Page 44 of Electricity

I nformation assaulted me.

It wasn’t just Lacey—there were other girls on there—ones I knew, ones I didn’t.

Bras, underwear, blurry pictures taken of unaware women, sleeping at the end of parties, drunk or drugged, crisp or blurry, ones taken with too bright of flash, with boys near them, in them, and without—but the ones that were most clear in my mind were Lacey’s.

I knew her. I loved her. And I watched Danny—over and over and over and over?—

It felt like I was on that ride at the carnival, the one that spun you around until the floor fell out, only the floor was already gone and now I was stumbling dizzily through the maze of mirrors—there weren’t an infinite number of photos, in fact I was sure I’d already seen them all, but they weren’t just here, there were some elsewhere, and others out beyond that, and even further beyond.

I was seeing reflections of refractions, and each one I shattered into deletion revealed two more.

How many people had he sent them too? How many more had they sent them to?

It was like playing whack-a-mole, and I hated him more with every subsequent frame.

And then—the end. I was standing in a room alone, panting, with sparking pieces of code all around me. What I’d seen, all I’d seen—the horror of it caught up with me and felt like an icepick stabbing me between my eyes.

I gasped, landing back in Mason’s room, and found him leaning over me.

“Are you okay?” he asked. I was on his carpet in his bedroom. I blew breath tainted with stomach acid at him and he rocked back.

“I’m gonna thrown up,” I said, rolling to a crouch.

“Don’t puke on my phone!”

I wanted nothing more than that. To puke on his phone and everything else in his room right now, to baptize him in it until he drowned, because he was there and he didn’t do anything and then he’d sent out so many pictures.

“Fuck you,” I said, throwing his phone at him, and then I ran out of his room to hurl outside.

Darius caught up to me, catching my breath against the side of his car. “You okay?”

“You’re a cunt, Jessie. Who’s going to clean that up?” Mason leaned out of his house, pointing at the mess I’d made near his driveway.

“You can’t even see it, really,” Darius said, trying to calm both of us.

I looked over at Darius. “I have to go. Now.”

He didn’t know what I’d seen, but—“It’s free.” He fished the rest of his stash out of a pocket and tossed it to Mason. “On the house. Just this once.”

Mason caught it and considered this. “All right. I’ll get a hose. Don’t bring her back here again.”

“I won’t,” Darius said, and opened up my door.

I slid in and curled into a ball in the seat.

I was trembling, I was crying, snot was leaking—I was not in charge of who I was—things were happening to me, while my mind just kept trying to get away from seeing Lacey.

Every time I blinked though, she was there.

“I thought I was supposed to be your sober driver?” I whimpered.

“Maybe next time,” he said, and backed down the driveway. He didn’t pull over until there were miles between us and Mason’s. “I take it it worked?” he asked, twisting in his seat after he did.

“Yes and no. I got his photos of her.” I’d managed to wipe Lacey out of Mason’s phone—but who was gonna wipe her from my mind—or from anyone else’s? I put my head against my knees. “He’d already sent them out.”

“Oh no?—”

“I got those too. But—all of those people saw already. And—there were other girls there too.” I hadn’t gotten their pictures.

I didn’t have time. I pressed down, waiting for the strange lights that lived behind my eyelids to overtake the shiningness of everything else, the Corolla’s idling engine, the bright sun, my pain.

“You gonna be okay?” His voice sound distant.

“I don’t know.”

He decided to turn the car completely off, and once the engine died I could hear cicada song outside. I wished they would sing louder, so they could help block everything out. “How can I help?”

“Not sure.” I worked a hand up inside my me-ball to wipe my nose with the back of it.

“Is it okay if I touch you?”

I didn’t want to let him in. I didn’t want to let anyone else in, I wanted to keep everything alone, unhurt, pure.

But life wasn’t like that, it was stupid and messy and unfair and cruel and all the pictures I’d seen—I started getting that over-full sensation in my mouth again, of too much spit, and bawled.

“Oh, Jessie—” he said, with just the right sound of sympathetic pain, and his hand chastely touched my back as I unspooled toward him, sitting half on the center console and half on him not caring, pressing my face against the safety of his neck, weeping.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, holding me awkwardly as I sobbed. “I really am. I’m so sorry.”

I nodded into him. “Me too.”

When I could breathe right again, I pushed back, but didn’t look up. “I—I got overwhelmed.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said, as I migrated back to my side of his car. I was an ugly crier. I knew it. Oh well. “But concentrate on the good stuff, Jessie. It worked. You did it.”

I shook my head, rattling my already aching brain. “No, I didn’t. It’s not like I can wipe their minds—all of them already saw her.”

“But now there’s no proof. And with no proof, there’s no danger at prom. The gossip’ll suck, but it’s bound to die out eventually, if this stops here.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” he said. I wanted to believe him, even though I was pretty sure we both knew he was lying. “Want to go home now?”

