The Nowhere Girls(107)
LUCY.
In a town somewhere a girl named Lucy Moynihan knows her parents are talking to their lawyer again. She knows her rapists have been arrested and her case will finally go to trial. She knows her ghosts have been turned into news.
Of course, all this attention will die down as soon as there’s another story to take its place. Everyone will forget about the Nowhere Girls and Prescott, Oregon, and the shocking crimes of three boys who almost got away with it. Because of her age, Lucy’s name is protected in the media. But still, she knows people are talking about her. They are talking about a girl none of them knows.
Who knows what will actually end up happening? Who knows what justice even looks like? What punishment is equal to those boys’ crime, equivalent to the permanence of what they did? Is there even such a thing as justice? Nothing can bring back the girl Lucy was. Nothing can undo what happened.
Lucy is trying not to get her hopes up. Despite all the good news, there was still that case a couple of months ago about that boy who was caught raping a passed-out girl in his frat house’s laundry room. Even with eyewitnesses, even with video evidence, he still only got three months. Because he was rich. Because he was white. Because when jurors and judge looked at him, they did not see someone who looked like he was supposed to go to prison. Lucy remembers reading a statistic somewhere that only three percent of rapists spend even a day in jail. Those are not good odds.
But maybe things are changing, Lucy thinks. Just a little, day after day, can add up to a lot after a while. The world is already a different place than it was last spring, when there was no way the Nowhere Girls could have existed. But now here they are, in the exact same impossible place she left, doing impossible things.
Lucy sits in the bedroom that’s been hers for only a few months. She thinks about the desperate words she scratched in the walls of her old room, when she wanted to scream but couldn’t, when crying wasn’t enough. She wonders if anyone ever found them.
RESOURCES
National Sexual Assault Hotline
800.656.HOPE and www.online.rainn.org
En Espa?ol: www.rainn.org/es
RAINN www.rainn.org
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the nation’s largest anti–sexual violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline in partnership with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers across the country. RAINN also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence, help victims, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.
Planned Parenthood www.plannedparenthood.org
America’s most trusted provider of reproductive health care and a respected leader in educating Americans about reproductive and sexual health.
Our Bodies Ourselves www.ourbodiesourselves.org
Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS) is a global feminist organization that distills and disseminates health information from the best scientific research available as well as women’s life experiences, so that the individuals and communities they reach can make informed decisions about health, reproduction, and sexuality.
Advocates for Youth www.advocatesforyouth.org
Advocates for Youth partners with youth leaders, adult allies, and youth-serving organizations to advocate for policies and champion programs that recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health information; accessible, confidential, and affordable sexual health services; and the resources and opportunities necessary to create sexual health equity for all youth.
Stop Sexual Assault in Schools www.ssais.org
SSAIS is spearheading the movement for awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assault in K–12 schools in order to prevent it, support victims, inform students about their rights, and empower them to protect their peers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, as always, thank you to my tireless cheerleader and agent, Amy Tipton.
My editor at Simon Pulse, Liesa Abrams. You are this book’s soul mate editor. I could not have gotten luckier. Your passion and devotion to this book were boundless. Thank you for believing in Grace, Rosina, and Erin. And me.
Everyone at Simon Pulse and Simon & Schuster who went above and beyond the call of duty to advocate and care for this book. I know I had a whole army fighting for The Nowhere Girls, and even though I don’t know all your names, I am grateful for each and every one of you.
My foreign rights agent, Taryn Fagerness, for taking my girls across the pond.
The Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities Writer-in-Residence program, for giving me such a beautiful space to finish my first draft.
Trudy Hale at The Porches writing retreat in Virginia, for being my home away from home, and for the silence.
Thank you to my community in Asheville, North Carolina, for inspiring aspects of the resistance in this book. Readers may have heard of the event in September 2015 where the owners of  Waking Life, one of my neighborhood coffee shops, were revealed to be behind a misogynist podcast series and Internet postings, including a graphic and degrading list of sexual conquests involving local women, which inspired the Real Men of Prescott blog posts in The Nowhere Girls. The people of Asheville immediately responded by boycotting the business, sending a clear message that the men’s blatant sexism and abuse of women in our community would not be tolerated. Local businesses stopped carrying their products. Men and women stood together outside in protest. Within a couple of weeks, the owners left town, disgraced. Asheville made it clear that it will stand up for women, that it will stand up to misogyny and sexism. I am proud of my mountain town.