“You can delete it,” Lulu says. “It’s. I mean. You’re in it.”

“Yeah. I am.” Cass sighs. She pulls her feet up onto the couch and rests her cheek against the tops of her knees. “Did you know you were going to do that?” she asks. “Is that why you wanted to come?”

Lulu shakes her head.

“You want to put it online?” Cass asks.

Lulu nods.

“Why?”

“Like I said. I don’t want him to try what he did to us with anyone else. Because he has, before.”

Cass lets out a shaky breath. “Emma,” she says.

“You knew?”

“He told me. He cried, Lulu. He cried when we talked about it, and he told me he would never do anything like it ever again.”

“That fucking—”

“You think that’s the worst part.” Cass’s hands are on her knees, and she’s staring at them intently. “The real worst part is, I still feel bad for him.”

Her voice is so soft Lulu can barely hear her.

“I know it’s fucked up, and I don’t want to forgive him or give him another chance, or—but I still feel bad for him, Lu.”

“I don’t.”

Cass looks away from her. Lulu feels bad for her fierceness. “I never loved him, though,” she says. “So it’s less complicated for me. I always thought he was kind of a monster. Turns out I was right.”

“He’s not a monster, though,” Cass points out. “It would be different if he were, because monsters can’t help being like that. There’s nothing they can do about it. Ryan is just a guy. I knew him—this person. He knew me. And he chose to hurt me. Us.” Cass closes her eyes. “I don’t want revenge, but I want him to stop.”

Lulu knows she’s holding her breath, and can’t make her lungs relax.

“You should,” Cass says. “You should post it.”

“Really?”

“This isn’t just about me,” Cass says. “You’re right that this is about Emma. And other girls, maybe. Whose names we don’t know. And then, maybe, whoever’s next.”

Lulu nods.

Cass nods back.

“Are you sure?” Lulu asks. “I don’t want to—”

“I’m giving you permission,” Cass says. “But then you have to actually do it, Lulu. I can’t do it for you. And you can’t just do it because you think it’ll be good for me.”

“Fuck,” Lulu says.

“Fuck,” Cass agrees.

Then she leans in and kisses Lulu so swiftly that Lulu finds herself chasing the ghost of Cass’s mouth, leaning forward as Cass stands up and straightens the hem of her shirt self-consciously.

“I really have to go,” she says.

“Okay,” Lulu says.

“Bye, Lulu.”

“Bye, Cass.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN