There was Kelsey Waters, in the blue light of a basement, with her underwear around her knees and mascara ringed around her eyes. There was Riley Simmons, passed out drunk on the bathroom floor during a party. Jonathan Elders took off her bra and photographed her. The next day at school all the boys were huddled around looking at the photos and laughing. He told everyone she was too ugly to have sex with and she cried in the lunchroom when she heard.

And then there was what happened to Becky Sarinelli. That was even worse.

Chapter Twelve

It started at a pep rally, early senior year, just before the sickness, the hysteria, the allegations, the confessions—or at least that’s when I became aware of it, of the Game.

High school rallies were mandatory. Never mind the kids who didn’t have a group to sit with, who didn’t care about the rally—or the bonfire that would come later—because no one would ask us to go or notice if we were there. Still we were forced into the football stadium bleachers, to cheer for the players and watch the cheerleaders shimmy in their short skirts, while the boys shouted pussy from behind cupped hands.

Bradley Roberts, the class VP, droned on at the microphone about school pride, the importance of unity, the Barrens Tigers, rah-rah-rah.

And then: a shout, high-pitched and strangled. The crowd shifted, and for a second I imagined flames racing up the bleachers, consuming us all. A real bonfire.

Some of my classmates rose from their seats. Their excitement was thick; it made my stomach curl. Still, I turned with the rest of them.

I saw Becky Sarinelli moving through the bleachers, tripping over book bags and risers, desperate, obviously panicked. She was reaching for pieces of paper—they looked like flyers. Snatching them wildly and hurrying on to the next. But there were too many: dozens, floating hand to hand as though drawn on an invisible current. Some people were laughing; some looked sick.

Bradley cleared his throat a couple of times, but no one cared anymore what he had to say about school spirit. Mr. Davis was heading toward the podium.

“Quiet!” he said. “Everyone, be quiet. Sit down.” But no one listened.

The flyers were making their way toward me. One floated to the floor in the aisle, faceup. Only then did I see it wasn’t a flyer at all.

It was a photograph, blown up and pixelated. Clear enough, though, to see what it was.

Becky.

My heart went still.

She was lying on a bed. Her eyes were half-mast, her makeup smeary. Her skirt had been pushed above her waist, and her large white thighs glared bright in the flash, so bright she looked like a plastic doll. Her shirt was unbuttoned and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her underwear was twisted somewhere around her knees. The murmurs came together, gelling in the same way our school song might have, if things had gone the right way.