“Sure,” Alice said. It wasn’t something she had planned, but now that it was happening, it seemed like the right thing to do. Clearly, it was what they did in Kennewick, and if she let it happen now, then she wouldn’t need to worry about it later. And Scott was opening up a small plastic packet that looked like a condom, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Alice reached down to touch him, but he bucked his hips back, saying, “I don’t want to come yet.” But even without being touched he only got about halfway inside of her before he shuddered, his jaw clenching, tendons tensing in his neck.

“Don’t fucking tell anyone, okay?” he said, as he pulled out of her, holding on to the condom.

“Okay. I won’t.”

But on Monday at school, the word WHORE had been written in capital letters with a silver marker across the front of Alice’s locker, and while she was crossing the open walkway to the science building for Period C, a girl that Alice had never noticed before started yelling at her from the smoking pit. “Stay away from Scott, you fucking slut.” She was a blonde with crimped hair. One of the blonde’s friends held her upper arm, restraining her from coming over. Alice kept walking, her heart jackhammering in her chest. Why had Scott told people after telling her not to tell anyone? For the rest of the day she felt like everyone in school was staring at her, and either laughing or judging. She didn’t see Scott once, and assumed that he was avoiding her.

When she did finally see Scott, the following day, he didn’t even look at her, just slammed something into his locker and took off. Alice watched him walk away, still wondering what had happened, when a girl—another friend of the blonde—shoved Alice hard in the shoulder and said, “Don’t even look at him, Bitcheford.” A group of students walking by burst into laughter. For a brief moment Alice almost went after the girl. She imagined grabbing her hair, pulling her hard to the floor, stamping on her neck. But Alice controlled herself; she showed nothing.

It was only at the very end of freshman year that Alice heard the whole story. Gina Bergeron was another freshman whose family had recently moved to Kennewick. She was tall and gangly, and spoke so rapidly that sometimes spit would bubble from her lips. They’d met in science class, where they’d been paired together to dissect a fetal pig. She had two older brothers and two younger sisters, all about a year apart. Alice and Gina became friends almost by default. They were both new to Kennewick, and both friendless, and that was where the similarities ended. Still, it was someone to eat lunch with in the cafeteria.