Author: Robin York

“Enough that you should have known better.”

That catches me up short. Catches my breath in my lungs.

I should have known better.

Of course I should have. Things with Nate were never quite right, and I should have known that I liked him for the wrong reasons, that I had to work too hard for his regard, that he didn’t care about me the right way. I think that was always part of his mystique—the sense that I might never be quite enough for him, that he’d picked me out but I was a little too brainy, a little too naïve, and I needed to prove myself in order to make his deigning to go out with me worth his while.

I figured it all out eventually. I broke up with him because it wasn’t working, because at Putnam I had more confidence that I might find someone better. Someone like West.

I just didn’t figure it out soon enough.

Be careful what you put on the Internet. I’ve heard it a hundred times. Be careful what you do in this digital age. Don’t let yourself be made a victim, because if you do, it’s your fault. Your mistake.

I knew the pictures were a bad idea. I had my mouth on Nate’s dick when he lifted the phone in the air and took the first one, and it didn’t feel sexy. It didn’t feel risky or clever, a secret shared between us. It felt wrong.

I decided to give him what he wanted so he would be nice to me. So he would approve of me, act like he loved me, like he was proud of me.

He took that picture. He came in my mouth.

Afterward, he wanted to do body shots. One, two, three, four. My cleavage sticky, my senses dulled, my jaw sore, I did what he asked me to.

I was eighteen years old, and I thought I loved him. I should have known, but I didn’t.

And I don’t deserve to be abused for it. Judged for it. Called names.

I don’t deserve to have my life ruined.

“I trusted him.”

“You shouldn’t have. Do you think Professor Donaldson will be able to write you a recommendation letter for law school now, with these photographs on his mind? Do you think he’ll be able to attest to your intelligence, your drive, when he’s seen this?”

“Probably not.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to get an internship this summer, next year? That you’ll be able to apply for scholarships with this on your record?”

“I know it’s an embarrassment, Dad, but—”

“It’s not an embarrassment. Embarrassment fades. This is a black mark. You might as well have committed a felony, Caroline, and all because you didn’t use your head.”

“Nate is the one who posted the pictures.”

“And you’re the one who let him take them.”

“I trusted him.”

He makes a disgusted sound. Looks away from me. Wipes his hand over his mouth.

“You shouldn’t have,” he says, for the second time. And he looks at me, more sad than angry. “I thought you had better judgment than this. I’m disappointed in you. I’m … I’m disgusted with those pictures, and I’m disappointed.”

It breaks something inside me to hear him say that.

It hurts.

But I think the thing it breaks—it’s not my heart. It’s some last delicate fragment of the bubble. It’s the part of me that was still my daddy’s girl, living in hope that if I were perfect, he would love me best. Love me most. Love me always. And his love would make me powerful.

It hurts to hear that I’ve disgusted him. It hurts to know that from here on out, he’ll never love me in quite the same way, if he finds a way to love me at all.

But I don’t need his love to be powerful.

I’m already powerful.

And there’s enough work for me in the world, just trying to fix this one thing, that I could spend the rest of my life doing it.

“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” I tell him. “But I’m human. I’m nineteen. I make mistakes sometimes. And I think … you know, maybe I should have told you right away. Maybe that makes this harder for you, because I’ve had seven months to think about what these pictures mean and you’ve had, like, seven hours.”

I step closer to him and put my hand on his arm.

If he flinches slightly—if my heart contracts—I ignore it.

I’m not disgusting. I’m his daughter.

“But, Daddy? Here’s what they mean to me. They’re an act of hate. They’re vengeance against me, from someone I never treated badly. They’re undeserved. And even if they were deserved, what does that mean, exactly? That if someone takes naked pictures of me, I’m a bad person, so they get the right to call me a slut on the Internet? Are you trying to tell me that just because I didn’t stop Nate from aiming his camera, I deserve whatever happens to me, forever? I deserve this attack because I asked for it? Do you hear how ugly that is?”

“I never said you asked for it.” He sounds different, his voice choked and unsettled.

“Yeah. You did.”

My father has always told me that the first step toward getting what I want in life is to know what I want. You figure it out, and then you go after it.

So I make him look at me. I make him hear me.

“You did.”

This is my power now, and he doesn’t have to like it.

I’m going to use it whether he likes it or not.

I’m going to keep using it until people start listening.

West stands up as soon as he spots me.

He’s been waiting in the Student Affairs reception area, sprawled opposite the office assistant in a high-backed pink chair that is too small and entirely too fussy for him.

I was in the meeting for over an hour, but he’s in exactly the same spot where I left him. The only thing different is that his hair has arranged itself into grooves—plowed-through furrows that I stare at blankly for a moment until I figure out they’re from his fingers.

