I never go out anywhere anymore, except to my new part-time job at the Dairy Queen. Mom thought I was hanging around the house a little too much, so I got it a month ago. Occasionally I get bullied there, too, when people from school come—they’ll rip open the little packets of sugar and pour them all over the counters or drop ice cream on the floor—but generally it’s a refuge; I feel safe there. When there are no customers, it’s manageable. I just watch stuff on my phone or do homework. I can have as much soft-serve ice cream as I want, which is always a plus. I like the guys who work in the kitchen at the back. It’s fairly mindless work.

Left alone and lonely is preferred to the alternative now. The alternative is a wave of cruelty. Last week, a crowd literally stood in a circle around me. They made it tighter and tighter, some of them touching me, grabbing me, closer and closer, my eyes clenched shut, until I cried out, and they all laughed and turned away. I saw Breanne’s curtain of hair in the group as they moved away. They have so much power. They walk around with it like it’s nothing.

No one even knows why I’m a loser anymore. I’m slutty, I’m disgusting, I’m stupid, you’ll catch something by association. It doesn’t matter; it’s been verified by collective insistence, persistence, invention. And because, if nothing else, they know they don’t want to unpopular by association, everyone avoids me unless they have reason not to.

I don’t know who I can talk to. It’s too embarrassing. The thought of telling my mom makes me sick. The things I’ve been accused of, sex stuff … I just can’t imagine telling her or showing her what people are saying. It’s sickening. She’d freak out and probably make it so much worse. I could never tell Pete. He’d go right to Lottie. And she already thinks I’m meddling in her life.

One day after school, I decide to go see my dad. To actually visit him, see if he can help. He’s always said that he’s there for me if I need him. I just never really have, until now.

I walk to the bus station. Everyone here seems like they’re trying to get the hell out of town, and there is an air of desperation, hunger, and a nasty touch of something about to blow. People are snapping at each other. They’re irritable. There is a woman arguing with a bus driver about her ticket. There is a couple sniping at one another. There is a mother pushing a stroller back and forth with a vacant look in her eyes, trying to get her toddler to stop crying and go to sleep.