by Emma Kress
I laugh. “You’re Grand Canyon deep.”
Dylan grins. “That’s what she said.”
I throw my napkin at her.
“I’m glad you guys are here,” I say. “This is a good distraction from tonight.”
“Oh, fockity fock,” Nikki says. “I think because of all our talk last night about turning ourselves in I kind of forgot about the State Championships.”
“You forgot?!” Dylan laughs. She shakes her head. “It’s half of what I thought about last night. I was just so bummed I wouldn’t get to play.”
“I am so bone-tired I hope I’ll be able to hit the ball,” I say. I turn to Dylan. “But I’m really, really glad you’re going to be there. It wouldn’t work without you.”
Nikki’s phone pings. Mine too. And Dylan’s. We all look down. “The team,” we say together.
Within half an hour, everyone’s at Big Bob’s picnic table. Kiara and Dylan hug for a long time and everyone’s clapping them on the back. I scoop cones for everyone, and when Ava asks for cookie dough, I remember something.
“Hang on,” I say.
“Don’t tell me you’re out! Oooh, that’s a bad sign for tonight!” She starts to pull her cross necklace from under her shirt.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’re not out. I’m just checking to see if we have something better.” I open the back freezer. Sure enough, I see the small container I hoped would be there. I lift it down and take a sample spoon, making sure everything good lands on it.
“You are not giving me some shady garbage—”
I shove the spoon at her and she takes a tentative bite, her eyes growing wide.
“Doritos ice cream?? He actually did it??”
I nod and laugh.
“Big Bob is a focking genius.”
“Agreed,” I say. “Want a whole cone?”
“Absofockinglutely!”
“Except it’s not called Doritos ice cream,” I say. “It’s called the Ava.”
Her mouth goes wide in this huge openmouthed smile.
“You’re famous!” Cristina says.
Ava eats a big hunk of her ice cream. “Ohhhhh,” she says. “We are so winning tonight, my friends.”
We’re crowded around the picnic table, everyone eating their cones, talking about tonight, when Nikki’s phone pings again. She looks at it and makes a disgusted face.
“What?” I ask.
She looks down, reading: “‘What’s better than sunshine? Sports. What’s better than sports? Beer. Combine all three and you get Reilly’s Day Drink Olympics. Winter is coming, Ridgebacks. Party before it hits.’”
None of us speak.
“So,” Dylan asks, “we’re just going to go play our game and pretend that’s not happening?”
Ava gives me a look.
“Don’t worry,” I say, “we learned our lesson. We have no desire to go down that road again. I just … I wish there was something we could do to change things.”
We’re quiet, watching the traffic. Maybe it’s enough that we tried. Maybe it’s enough that we’re all still here, together.
“The #MeToo movement changed things,” Nikki finally says, her voice quiet. “I mean, that’s what led to all those arrests. All those TV guys lost their jobs.”
“Because women came forward,” I say.
Nikki shakes her head. “Not just that. It wasn’t just that a few women came forward. It was a flood of women’s voices. It was the force of all those women together that did it.”
I look around the table at all these strong girls. Weeks ago we sat on a dark playground and shared pieces of our stories. Then, I wanted the stories as a means to an end. I didn’t get that they were valuable all by themselves.
And I never shared mine.
Nikki begins to talk and Ava wraps her arm around her. Liv takes my hand and squeezes. I listen. Others talk.
I’m amazed by these girls that I get to call my friends. These girls who have been forced to question too many times whether their bodies are even their own. These girls who must fight to reclaim their bodies every time they take the field, or even get out of bed. And yet, each day, they rise.
Finally, I tell my story. They hold my words, my truth, and it’s unexpectedly … powerful.
I remember the flyer Nikki and I saw for the SU Speak Out. Even though it feels forever ago, I still remember the words:
Stand Up. Speak Up. Be Heard.
Heal.
Speaking up and speaking out heal.
Voice not violence. All these weeks, we fought in masks, at night. Voices silent, faces hidden, stories buried.
Nothing changed.
I wanted to be the lit match to their gasoline. I wanted to level their world. But I didn’t. And I’m not sure I realized how much being on fire hurt me.
“I have pictures,” I say. “Of some bruises. After Reilly. I could post them.”
“Wow,” Nikki says.
I wish I could swallow the words back down. Because speaking out could hurt even more than what we’ve already been through. There’d be no broken bones or fear of arrest, but I would be unzipping my rib cage, exposing my heart, leaving it bare.
“That’s really brave,” Dylan whispers.
“I’ll post too,” Nikki says, nodding.
“Me too,” Dylan says.
“Me too,” Kiara says. And soon they’re all saying me too, me too, me too.
“What if people call us sluts or troll us?” Sasha asks.
Michaela nods. “They might. But maybe more will be on our side.”
“And,” Dylan says, “if even one girl doesn’t get hurt because of it, isn’t it worth it?”
I think of that burl that Aunt Jacks showed us. How it looked like all the words and secrets were caught in the tree’s throat. How it was an ugly mess of a thing, and yet so powerful. How when Aunt Jacks finally opens it up, and lets it speak, it will be the most beautiful version of itself.
