like Blythe’s.
I don’t want to think about Blythe.
The girl’s sign says: Sorry about that. We’re cool though, right?
Her caption underneath: What my attacker said after I told him that I had said no.
I scroll down to another woman with super-short hair and tiny glasses. She’s wearing overalls and has a smiley-face T-shirt on. She looks young and kind of reminds me of Sammi.
Her sign says: Oh, hey, I remember you.
Her caption underneath: What my attacker said when I went up to him at school two days after he forced himself on me in a bathroom at a party. We were both drunk and I couldn’t stop him.
“We don’t have to keep going, Ali. This is a lot, honey.”
“I don’t want to stop.” I want to read them and read them until my eyes burn out. Until their words are seared into my mind. Until I’ve read every single one of them.
“I know. But how many of these can you read in one night? I don’t want you to— You’re so fragile. I don’t think you realize how fragile you are.” I turn toward my mother, who is crying. “You don’t have to stop. I’m just saying to take a break. Give yourself time to digest this.”
“I feel like if I don’t read it all now, it’s going to disappear. That I have to just infuse it into me. Does that make any sense?”
“Ali,” she says, a deep sadness in her voice. “This isn’t going anywhere.”
I always wished my mother was more like Sammi’s mother. Cooking and cleaning around the house and listening to old records. Making lasagna on Sunday night. My mother’s a per
son. A human. With flaws. She’s real. She’s herself. She lives in a peach-colored shack in the middle of the desert.
I think of Blythe again. One day she’ll be sitting alone, wondering what happened to the real friendships in her life. What happened to the Devons and the Donnies and the Sukis and the Sean Nessels. She’ll wonder why it was so hard for her to please all of them. Why what she gave them wasn’t enough.
“I’d like to come back to New Jersey with you if you want me to,” my mom says.
But that’s not what I want.
I want to be one of those girls with the sign.
I want to be the girl who says what’s been done to me. To record my story. Without anyone holding my hand. Just me. And my sign. My story. My words.
I lean into her, my head on her chest, and she strokes my hair. “I just want to be whatever you need from me right now,” she says.
But this is all I really need right now. Just this.
51
BLYTHE
I’m headachy and feel like I’m going to puke. But Donnie wants to go up to the old cliffs. She says it’ll get my mind off things. And she’s meeting someone up there. A new friend named Dylan. Donnie’s secret life.
She curls her fingers like she’s a witch. She’s wearing these long silver rings; they look like body armor against her slight hands.
“I have a crystal ball. I know everything.”
This is the moment I miss Ali. This is the moment I wish I was friends with someone normal. Someone like her. Someone who doesn’t search out drama. But I destroyed that friendship with Ali. I destroyed my relationship with Dev. I destroy everything.
The four of us go in Cate’s car. The Core Four.
“We’re all together,” Cate says, singing. But it drifts off into the night.
We crawl under the gate to hike up to the old cliffs. My shoes slip over the rocky path. This dirty place, with all its boulders and its shaky ground and its cliffs, used to be the place to hang out. Under the dark lights we could be whoever we wanted to be. Now it’s gated with trespassing signs. Much smaller crowd. Hardly anyone wants to attempt the climb after some kid broke his leg last year.
Donnie pulls my hand, leads me up the hill. Dylan, she keeps saying. She wants me to meet Dylan. Dylan’s waiting for her on the edge. And that’s where Donnie wants to be. On the edge.
She sits cross-legged on a boulder in front of Dylan, who is too skinny and too ratty-looking. Long dirty hair and brown moccasin boots. He probably gets her Vicodin. I don’t bother to ask.
I slide up next to Donnie. Curl into her. Like we used to at parties. It’s been a long time since it was like that. Pretend like we’re here together. Alone.
“Everything’s changed so much, Don. Why has it changed so much?”
“Because we’re human. We evolve. You don’t see that, B? You want everything to be the same. You want to be a Polaroid? You want to be a trophy? A stuffed deer on a wall? People have to experiment. We have to open our hearts to new ways of thinking.”
There’s a little packet of crushed-up vikes in her palm.
“I’m not doing that,” I say.
“Why? You’ve done everything else like it before. If you do it, you’ll see the way the stars line up. And we can do it together. Me and you together forever, B. You’ll forget about all the other stuff with Dev tonight. It’ll make all the bad stuff go away.”
“I’m not sticking that shit up my nose.”
“You’ve swallowed it before. It’s just a different high, snorting it.”
I push her hand away.
She rolls her eyes and closes her hand, shoves the packet back in her jacket pocket. Zips it up to her chin.
I want things to be the way they used to be. How we used to fantasize about throwing people in the black hole, the joke we used to have when we were little. People who were mean to us went into the black hole. They’d disappear in there, fly in a circle, their arms raised and desperate.
“Don’t you just have a vape pen? Can’t you keep it light?”
But Dylan says that vape trash will kill you. And Dylan has two joints. Because Dylan likes it old-school. He’ll only smoke flower, he says. I hate people like Dylan. I don’t know how Donnie can stand him.
