In the end, I didn’t try to find out who had done what they did to me at the party. The police talked about the dissemination of child pornography, but the people in the pics are blurry and difficult to distinguish. It was hard for me to tell, too. I didn’t press any charges. An investigation would be worse than the whole thing in the first place. The police weren’t surprised. They shook their heads and said this happens all the time, and I thought, I bet it does. People are afraid. No one knows what is going on in anyone’s home, in anyone’s school, in anyone’s heart. Everything okay? We pack our lunches and go to school and spend all our waking hours pretending that nothing is happening, to us or anyone else. And then, sometimes, we get a nice, cool afternoon, where we watch TV or hang out by the lake, and maybe it is all okay, just for then, just for that time.

The day I got home from the hospital, the first thing I saw was my bike, its frame and wheel bent at an odd angle. And then, a couple of weeks ago, Pete came by our new house, and he took the bike. He had it fixed for me, saying that it was his moving truck’s fault it was busted up in the first place. He had it delivered back to me, repainted and everything. It took a long time before I could ride it, but now, finally, I can, my finger and thumb gripping the handle, the air cooling the healing scars on my face. It looks different, but good, the bike. It feels almost perfect some days. And even thought I know it’s not, that it’s the same broken bike inside, I keep pushing those pedals just like it’s not.

Riding all over, around my new town, and home again.

Dear Reader,

There is pain in this book. It might be familiar to some and foreign to others. It is my hope that by shining a light on aspects of the world we share—on some of our pain—that we might see shades and variations rather than simply light and darkness.

My interest in writing this novel was to push back on the question often asked by individuals and the media when it comes to bullying and violence. Some of us have been asked the question ourselves: “Was it really that bad?”

We all have different bars set for how “bad” things need to be to justify the actions of others. I don’t have the answer, and neither do the characters in this book. They do, however, ask you to consider that to suffer alone, and without the empathy of others, is “that bad”. It is the worst of all.

To find people who will stand by us, come what may, they are worth everything.