Page 54 of Dear Debbie

“No.” She shakes her head vigorously. Thank God. “But…you know…you can see my…my boobs.”

Oh no. Well, it could be worse. It could definitely be better, but it could be worse too.

“He said he’ll show everyone!” She buries her face in her hands. “He’s going to share it with all his friends unless I…”

“Unless you what?”

“Unless I…” She doesn’t lift her face. “Unless I…you know…”

If she says “you know” one more time, I might scream. “Unless you what?”

“Mom.” She finally raises her face, her eyes pleading. “We haven’t…and he wants to…”

That buzzing starts up again in the back of my head. I want to kill that bastard. “Are you saying,” I begin as I try to keep my voice from trembling, “if you don’t have sex with him, he’s going to send the naked photos of you to all his friends?”

She doesn’t answer, but another wave of tears spills over. Her shoulders start to shake. “My life is ruined!”

I grit my teeth. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this angry in my entire life, and I’ve been really angry. How dare he? This is my little girl! What sort of person would do something like that?

“What will I do?” she wails. “If he sends it to his friends, they’ll send it to their friends, and then the whole school will get it! How will I even get into college?”

“Maybe he’s lying,” I say, although I agree that Zane seems like the sort of person who would do something like that. “Maybe he won’t really send it to anyone.”

“He did it before!” she cries.

What?

“He transferred to our school between sophomore and junior year,” she explains. “His family moved here from Florida. And apparently, this girl he was dating during sophomore year sent him a naked picture, and he circulated it everywhere. He showed it to me.”

“Seriously? And he didn’t get turned in for doing that?”

“His friends all covered for him. Nobody would say where the photo came from. Eventually though, everyone was passing it around.”

Wow. I never liked Zane, but this is next level.

“My life is ruined!” Lexi reaches for me, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her tightly. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. How could I have let him take those pictures?”

“It’s not your fault,” I say.

I’m annoyed that it happened, but I mean what I’m saying. I can imagine the way Zane must have pressured her. She’s only a kid—seventeen is such a baby!—and she desperately wanted her cool boyfriend to like her. I understand exactly how it happened.

“Listen to me, Lexi,” I say. “I promise you, we will figure this out. We are not going to let Zane win.”

Her bloodshot eyes widen. “You’re not going to tell the principal, are you?”

“Lexi…”

“You can’t!” She grabs my arm. “Mom, if you tell them, everyone will find out! And he’ll circulate the photos anyway!”

“Lexi…”

“Promise me!”

I don’t know if she’s right, but the way Lexi is grabbing my arm, she certainly thinks so. And she has a point. If I go to the school, these things do have a way of getting around. Even if he doesn’t do anything with the photos, the mere existence of them will be a rumor that spreads like wildfire.

No, I’ve got to deal with this in a different way.

“I promise,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone at the school. But I need you to promise me something.”