“I WANT YOU to take it.”

Maggie closed her hands into fists, crossed her arms, and tucked those fists under her armpits for good measure. “I don’t want it.”

“But your friends, Mags.” Mom presented the phone in a pleading way. “Don’t you want to stay in touch with your friends?”

They stood by her mother’s car. The morning sky, heavy with clouds, turned the lake into pewter. Maggie said to the hard gray, “It isn’t just friends who write to me now.” So did people who despised her. Who believed she’d lied, exaggerated, wanted precisely what Matt Dawson had arranged and helped deliver, who blamed her for his and his pals’ expulsions, who thought she hadn’t just gotten rid of Carlton’s champion and ruined the football season but fucked up the team, tarnished the Tigers’ reputation, stolen the whole town’s—the whole state’s—good fun.

Maggie stared blindly at the lake, remembering the posts she’d read on social media. Another trashed bitch runs off at the mouth … Shit, girls exaggerate, lie, fuck around on their boyfriends, then pull a stunt like this to cover their tracks … Matt Dawson and five others are facing expulsion for what?! I can’t believe it. Those boys could snap their fingers and make girls appear, just like that. This doesn’t make sense. They don’t need to break the law … Here’s one nasty strategy to worm your way into the limelight: Find some decent guys, point your finger, and lie, lie, lie. Thanks a lot, bitch … We’re behind you, Matt! One hundred percent! Vermont loves you!… Women who falsely accuse men should be locked up in prison … This sounds like a girl who couldn’t get a date with The Dawson. This sounds like petty vengeance …

“Maggie. Maggie.”

She blinked.

“We need to tell the police if you’re getting mean messages.”

“No.” No way. Maggie was done with the justice system. “Please don’t.”

Mom shook her head, noncommittal, and thrust out the phone. “Take it. Delete whatever you’re unsure about. Don’t even read it. But I can’t have you cutting yourself off. It’s not healthy, honey. What about Shayna and Jen?”

Mom didn’t mention Sara Wood. Maggie sighed, thinking about the girl she’d hung out with at Carlton last year—almost daily until March. Turned out, Sara hadn’t been such a good friend, after all.

“You’ve known Shayna and Jen forever, long before all this happened.”

Before. Was there such a time?

Her mother ducked her head.

Maggie looked up. And what she saw was an exhausted woman, helpless, hurting, a mom who couldn’t change what had been done to her only child. No kiss could make everything better. There wasn’t a simple solution or even a hard one, not for Mom, not for Maggie. Just addressing what had happened heaped trouble upon trouble.