“Are you okay?” he asked. His words were just a tiny bit slurred and a little sad.
“Mm,” I said.
“You gotta sleep this off.”
“Mm,” I said again. The relief was overwhelming. I wanted to cry, to bury myself in these sheets.
“I’m going to lock the door, okay? No one can get in. The key’s right here on the dresser.”
I nodded.
“Say okay, Jill.”
“Okay.”
He shut the door quietly behind him and I rolled over, forcing myself to stare out the window and into the darkness.Look up, I willed myself.Find the moon.Just find an anchor.But all I saw was a smattering of twinkling lights, jumbled in piles like puzzle pieces that I would never be able to put together. It was too beautiful, too chaotic.
Then I fell into a sleep so deep it ached. It was hours later when I awoke to the sounds of sirens and Nikki’s sobs. To Shaila’s death.
It took until the next day to find out that Nikki had just barely passed her pop. She was scared of getting lost and had been blindfolded, then dropped off five miles away in the woods, forced to find her way back to Tina’s on her own with no phone. Marla nearly got caught while completing hers—breaking intothe field hockey coach’s summer home to steal the county finals trophy. Her biggest fear was getting cut from the team, losing everything. Rachel helped her flee at the last minute.
The boys’ tasks were easier, less dangerous, like the seniors had less ammo to use, less to torture them with. Henry had to plant a false story in theGold Coast Gazettethat got him a slap on the wrist and fired from his internship. Robert was forced to steal his dad’s Lambo and let each senior take it for a ride up and down the expressway. He dropped it off only minutes before his dad came home around midnight. Graham had his thing with the tarantulas and emerged only to find Shaila, wet and exhausted, having survived Ocean Cliff. He coaxed her into going for a walk, when he lost it and killed her. At least that’s what we were told.
But we didn’t talk about any of it the next day. I never told them about Jake or how Adam saved me. How could I? Shaila was dead by then. There were bigger things to not discuss.
Still, Jake’s words seared into my brain.Aren’t you going to thank me?
As if I owed him some chunk of myself. As if he was entitled to a prize for locking me in a closet with a bottle of something sketchy.
The memory makes my insides crumble and my head pound. What if Adam hadn’t found me? I tried desperately not to obsess over the possibilities, over the fear and the blurry reality of what had and had not happened.
That day after initiation, while we were supposed to be grieving, there was one thought I couldn’t get out of my head:Why did the boys have the power? Why did they make the rules while we dealt with the consequences?
A montage of pops flashed through my brain. Adam and Jake calling out directions. Tina and Rachel standing on the sidelines, cheering and whooping along. They seemed in control, but they never were. Moments flickered in my brain as I remembered all the times the boys took advantage. Humiliating Nikki during the Show. Acting like we were being so dramatic when Shaila almost drank herself to death.It happened all over again this year. Robert zeroing in on Sierra. My own brother laughing at her during Road Rally. The boys always spoke in code when we were present, a secret language not meant for us. We were always kept in the dark.
It spread like a virus to Derek Garry and to Robert. Then passed along to boys like Topher Gardner and, now, my brother.
Had we stood by and let this transformation take place?
Shaila’s death should have signaled the end. I wonder if every class thought their initiation would be the last, though.We’ll keep them safe. We’ll make everything okay. We’ll stop this.But we didn’t. We were complicit in the sick, twisted games we played with each other.Prove it, we taunted.Prove you’re a Player.
And the worst part is that it felt good, really good, to have someone else endure what we did. That next year, when we were sophomores, Nikki, Marla, and I did all the bitch work to set up for initiation, driving out to Derek Garry’s Hamptons house the night before, filled with adrenaline. We made vats of neon pink Player Punch, stoked the bonfire, and squealed with excitement when the freshmen showed up blindfolded, shaking, and scared. Robert, Henry, and Quentin had one job: get ice.
And when the Toastmaster, Fieldston Carter, called out the final pops, I stood back as they shouted out assignments: Spendthe whole day naked in the sun. Get on all fours and let the seniors walk you on a leash for the rest of the night.
I smiled as we chugged beer until we forgot our reality, that this was the night that killed Shaila only a year before. It’s only now I realize I thought I was still on the chopping block. I thought I was up for grabs.
We did it again last year, too, convinced we were only juniors, not quite at the top. That’s why I kept telling myself,This year will be different. I tried to push the guilt away, to keep it from eating me alive. But now I know that’s a lie, too. Initiation will go on as planned. Jared will complete his horrific transformation. Unless something happens. Something big.
Rachel clears her throat and I’m back in the dingy downtown coffee shop. “We were wrong,” she says. Her red-rimmed eyes are wet, threatening to spill over. Her mouth crumples. “To go along with everything. To let it happen.”
“Why do we do it?” I say.
“It’s easy to convince yourself of something if you just pretend it’s the truth.”
We sit in silence as our lattes grow cold.
Finally she speaks. “So you’re really out?”
