The Nowhere Girls(68)

The room could not be more silent. It could not be more still. Everyone is holding their breath, frozen with the weight of what they must do.

“I don’t think she’s a spy anymore,” Erin says.

Then with a flip of her hair, Abby’s eyes go blank. She turns back into the girl people remember, a girl who would never come here asking for help. She shakes off Lisa’s arm around her shoulder. “I gotta run,” she says.

“Wait,” Lisa says. “Stay with us.”

“No,” Abby says, pulling away from her. “No offense, but I’m done hanging out with high school girls.” Her laugh is bitter, biting. “I just want that sick bastard to hurt. So good luck, I guess. Hurting him.” And before anyone can figure out what to say, Abby slides out the door and is gone.

A circle of eyes blinks at one another, like lights going on and off.

“Wow,” someone finally says.

“That was intense,” says Sam.

“Total buzz kill,” says the drunk girl.

Lisa Sutter sits down and puts her head in her hands. The room seems suddenly darker, more full of shadows.

“She has to tell the cops,” Serina Barlow says.

“She doesn’t have to do anything,” Melissa says.

Trista and Krista are huddled over a phone, their faces illuminated by the unnatural glow. “She’s number eight, isn’t she?” Trista says.

“You guys, stop,” Melissa says. “She’s humiliated enough already.”

“I’m not making fun of her, I swear,” Trista says. “I was just thinking. There are a couple of girls on the list that sound really bad. Like number six: ‘too doped up to say much.’ And number eleven: ‘got her so drunk she couldn’t say no.’ I mean, he basically admits to raping them, right? We don’t know who they are, but maybe if Abby came forward and, like, verified that Spencer is definitely who’s behind the posts, maybe the police would investigate what he did to those girls. Abby wouldn’t even have to say all that stuff he did to her. She’d just have to admit to being on the list.”

The only movement in the room is a sea of darting eyes. The only sounds are the walls shuddering around them and the muted howls of the wind outside, as if it’s trying to get in.

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Grace finally says.

“And there are so many other girls, too,” Krista says. “If it was like a whole group that came forward with Abby, the police couldn’t ignore them.”

Trista looks up from her phone. “Like maybe some of the girls are even in this room.” She can’t help herself. She looks at Lisa Sutter. Number Twelve: Boring and needy. Apparently she’s head cheerleader now.

All eyes are on Lisa. The room is waiting for her to speak. Waiting for her to come forward and risk humiliation. Waiting for her to be brave.

But what she does is grab her purse, stand up, and walk out of the room.

“What’s her problem?” Serina Barlow says.

“Really?” Melissa says. “You all try to bully her into admitting she’s on that list, and you’re surprised that she’s upset?”

“Who was bullying?” Serina says. “No one even said her name.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“You know what?” Serina says. “Lisa should feel bad. She has the power to possibly get Spencer for some really bad shit he did, and she’s more worried about being embarrassed? Everyone already knows she’s number twelve anyway. The longer he’s out there and not in jail, the more girls he’s going to hurt. And what about those other girls? Number six and eleven? He needs to go to jail for what he did to them.”

“But who even knows what they want?” Melissa says.

“They want justice, obviously,” Serina says.

“We can’t assume that. We can’t assume they want people to know. We can’t assume they want to talk to the police or testify in court or any of that.”

“That’s bullshit,” Serina says. “They have to.”

“We can’t force anyone to talk about their rape,” Melissa says. She looks around the room, her eyes stopping at Erin, silent and hunched over, trapped inside her mysterious pain. “They’ve already been forced to do something they didn’t want to.”

Rosina follows Melissa’s eyes to Erin in a ball beside her. “Erin?” she whispers.

“So we’re fucked,” Serina says. “We can’t do anything.”

Morose faces around the room.

Erin is unreachable.

“That’s not true,” Grace says. “Look at us. Look at what we’re doing. We’re changing things already.”

“What’s changing?” Serina says. “Lucy still got raped. Those assholes are still free. We’re not doing anything.”

“These meetings are something,” Grace says. “We’re changing ourselves.”

“We’re changing the culture at Prescott,” Melissa agrees.

“Erin,” Rosina whispers. “Do you need to go?”

“But we don’t even talk about Lucy anymore,” Serina says. “We hardly ever talk about Spencer, Eric, and Ennis, either. And aren’t they the whole reason this thing started?”