MARY KATE
Istep out of Grounds & Glory and the first thing that hits me isn’t the cold but the silence. The sidewalk seems frozen as I make my way back onto campus. I zip my vest up to my neck and jam my hands in the pockets, like that’s going to save me, and start walking fast down the main drag. My boots clack on the frozen cement, and I focus on the rhythm—left, right, left, don’t think about the world burning down in your phone, just move.
But the world won’t let me off the hook that easy. Before I’ve made it three steps, I clock the way some girls by the library stoop fall quiet as I approach, a little ripple of stillness that travels through the puffer jackets and ponytails and doesn’t even bother to pretend it’s about something else. I keep my eyes ahead, try to look casual, but my mouth tastes like battery acid and the skin on my neck tingles, like it knows it’s being watched.
At the bike racks, there are two guys in sweats. I recognize one from a club meeting long ago, but he looks straight through me like I’m glass. The other one, a jock with a jaw so square it probably gets stuck in doorways, glances up and grins, thenleans in to his friend and whispers something. They both laugh, low and brutal. I tell myself it’s not about me, but I know it is.
My phone buzzes again in my pocket. I don’t look at it. I keep walking, fast, wishing I’d remembered my gloves. The cold is so sharp it’s almost soothing. I breathe in through my nose, count to four, out through my mouth, count to eight. My therapist called it box breathing, but the only box I can think about right now is the one they’re trying to shove me into.
Halfway to the parking lot, I have to pass the central quad. The fountain there is dry for winter, but they’ll fill it with water soon. In warmer months, it’s where everyone sits and eats lunch or sunbathes or sneaks a smoke between classes. Now, it’s mostly empty—just a few kids hunched against the cold, or playing chicken with the campus security who cruise by every half hour.
I’m almost past it when it happens.
A guy in a battered North Face and a faded baseball cap leans against the wall, lighting a cigarette with a hand that shakes a little. He looks up as I pass, then tips his chin and says, “Hey, slut.” Not loud, but just enough that I know I’m meant to hear it. I freeze, just for a second. My face goes hot. I feel the burn all the way to my ears.
He grins, all teeth. “You hear me, right? Thought you liked it rough. Let me know if you have some free time because I’d like a taste of those big tits and wet pussy too.”
My body moves before my brain does—I keep walking, head down, fists jammed deeper in my pockets. I’m breathing hard, and I don’t notice the tears in my eyes until one slides down my cheek, blurring my vision.
Behind me, another voice: “Whore.” It’s a girl this time, but the hatred in it is just as thick. I don’t turn around. I just keep moving, fast as I can without actually running.
My boots slip on some grass at the edge of the walkway, and I nearly wipe out. I catch myself on a lamp post and look up, and that’s when I see her.
Stella Moreland.
In high school, Stella was the queen bee—captain of the volleyball team, queen of the Halloween dance, the kind of blonde you see in TV shows about mean girls but who, in real life, was always weirdly nice. When I moved into my dorm freshman year, she lived on my floor, and we’d stay up late watching trash TV and eating boxed mac and cheese and pretending our lives were going to turn out the way we’d planned.
She’s jogging up to me now, her boots leaving neat little divots in the crusted snow, and for a second I’m so relieved to see a friendly face that my knees go weak.
But Stella doesn’t look like herself. She looks panicked, and this girl never looks panicked. She’s usually put together to the nines, but today, her hair’s in a messy bun, with no makeup. She’s wearing a giant puffer and a scarf wrapped three times around her neck, and her hands are stuffed so deep in her pockets you can’t see her fingers.
“MK!” she calls. Her voice wavers a little, and I know something’s wrong.
I shake my head, already starting to edge away. “I can’t,” I say. “Not now.”
She catches up to me anyway, matching my stride, and puts a hand on my shoulder. I try to shrug her off, but she’s stronger than she looks.
“Mary Kate, give me a sec,” she says. She breaks off, glancing around, then lowers her voice. “I know you’re hurting. Just listen to me.”
I can’t answer. My lower lip is shaking, and if I try to speak I’ll lose it.
Stella steers me off the walkway, behind the quad fountain, to a little alcove between the stone wall and a row of evergreen shrubs. It’s the kind of spot where you’d go to sneak a cigarette or make out with your boyfriend after hours—private, but not hidden enough to be sketchy. She drops her voice again.
“Look, I don’t know how to say this. But you know about the videos right?”
I stare at the ground, the salt-crusted concrete, the little slush islands where the plows haven’t caught up yet. I wish I could fall into one and disappear.
“Do you have them?” I ask, so quiet it’s barely a sound.
Stella hesitates, then nods. “Yeah. Boys I know sent them to me this morning. Some even posted them to their stories before getting shut down. I’m so sorry, MK. I am so, so fucking sorry.”
She pulls out her phone. I don’t want to see it, but I can’t not see it.
She opens the first video. The screen is grainy, like it was filmed on a potato, but the face is unmistakable. It’s me—my hair, my eyes, the little scar on my eyebrow from when I fell off the monkey bars in fourth grade. I’m on my hands and knees,cowboy hat on my head along with a pair of sparkly cowboy boots, and nothing else. My tits are out, my puss’s bare, and I’m sucking a dick while another guy rams into me from behind. My mouth is open in a perfect “O,” eyes rolled back like a porn star’s, and I look so into it that for a second I almost believe it’s real.
But it’s not. I never did that. I never wore a fucking cowboy hat. I’ve never even owned boots like that, with spangles up and down the sides. Most importantly, I’ve never been double-teamed by two men, moaning up a storm as I’m spit-roasted by two cocks!
“Oh my god,” I say in a faint voice. “Holy shit.”
