Tina washed it down with a gulp of beer.
She looked like she might say something else and then stopped. Tina felt watched by her. Something passed through her stare, a look of judgment or spite she thought at first, but then it was gone. “You’re really beautiful,” Kaylyn said.
“Thank you. You too.”
Kaylyn lay down beside her on the bed, stretching across the flowers. She propped her head on a hand.
“Do you like traditions?” Kaylyn asked.
“Depends on what you mean by that. Like going to church?”
She laughed. “Oh my god, you’re so cute. No, I mean like outside that stuff. Rituals.”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I love traditions. Anything that lets people celebrate or remember something that binds them.”
Tina sipped her beer.
“Like I heard about this one school in New York, like a prep school where rich kids go. And not just rich kids, but like the rich kids. The kids whose parents have more money than they know what to do with. The boys have this thing where they divvy up the freshman class, and they all get assigned someone. And then they spend a month just making that kid’s life a living hell. Beating him, making him eat nasty shit, making him wipe his ass with pinecones.”
Tina grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, but when they’re seniors, those kids get to do it to the incoming class. It’s a way they bond. Something they never forget and can take with them all through life.”
“I’ll stick with church, thank you.”
Kaylyn threw her head back, and when she laughed, Tina could see the boxing bag in her throat vibrating, and the one tooth trying to push past its neighbor. “You’re hilarious.”
She wanted to throw out the rest of her beer; she felt gross.
“C’mon,” said Kaylyn, hopping off the bed. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause that’s where the party’s at.”
Kaylyn led her to the basement. It was a dim wood-paneled space with a low ceiling and carpet the color of bathwater. The furniture all looked secondhand, cobbled together from the Salvation Army and yard sales. They were alone down there. A case of Busch Light, half-empty, sat on the coffee table along with a bottle of vodka. Tina took a seat on the couch. The music still thumped upstairs.
“I’ll be right back,” Kaylyn said.
Tina was left to think about how gross she felt. Like she needed to poop. Kaylyn was gone for a long time. Eventually, she heard the rowdy sounds of 56 and his friends descending the stairs. It was an odd crowd. Fifty-six in front, followed by Ostrowski with a bit of vomit still staining the collar of his shirt, then Brent Brandon clutching the bannister because he was clearly wasted and having trouble staying upright, then Jake Levy, Curt Moretti, and Stacey’s older brother Matt. She felt extremely awkward when Matt’s gaze fell over her since she knew him from eating breakfast in his kitchen, from spying on him and his friends with Stacey in order to gain access to their older-boy secrets. Matt, Brent, and Curt were arguing about something very loudly, but she only really saw 56, so she smiled. He gave her the same expression right back. She felt dizzy—not like she was dizzy, but like she was watching herself feel dizzy.
“Where you been, babe?” he asked.
She nodded to Kaylyn, now descending the stairs, brushing a strand of hair from her face. Her pink fingernails were curled around something, a box.
Fifty-six collapsed onto the couch next to her, his eyes a bit bleary but still handsome. “We had to go outside. The smell was just—” He fake-gagged.
Brent Brandon stumbled onto the carpet, sat cross-legged. “You guys said I was second. I got you it, so you said I was second.”
Ostrowski punched him in the shoulder and told him to shut up. Kaylyn continued down the stairs, and as Tina watched her descend, she could see her feet making ripples in the carpet and the surrounding air, as if she was tapping water with her toes. It wasn’t a box she held—it was a camcorder. Fifty-six asked if she wanted another drink, but his voice sounded like it came from another room. The ripples glided out in concentric circles from Kaylyn’s slender feet. They made the air shimmer in tones of violet and a deep midnight blue.
That was the last thing she remembered of the night.
She woke naked on the couch hurting in ways she’d never experienced and would never forget. Her head ached, but her privates screamed. It felt like someone had jammed something barbed and rusty far up inside her. There was a sheet under her and the stains were rust-colored clouds. She couldn’t breathe through her mouth, and it took her a moment of confusion to realize something was clamping her lips and face together. Stretching the skin painfully, she peeled away a piece of shiny gray duct tape. Dumbly let it drop to the floor. She looked around at the mess of beer cans and clothes. Slowly, she fished through the mayhem and found her underwear. The ache ran all the way into her stomach, sharp, stabbing. Gingerly, she pulled on the purple pair, a favorite, and went about getting dressed. She searched the house and found 56 sleeping in the guest bedroom. Ostrowski snored on the floor with one of the couch cushions tucked under his head. He wore only boxers and the shirt with the stains still on it. No Jake, no Curtis, no Matt, no Kaylyn. When she woke 56, he blinked as if he didn’t recognize her. Without saying anything, he dressed, and she followed him upstairs, past the massive puddle of reeking puke that coated the kitchen linoleum. It wasn’t until she saw this that she began quietly weeping.
They drove, and she tried to suck back her tears. It wasn’t that she was confused about what had happened. She hurt so badly that there was no question. Yet it all seemed so bizarre, she couldn’t quite make sense of it.
“Was it just you?” she asked. A stupid question, and he looked at her like it was stupid.
“You wanted it from everyone in the room, babe. You kept asking for it.” Splotchy red patches broke out on his neck—the same hot flush she’d seen in Friendly’s on their first date.
She wanted to explain that she didn’t remember anything beyond that drink, but she knew that was stupid too.
“I think I need to go to a doctor,” she said. “I’m bleeding.”
He looked over at her, then back at the road. “Sorry if things got wild. We’ll just sometimes do stuff like that. Share stuff like brothers, you know? Don’t make more a deal of it than it really is. You kept saying you were into it…”
She wanted him to stop stammering his explanation. She could still feel the gluey gunk the tape had left on her face.
When he dropped her off, she went to the bathroom and put a towel between her legs and knelt over the toilet until she threw up. Then she shredded the note she’d written and left it in the trash. For a day and night she pretended she had homework, locked herself in her room, and agonized about whether or not she needed to go to the hospital. But the bleeding stopped, if not the crush of the pain. For the next week, she thought about telling her mom what had happened. Maybe she would know what to do. But the more she thought about it, the worse an idea it seemed. After all, what had happened? Those guys would say she’d wanted to do all that, and she wouldn’t have any proof she’d tried to stop them. Then everyone at school, at church, and in the town would think she was a liar, a slut, both. Maybe some people would believe her, but mostly they wouldn’t. Mostly they’d think she was trying to get attention for herself. The more she thought about saying something the more awful the consequences manifested in her imagination. As the heat of the pain dulled, the idea of telling did as well.