by Jo Ramsey
Those thoughts didn’t do a damn thing to calm me down, so I opened the notebook and started writing. Half an hour later, I had two pages of notes and a slightly less fluttery stomach, so I got up to take my shower.
My parents left for work at their usual time, and I channel surfed until it was time to leave for Chastaine’s house a few blocks away from mine. We technically lived in the same part of town, the upper-class part, but my house wasn’t one of the expensive ones. It just happened to be near the houses that cost more than my parents would probably earn in their entire lives.
Walking along the streets, I had to be careful. The town didn’t always do the best job after snowstorms, and between sidewalks that hadn’t been cleared and ice patches along the sides of the road, I had to watch where I put my feet. Not to mention I had to walk in the streets most of the way, which meant looking out for cars.
I made it to Chastaine’s without any problems other than my feet skidding on ice at the corner of her street. No cars were in her driveway. We would have time to ourselves.
That made me more nervous than excited. Since middle school Chastaine had had a reputation as a “slut.” She encouraged it. According to her, a slut was simply a female who enjoyed sex and wasn’t ashamed of it. Judging from the rumors I’d heard about her—most of which she’d started herself—she definitely enjoyed sex. That was the main reason people started treating her like shit after she reported Jim. According to idiots, someone who had sex as much as Chastaine deserved whatever she got.
She hadn’t hooked up with any guys since reporting Jim, as far as I knew, even though she was leaving the option open. The only guys I usually saw her talking to were Evan and his boyfriend, Guillermo. She’d told me she didn’t do exclusive, but as far as I knew, she hadn’t had a single date since we’d become girlfriends.
I felt kind of guilty about that. She and I had kissed and fooled around—fully clothed—but I wasn’t sure about doing anything more, even though I suspected she wanted to. She always said she didn’t have a problem holding back until I was comfortable, but I didn’t know if I ever would be comfortable. I was still getting the hang of thinking of myself as a lesbian, and the idea of doing anything sexual with another girl weirded me out a little, even though I definitely liked the idea.
I couldn’t just stand there on Chastaine’s front porch being nervous. For one thing, it was so cold my teeth chattered. I rang the doorbell, and Chastaine opened the door within seconds.
“I saw you walking up the street,” she said, stepping aside to let me in. She closed the door behind me. “What took you so long?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t about to tell her what I’d been thinking. “Um, so how are we getting to the mall? Taking public transportation would get us there sometime this afternoon.”
“Yeah, and it’s too damn cold to stand outside anyway. Marcus said he’d be back around eleven and has to go out there anyway, so he’s going to drive us.” She tilted her head and stared at me. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine.” Other than my stomach twisting itself inside out. I wasn’t sure if it was part of my nerves or because I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I couldn’t mention either to Chastaine. She wouldn’t have understood why I was nervous, and she would be pissed if she found out I’d skipped a meal.
She shrugged. “If you say so. Do you want to sit in the living room or go to my room? I found a few more outfits you can try on.”
“Living room,” I said a little too quickly. “I have some ideas about the support group to go over with you. Maybe I’ll have time to try stuff on before Marcus gets here.”
I hoped I wouldn’t. Chastaine didn’t understand how crappy I felt in the tight clothes she kept trying to get me to wear. And I hated changing in front of her, because it showed off too much of my too-big body.
“Sure.” She led me into the huge living room. The TV was on some talk show, but the sound was muted. “How about something to eat or drink?”
“Diet soda.” I hadn’t been able to totally give up soda, but at least diet didn’t have any calories. It wasn’t exactly healthy. It just wouldn’t make me any fatter.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Diet soda. What did you have for breakfast?”
“Food.” I forced myself to look her in the eye so she would believe me.
“Liar.” She shook her head. “Seriously, Holly, you can’t just not eat. And you are not fat! I wish you’d get over thinking you are. I like your body. Curves are cute.”
“Sure.” I sat on the couch. “If you don’t believe I ate anything, why did you ask?” I sounded bitchy as hell. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”
“I hoped you’d at least be honest about it.” She sighed. “I’m getting worried about you. Promise me you’ll at least have something decent for lunch?”
“I promise.” It would depend on what she meant by “decent.”
She went into the kitchen and returned a minute or so later with two cans of diet soda. She handed one to me and sat down beside me. “So you said you have some plans about the support group? Is that what’s in your notebook?”
“Yeah.” I opened the notebook. “We know a bunch of people who we were going to tell about the group, right?”
“Yeah.” Chastaine paused and tapped her fingers on one hand against her thumb a few times. “Like eight, I think. Or maybe only six. We should have made a list of the names.”
“I didn’t want to write them down. Privacy.” Just because we knew their names didn’t mean they would want everyone to know what had happened to them, and putting something in writing meant running the risk of someone else seeing it. “I remember them all, I think. Five or six who’ve told one of us that something happened to them, and a couple who want to help even if they haven’t experienced anything.”
“Right, because you said it should be a group to help people learn how to support each other, not just a group for people who’ve been through it. Did you tell the school that?”