I try to catch her attention, her face; I just want to see her. Make eye contact to signal that I’m done here. That we’re done here. But she’s somewhere else, her dark curls shielding her face. Then she hops up, stumbling, claps her hands to a cheer we made up freshman year.
“Five-six-seven-eight! Roll-a-joint! Roll-roll-a joint!” Then she spins. Shaking my arms. Trying to get me to sing along. “How-you-think-you-roll-that-joint? Come on, B, sing it with me. Roll-a-joint! Roll-roll-a-joint!”
I laugh and look away. I just want to get out of here. That’s all I want to do.
But Dylan rolls the joint and passes it along. There’s a circle of us now. Cate. Two of Dylan’s friends.
Me, Suki, and Cate look at one another. Shake our heads. None of us takes a hit from it. Who knows what’s in it. Dylan pulls something out of his pocket, then squishes himself between me and Donnie. And they hover over it together, snorting it up their noses.
Suki gives me a look. She shakes her head. Mouths Let’s go.
Donnie’s eyes get soft and hazy. She tosses her head back. Tired, euphoric? I don’t know anymore.
“They’re all gonna OD and we’re going to have to drag them down this mountain to a hospital,” Cate says, whispering. “This is like a very bad Lifetime movie.”
She’s right. Cate is totally right. They’re all going to die.
I know Donnie’s here, and I know she’s my best friend and I’d do anything for her. But I’m not staying.
Donnie crawls over to us, her jeans dragging through the dirt. Her brand-new white sneakers, filthy. Her hands in the gravel like she’s some wild creature. Then she looks back at Dylan, still on all fours. He’s more wasted now than I had realized.
“Sometimes you have to start something to get things started,” he slurs, and I don’t even know what that means.
“You should just tell him everything, B. That’s what I do. I just tell him everything,” Donnie says. She’s practically salivating. I lower myself down to her.
“I want to take you home with me. I don’t want you to do anything crazy.”
But Dylan’s talking louder now. In the center of us. Babbling about the moon and stars. He won’t shut up. Then he blurts out: “I read Ali Greenleaf’s story online. That girl goes to your school.”
My hands feel numb, like all the blood is rushing to my fingertips. Like the night was awful already. And now it’s just delved into hell.
“You’re high. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I say.
“But you know I do,” Dylan says, too confident. “I know all about it.”
“He doesn’t know shit, B. Look at him. He’s in space,” Cate says. “Let’s get Donnie and get out of here.”
“Some girl got raped and you guys tried to take her down,” he says. “I read it. I know it’s about you.”
I give him the finger.
Donnie grabs my leg. She’s still in the dirt. “We shouldn’t have done what we did. I told him all about it.”
“She’s wasted again, B. Don’t listen to her,” Suki says. “How many times have we gotten you out of a mess this year, Donnie? You always go too far. Just shut up.”
“Stand up,” I say, grabbing at Donnie’s arms, but she’s hitting me away, fighting me. “We’re taking you home. Stand up.”
“Remember when it just used to be us, B?” Donnie is saying, stroking my thighs. Kneeling below me. “Remember when it was just me and you? And none of these hangers-on . . .” she says, holding on to my thighs, because if she doesn’t she’ll fall. I take her arms. Support her. “Why did y
ou need anyone else but me? Why did you need Sean? The way you followed him down that hole? And who did it lead you to? Ali Greenleaf? And then you followed her, crushed on her, and let go of me. Couldn’t you have liked me the way you loved Ali?”
My hands over her cheeks. Pleading with her, her thin body still kneeling in the ground. “I love you, Donnie. What are you talking about? I love you. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m begging you to come home with me.”
She raises her body up slowly, painfully, holding on to my hands, like she has weights on her shoulders. One foot in front of the other. Her hands out. Balance.
And like a snap, a quick snap. She’s got no floor. “Catch her, catch her,” Cate is screaming. Donnie’s face pale and greenish. She’s on the ground face forward in the dirt. All her beautiful curls floating. I shake her, screaming her name.
“What is she doing, B? Turn her over!” Cate screaming. Like I know. Like I’m in charge here.
“Don’t turn her over,” Dylan says, but it’s more like a whisper from a ghost. He’s sitting in the dirt. His head rocking between his knees. “That’s how Jimi Hendrix died. Choked on his own puke. Just leave her. I’ll take the princess home. She’s just nodded out. Prop her on her side.”
I’ve done pretty awful things in my life. But I’ve never left my best friend with her face in the dirt in the middle of the night.
“How are we going to get her down, B?” Suki says. Her face struggling for an answer. “She’s gonna die, B.”
I hiss for her to shut up.
“Suki, you’re going to take her head and shoulders, and Cate, you’re going to take the middle. I’ve got her feet and legs.”
We hoist her up, and she’s so bony yet so heavy. Suki screaming in Donnie’s face. She’s still breathing. She’s still there. My face is wet with tears. We’re shaking her as we make our way down the hill.
“All we need to do is get to the car. That’s it. We just need to get to the car.”
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