Nikki’s staring at her phone, her face all blotchy. “I took a picture too,” she says, holding it out to us.
In the picture, she’s wearing the white blouse I remember from that night, buttoned all wrong. She’s pulled it to the side to show her upper arm, near her shoulder. The bright red mark is ragged and swollen, angry and ugly against her skin. Purple creeps in all around the edge of the bruise.
“Oh, Nik,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” I put my hand out and she takes it. Ava tilts her head onto her shoulder. Cristina wraps her arms around her.
“Thanks,” Nikki says. “But we don’t have to do this today, you know. If you think it’ll mess up the game.”
I look at Ava. And Michaela, who wants this win as badly as she wants valedictorian. And at Cristina, who, like Nikki, will be playing the last game of her senior year tonight. I look at my whole team.
“It’s not my choice,” I say. “All of us need to be on board.”
Ava smiles at me and looks around.
“I think,” Liv says into the silence, “it’s really about you, and Nikki, and the others who choose to put their stories out there. Will it drain you too much?”
I think for a minute. “I didn’t feel drained after I told you. Weirdly, I felt—I feel stronger than ever.”
A smile spreads across Ava’s face. “Then maybe this is exactly the power we need to win tonight.”
We all look at one another and it’s a buzzing, alive kind of silence. We are not hiding in the dark under masks. We are on a busy intersection, on a sunny morning, the cold November air whipping our hair, and we are about to get loud.
We write:
#BoycottDDO
Day Drink Olympics or Date Rape Olympics?
They can’t assault us if we don’t go.
Ava counts us off: “One, two, three—post.”
And we wait.
FORTY-ONE
I LEAVE THE OTHERS WHILE I lock up the ice cream shack and make sure everything’s put away. It’s not even noon and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime since Dylan go
t arrested last night. And we still have hours before our championship game tonight.
When I return to the table, they’re all looking at Dylan’s phone.
“What?” I ask.
“Well, there were some really nice reactions,” Ava says, “fists-raised, girl-power-type stuff.”
“So why do you guys look like a puppy died?”
Dylan passes me her phone, her finger pointing to one comment.
johnstowniez: who wants u anyway tired slut
“Wow,” I say.
She turns it back around and squints at the phone. “You should see his picture. As if I’d want YOU, Johnstowniez.”
“Let’s turn off our phones,” Quinn says. “We don’t need this negative energy clogging our pores tonight.”
“Wait,” Liv says. “We have hours before our game and I plan to send all of you at least three thousand bored texts. Let’s just delete the app instead. We can reload it after the game.”
“Smart,” I say. “Just like they can’t assault if we don’t go, they can’t hurt if we don’t look.”
Once we delete the app, Ava says, “If we helped one girl not go, not get hurt, then we did what we meant to do. So tonight we can focus on winning.”
And for the first time since I saw those cops waiting for us in the hall outside the locker room, I let it fully sink in.
We are going to the State Championships.
* * *
When Liv drops me off, my parents, weirdly, are waiting at the front door. At first, I think they’re excited about the game. And then, as I walk up the path, I see their faces.
Something’s happened.
I jog the last few steps. “Is everything—”
Mom goes to put her arms around me, and then she pauses. “Can I hug you?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Is it okay if I hug you too?” Dad asks.
I pull away from Mom and look between them. “You guys are auditioning for freak parents of the year. What is going on?”
“Let’s go inside,” Mom says.
I follow Mom into the living room, Dad on my heels. Mom sits on the couch and pats the seat next to her. Dad sits in the chair facing me. He sits forward. He leans back. He’s a Ping-Pong ball of weird.
“Seriously,” I say. “Are you pregnant?”
Mom smiles. “Happily, that ship sailed a long time ago.” She puts her hand on the couch cushion between us. “This is about your post. We saw it.”
Oh. Shit.
I completely forgot that they could see that. Years ago, that was the deal when I signed up. I could get an account if I let them follow me. And it has literally never, ever come up. Because I post pictures of blue skies and empty roads and field hockey sticks. I barely even post selfies.
I need to end this conversation. Fast.
“Mom, I’m—”
“First things first, are you safe?”
“Yeah.” No. I don’t know? I don’t know if any girl is safe.
“Are you in a relationship with the person who did this—”
“What?!” I recoil. “No. No way.”
“So this Grove boy we met last night,” Dad says. “He—”
“He is a good guy.” I look down at my hands. “A really good guy. And definitely not the guy who did it.”
“Would you prefer to talk about this just with me?” Mom asks.
I would prefer not to talk about it ever in the history of the world.
“Yeah.” Dad makes a move to stand. “I can go.”
“No, stay.” I surprise myself. I’m tired of hiding.
“Okay,” Mom says. “If this happened recently, sometimes when we think there might be enough evidence, we ask people to do something called a rape kit. Do you think there might be any semen on any of your clothes?”
I think a field hockey ball might’ve slammed into my chest. Dad’s frozen on the edge of the chair. In between us there’s a Sports Insider magazine that’s been there for more than a year. Longer. Nothing in this room has changed for years. The same pictures on the wall, the same furniture, the same rug. And yet none of us are going to be the same after this moment right now.