“I put it in the written proposal. Either their reading comprehension sucks or it didn’t matter.” I skimmed the notes I’d made earlier. “Okay. So we can’t meet at school. At least not officially, because someone would figure out what was going on. Especially since it would have to be after school, and they’ve been keeping a really close eye on who goes where in the building since Gina messed with your and Maryellen’s lockers.”
“Don’t even mention her name,” Chastaine snarled. Gina had been her bestie since kindergarten or something, but when Chastaine reported Jim, Gina turned on her. So did Gina’s mom, who’d been Chastaine’s mom’s best friend until then.
It sucked when you couldn’t even trust a friend for support, which was the main reason I wanted to start the group.
“Sorry,” I said. “Anyway, so I don’t think we’d be able to do anything in the school building, because we’d get caught, and you know Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Rondeau would be pissed.”
“Naturally, because why would they be in favor of students helping each other instead of bullying each other?” She took a sip of her soda. “I’m guessing you’ve thought of a way to do this without using any part of the school?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I think.” I leaned back and opened my soda, though I didn’t drink any of it. “Step one is to talk to the people we wanted to invite to join. Step two is to find out if any of them can host the group at their house. Then it doesn’t have anything to do with the school, and no one can really say a whole lot about it because it’s only a group of friends hanging out.”
She grinned. “Devious. I like it. Okay, so yeah. I can definitely host here, but not every time. I mean, how often would we be meeting, anyway?”
“I was thinking once a week.” That sounded reasonable to me, anyway. “We wouldn’t ask the same person to host every time, because that would piss off parents. But if we had, say, eight members who could let us come to their houses, each person would only have to host once every other mo
nth. That wouldn’t be so bad.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” She hesitated. “Some people might not be willing to have the group meet at their house, though. Some of them might not have told their families what happened.”
“I know.” I didn’t like thinking about that. Chastaine hadn’t reported Jim until four months after it happened because she’d figured no one would believe her, and she’d wanted to handle it on her own. She’d only come forward because Guillermo figured out something had happened and talked her into going to the school guidance counselor. Maryellen hadn’t reported Jim until Chastaine did.
Probably some of the other people we were planning to invite to the group had kept secrets about what happened to them too. That was something we would have to figure out how to handle. If someone told us they’d been assaulted but they hadn’t reported it to anyone else, I wasn’t sure what we would do. We had to keep the meetings confidential, or no one would trust the group enough to come. On the other hand, if someone was a crime victim and hadn’t told anyone, it meant a criminal was walking around free. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep quiet about that.
“We’ll have to decide how to deal with that,” Chastaine said, as if she’d read my mind. “I mean, like you said Natalia Borovsky told you someone tried to make her do something. Did she tell anyone else?”
“I’m not sure.” I only knew about Natalia because she’d asked me to tell Chastaine she admired her. “But yeah. If she didn’t report it, should we encourage her to? Should we go behind her back and report it ourselves if she doesn’t? I mean, we want the group to be something everyone can trust, but we don’t want to let people get away with hurting others.”
“Right.” She set down her soda and rubbed her temples. “Damn. I hate thinking about it. If you report a crime so the person doesn’t get away with it, people treat you like shit. If you don’t report it, someone else might get hurt by the same person. Like, if I’d reported Jim when it happened, he wouldn’t have been able to do it to Maryellen.”
Her voice sounded choked, and she closed her eyes. “I’m not crying.”
“It’s okay if you do.” I put my hand on her arm. “What happened to Maryellen wasn’t your fault. Even if you’d turned him in right away, he still might have been walking around.”
“But she would have known what he was capable of.” She gulped and opened her eyes again. “Okay. Screw guilt. I wish I’d realized sooner that he might do the same thing to others, but I didn’t. I wish I’d tried harder to be supportive of Maryellen, but I didn’t. I wish Maryellen hadn’t tried to kill herself, but she did. Can’t change the past. Feeling guilty doesn’t make anything better.”
“Exactly.” I tried to take her hand, but she didn’t let me, so I folded my hands in my lap. “That’s what the group’s for, though, right? So people know they aren’t alone, and maybe no one else will do what Maryellen did.”
“Yeah.” She took a long, shuddery breath. “Moving on. I don’t want to think about that anymore. We’d have to get the word out about the group without the adults at school finding out.”
“Maybe the grapevine can work for something good for a change?”
“Maybe.” She nodded. “We’ll try. You can talk to Natalia, because it looks like she trusts you. I mean, I don’t know a lot about the kids in Houseman’s class, but they have to have things explained a certain way or something, don’t they?”
“Kind of.” I was a little irked about how she’d phrased it, but I understood what she meant. “They aren’t stupid. They have autism or developmental delays. So I guess if you aren’t clear about something, they might not get it, but I think most people are like that.”
“I definitely know some people who just plain don’t seem to get anything. I didn’t mean anything bad about the Houseman kids. It’s mostly like I said, Natalia knows you and trusts you, and you’ve talked with her before.” She leaned over to look at my notebook. “You could have started with the proposal you turned in at school instead of starting over.”