How many times did he have to run his hand through his hair to leave it looking like a springtime field?

“How’d that go?”

He touches my elbow when I get close, slides his hand to my waist. With light pressure, he steers me through the door and into the hallway.

Student Affairs takes up part of the basement level of the student center, along with a gallery and some other offices. It’s a bright white labyrinth down here, and I’m always getting lost in it, but I’m pretty sure we came in on the other end from where West is leading me.

“Okay, I think. I told them a bunch of stuff, and they asked some questions. Then I gave them all my log printouts. They’re supposed to talk to Nate next, and then we’ll see.”

West’s expression darkens. “That’s it? ‘We’ll see’?”

He’s been like this since we left my dad’s. Keyed up, bitter, a little sarcastic. I think he must have been under the illusion that just because I’m right, everyone will take my side. As if that’s the way the world works.

For my part, I’ve moved beyond thinking anything is going to be handed to me without a fight.

“Well, yeah. What did you think, they’d tie him to the back of a horse and drag him around campus?”

He doesn’t find the joke funny. I reach up and feel the deep worry line between his eyebrows. “Hey. What’s this for?”

“Nothing. You hungry? You should eat something. Get some rest. I want you to sleep while I’m on at the bakery tonight.”

I stop walking. “West.”

“What?”

“What’s the matter?”

Because there’s something more going on with him than can be explained by disappointment with how my interview went. There’s this energy coming off him, a gathering storm cloud, dark and dangerous. I can feel it when I stand close, and it reminds me of that day when I found him at the library after he’d punched Nate—a physical violence, vibrating atoms, primitive chemicals.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

I take his upper arms in a firm grip, pull him closer, go up on my tiptoes to kiss him. He just stands there like a block of wood, and when I come down he tries on a smile that’s so pathetically not a smile, I want to wipe it off his face.

“Yeah, you totally feel fine,” I say. “That was such a great kiss, I’m about to rip off my panties and do you in the hallway.”

No smile. No humor in him at all. He tugs at my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Not until you talk to me.”

“Not here.”

“Why not? There’s no one around.”

His eyes dart past my shoulder to the other end of the hall.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

I figure out why he’s swearing—the only likely reason for him to be so tense—as I’m turning around. The sight of Nate standing where there was no one a few seconds ago is more confirmation than surprise.

“You knew he was coming?”

West doesn’t answer. Maybe he overheard something, maybe the secretary told him, but somehow he knew.

“It’s fine, West. I mean, it’s sweet that you’re so worried, but I was going to have to see him sooner or later, I just—”

One glance tells me he isn’t listening to me.

One look at his eyes informs me that West’s attempt to railroad me out of the building wasn’t for my protection. At least, not in the way I assume.

He’s flushed. Focused.

Homicidal.

“Don’t you dare,” I tell him. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You should go,” he says.

Nate has spotted us. He’s about thirty feet away—close enough that I see him go still.

I think if I were closer, I’d see fear in his eyes.

“You’ll get expelled.”

My hand is over West’s galloping heart. I’m not sure he can even hear me, and I’ve already had enough of not being heard today. My dad, the dean of students, the residence-life supervisor who sat in on the meeting—none of them really listened. And now West.

“Get out of here, Caroline.”

He’s pushing past me, moving steadily down the hall toward his prey, and I’m certain— certain that West isn’t going to hit Nate. No, he’s going to beat him until someone pulls him off. He’s going to put Nate in the hospital. Maybe even kill him.

I guess I should be worried for West, or for Nate even, but I’m not. Figuring out what’s about to happen doesn’t scare me. It ticks me off.

West has peed on this particular tree already. Twice.

I grab a fistful of the back of his T-shirt and yank on it. Fabric rips. West whirls around.

“This is my fight,” I tell him. “Mine. Not yours.”

“Get out of here if you don’t want to see this.”

“Do you hear yourself? This isn’t an action movie. Knock it off.”

“Let go of my shirt.”

“It won’t help anything, West. You’ll just get in trouble, maybe go to jail, and then I won’t have you and I’ll still have to deal with this. It won’t help.”

He tries to get my hand off his shirt, but I’ve got a good grip. So he just takes his shirt off. Right there in the basement of the student center, he whips off his shirt and stalks down the hallway toward Nate.

I drop my bag and run.

I never got very good at rugby, but I learned a few things about tackling before the season ended. None of them has anything to do with this graceless tumble into West. I collide with the backs of his thighs, get my hands around his knees, slide down to his ankles.

I’m tenacious, though. I don’t let go. If he wants to fight Nate, he’ll have to drag me along behind him. I’ll cling to his back like a baby monkey. It won’t be dignified, but I don’t care.

“Caroline, for Christ’s sake.”