My cheeks are wet. I don’t know when that happened. Mom passes me a box of tissues.
And it’s like that ball’s slamming into my chest again. Because in the moment she passes me the tissues, I realize Mom has done this before. She has had this same conversation with other girls. She has asked them about semen. She has talked about rape kits. She has passed them tissue boxes. I had no idea.
Mom’s eyes are so kind. She has small wrinkles at the sides of her eyes, her mouth. Those girls are so lucky Mom was on their side.
“I wasn’t raped, Mom.” I risk a glance at Dad. His face is calm but his eyes are puddles. “I wasn’t. It happened…” I calculate in my head. It feels both forever ago and yesterday. “About two months ago. There was no … semen or anything. He just … grabbed me and scared me … and … I ran away. He never got that far.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“I’m … better. Than I was,” I say. “I just posted it because … because I wanted to stop it from happening to other girls.”
I suck in my lips, trying so hard to keep the tears back but they’re pooling in my eyes.
“You’re amazing,” Dad says. I look at him. I never wanted him to pity me. And I can tell by his face, he doesn’t.
“Can I hug you?” Mom asks.
“Yes.” I wrap my arms around her and she holds me.
“I’m so, so sorry, lovebug. Nobody should have to go through what you went through.”
I pull back. “I know.”
Mom holds out her hand and I take it. “Just because he didn’t get that far doesn’t mean it wasn’t real or illegal. It was dehumanizing and reprehensible. And, if you want, I will help you make him pay.”
“We will help,” Dad says.
“Right,” Mom says. “We can talk about that later or tomorrow or next week. The most important thing is that you’re safe now. And for you to know that we will do anything to help you heal.” She squeezes my hand. “And you will heal.”
The look on Mom’s face is so serious, so fierce. And I realize how like her I am. How like her I want to be.
She exhales. “I also owe you an apology. For not being there for you. For not noticing … I—”
I pull her back into a hug. “I love you, Mom. It’s okay.”
“No.” She pulls back and holds me gently—ever so gently—by the shoulders. “It is very far from okay that this happened to you. But I never want you to feel you can’t come to us. Life is hard enough, you know?”
Dad comes over and squeezes onto the couch on my other side. “Zoe, we are your original team. The OG,” he says.
I laugh despite the tears. “I don’t think that means what you think that means, Dad.”
“I just want it to mean that I’m in your corner forever and ever no matter what, and you can always come to us with anything.”
I nod.
“Can I hug you too? You can say no. I don’t want you to ever feel press—”
I throw my arms around him and he grunts as he falls backward.
After I sit back up, Mom looks at me. “Will you let me look at your arm?”
I nod. We go up to my room and I take off my shirt. We stand in front of the mirror, me in my jog bra. I watch her as she brings her eyes close to my skin so she can check my arms and shoulders. Then she moves them all around and checks my rib cage. She gives me the most thorough exam in the history of nurse moms.
As she moves over my skin so gently, I realize she’s putting her love into every look, every touch. That the longer she spends examining me, the more she’s coating me in her love. And it’s the weirdest thing, but it makes me feel full and bright and seen.
“Everything’s fine, right?” I ask when she’s finally done.
“Physically there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. But there can be lasting psych
ological effects from an experience like this. I know we said it before, but we will help you through all of it. We will be as present as you let us be.”
I nod. I look at her. “I want you on my team. Always.”
She bites her lip. “Good. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” She exhales a big breath and smiles. “You are the most incredible girl, Zoe Thane Alamandar.” She looks at me in the mirror, her hands on my shoulders. “I knew you’d be a force, kicking me nonstop the way you did for half the pregnancy. But I had no idea how strong you’d become. Now”—she drops her hands and tilts her head—“do you feel ready for tonight? We can cancel, or—”
I laugh. “You can’t cancel the State Championships, Mom.”
“I know. I just mean, we’re allowed to stay home. I don’t care if scouts or your team or your coach or the Queen of England says otherwise. I will make the excuse and it will be fine.”
The funny thing is, I believe her. She would make it fine … with them. “No. I want to go. I actually feel … really ready to kick some ass.”
She laughs. “Well then, I am really ready to watch you kick some ass.” She walks toward the door. “I’m going to make some salads for lunch. Want one?”
“Definitely,” I say.
When she leaves, I look down at my phone. There’s a text from Grove.
Shit. He probably saw my post too and I have no idea how to tell him … any of this. Or if I want to.
I remember what my parents said about them being my original team. All this time, I’ve kept my team really small. For so long, it was just Liv. And then it grew to include Ava, and all the girls we chose. Then Nikki.
I can’t control Grove’s reaction. But I can control what I do once I find it out. And it’s probably better to find out now if he’s an asshole.
FORTY-TWO
IT’S ONLY AFTER THE PHONE rings that I realize I’ve never talked to Grove on the phone. But this isn’t a conversation to have over text, and there’s no way I’d want to do this in person. Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell.
“Hey,” he says, and it takes me right back to sitting on the floor of Scoop Dreams, listening to his voice … and hiding.
“Hey,” I say. “I want to wish you luck tonight at Regionals. When do you leave?”