“It was easier for me to think it through when I started from the beginning.” I paused. “Okay. We know about Natalia, Xan, Alyssa, Tony, and you said Tracie, right?”
“Yeah. I can talk to her and Tony.” She sat back again. “I don’t know about Xan and Alyssa. I mean, they kind of don’t talk to anyone except each other most of the time.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “They should have the chance to join if they want to. Alyssa’s in my gym class, so I’ll talk to her and ask her to talk to Xan.” I didn’t want to admit that Xan Janus scared me a little. She usually wore all black and kept a hood pulled up, shading her face, even though the school dress code specifically said no hats or hoods. She had some kind of agreement with the administration or something.
“I’ll tell El-Al about it,” Chastaine said. “If you tell her something, it’ll be all over the school in less than a day. I’ll make sure she knows the group is for people who want to help, not only people who’ve had something done to them, but that anyone who joins will have to promise to keep things confidential.”
“Maybe we should do a written pledge or something.” I hadn’t really thought much about how to make sure no one betrayed anyone else’s trust, but having something in writing might help. At least the people who signed it wouldn’t be able to say they didn’t know they were supposed to keep everything to themselves.
“That’s a good idea. You’re really into doing this, aren’t you?” She looked at me. “Is it only because of me?”
“No.” I hesitated. “Well, a little, maybe. I mean, I thought of it because of all the crap you were getting at school, but also because of Maryellen trying to kill herself, and because of Natalia talking to me.”
“Okay. So it’s about me, but not entirely.” She snorted. “I guess there’s a silver lining to getting crapped on for the past three months, if it means other people will know they aren’t alone.”
“No one should get crapped on for something they didn’t have a choice about.” I had to force myself not to sound completely pissed. I hated the way some people at school treated Chastaine. I’d seen the threats and insults they posted on her Facebook wall and other social media, and I’d heard some of the things people said at school.
She hadn’t deserved to have Jim rape her. No matter what she’d done with him or other guys voluntarily, that didn’t give him the right to do something she didn’t want. And it didn’t give anyone else the right to blame her for what he’d done.
“Chill,” she said. “You look like you’re about to start pounding on the couch cushions or something. I’m not getting as much hassle at school anymore, and a few people actually grew some brain cells after we found out about Maryellen. I think one of the things the group should do is spread the word that who you are and what you’ve done in the past doesn’t magically make rape not rape. Like, victim blaming and slut shaming? Those things are bullshit, and we should teach people that.”
“We can try. They might not listen, but some people aren’t going to listen to anything anyway.”
“Exactly. But if even a few do listen and stop to think about what they’re saying, it’s an improvement.”
I nodded. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how easy it was for Chastaine to talk about what had happened to her. If I’d been through what she had, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do more than curl up in a ball and cry, but she’d been face-to-face with Jim for the first three months of the school year, after what he’d done to her, and she hadn’t even flinched. And after she reported him, she’d coped with all the crap people at school gave her.
She was way stronger than I would have been.
“Okay. So we talk to the people we want in the group and ask if they’re willing to join.” She looked thoughtful. “We could hold the first meeting here. I can make sure Mom leaves us alone if she’s home, and if we do it right after school, Dad and my brothers won’t be here.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I too
k my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through the contacts list. I didn’t ever call or text probably half the people on the list, so I didn’t remember all the names without looking. “Okay. I have Natalia’s number, for some reason. I think she and I were on the same committee for the spring dance last year.”
“I can get hold of Tracie and Tony with no problem,” Chastaine said. “You said you’re going to talk to Alyssa in gym class. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Someone might overhear you.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Now that we had a definite plan, I wanted to get started right away. Maybe we would even be able to meet during vacation. Then Ms. Rondeau and Mr. Lawrence definitely wouldn’t be able to say we’d disobeyed them. If we met at someone’s private home during school break, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the school at all.
I started to call Natalia, but Chastaine pulled my phone out of my hand. “We don’t have to do it right this second. I asked you to come over so we can spend time together, not to set up a support group. Okay?”
“Yeah.” My stomach started fluttering again. “Okay.”
Chapter 2
WE WENT upstairs to her completely huge bedroom. Just the closet was about the same size as my room, and the rest of the room could have swallowed my living room whole and had space left over.
The first time Chastaine had come to my house, I’d been embarrassed about how small, cramped, and messy the place was. But she hadn’t cared.
I’d known her since kindergarten, because the town was too small for people to not at least know who one another were, and I’d always thought she was snobby and looked down on people. She had been that way once, but not anymore. And I’d finally gotten comfortable being at her house or having her come over to mine.
That didn’t mean I was totally comfortable in her room, though. I really would rather have stayed in the living room.
“Some of the stuff I have for you to try on, you won’t be able to wear for a couple of months,” she said. “Not unless it drastically warms up, anyway. It isn’t winter stuff. But I thought maybe you’d like to get started on your spring wardrobe.”