“More than anything.”

Darius dropped me off down the street from my trailer.

We did this awkward look-at-each-other-no-contact-bye thing with a wave.

I sniffed my jeans, arm, hair, and didn’t smell pot, but didn’t know if my snot-filled nose could currently be trusted.

Worrying about that, I was halfway up the driveway when I realized the Buick was gone.

Oh no. Was my mother off at school, looking for me? I ran into the trailer, called for Allie and got no answer. Had she taken Allie with her?

Or had something happened to Allie?

I was dialing my mom before my phone was in my hand. I danced the phone around as I stripped my clothes off and threw them in the wash then pulled new and definitely pot-free clothing on by the time I got to my mother’s voicemail.

“Mom?” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice, not after Mason’s. “Where are you? Where’s Allie?”

Seconds after I hung up, the Buick pulled into the driveway and I ran out.

“Where were you?” I asked, before she could ask it of me.

She and Allie stepped out of the car with grocery bags and a brown paper bag from the sewing store. “We went shopping for groceries.”

My heart’s thundering slowed. “Oh.”

“What’re you all worried about?” she asked.

I looked between her and Allie. “I thought—I don’t know what I thought.” I exhaled with a rush. “I’m just so happy to see you both I could cry.”

My mother gave me a sympathetic smile. “Hormones are so cruel at your age. Get inside,” she said, and swatted at me with the sewing bag.

With the exception of attending dinner, I’d hidden inside my room most of the night, blaming ‘homework’ and ‘nerves’.

What I’d really been doing was pacing, back and forth, back and forth, with my phone in my hand.

Mason hadn’t posted anything snarky on ZB about me.

When would he realize Lacey’s pictures were gone?

I hoped however much weed had been in the bag was enough to keep him stoned—for a week—and then I wondered how much more it meant I owed Darius.

The one thing I hadn’t done—the one thing I had no excuse for not doing—was tell Lacey what’d happened. I’d wanted to, all afternoon, but every time I got ready I got scared. I didn’t want to think about what I’d seen of her, much less tell her how many other people’d seen it too.

But then my mom was gone and Allie was in bed and it was just me and my conscience and the phone. I sat cross-legged on my bed and held my phone inside both hands.

Hey

I sent her with my powers.

There was a long pause. Maybe she wouldn’t see it tonight. Maybe?—

I saw the text firefly in:

Hey back.

I have news.

Good, or bad?

Both

I thought, and then texted everything else in a rush .

I got Mason’s phone and wiped it but he’d already shown some other people first.

How many others?

Five.

And that didn’t count anyone that they might have physically shown the photos too, straight off their phones. I waited while she dealt with that information, wishing that I could see her face.

So, slightly less than the whole baseball team.

For better or worse:

Yeah.

I was forced to wonder how those conversations went. Did Danny do this so often he had regulars he knew wanted to see? Were there guys who didn’t want to see but still looked, because it was Danny asking? A revelation made me gasp out loud.

But—probably just members of the baseball team!

I texted as I thought.

Is that supposed to make me feel better?

No—but Lacey, I saw the photos! Danny’s in them!

I know.

No—he—they prove he was there!

Mason too!

Someone had to take the pictures!

So of course they couldn’t send them out to everyone—only people that they can trust not to say anything!

There was a pause while she digested this.

Until prom.

I don’t know Lacey—maybe not even then.

Think about it—it really is evidence.

And if someone, a grown-up, found out about it, he’d be in just as much trouble as you.

Worse. Like, jail-trouble.

What about my locker?

I flew through the images in my mind.

That’s like the only photo that wouldn’t get him busted.

And he already posted that one to ZB. No one cared about it, remember?

They just thought you were thirsty.

But if they can’t share them—then why threaten me?

Because they’re assholes?

Or because they were scared you’d go to the cops.

Because I scared them they had to re-scare me?

I don’t know Lacey. I only know what I saw.

I swear to you, I got all of the pictures I found.

And like 98% of them aren’t really slideshow safe, if they want to stay out of jail.

OK

followed by an even longer pause.

It’s not perfect. But it’s better than nothing. Definitely.

I fell back onto my bed in something like but not quite relief. Darius had been right. I’d have to let him know tomorrow.

The next morning Allie and I had our standard eggs vs Eggos fight, and this time I just let her win.

She mistrusted this, it was unlike me—but I was too wrung out after everything that’d happened yesterday.

My head still hurt and all I could think about were those other boys.

Which ones were they? Was there any way for Lacey to know?

How many people had they showed or talked to?

It was like the photos were some sort of virus, far worse than the flu or mono, and who knew how far it’d spread?

I got Allie out and then went outside myself, hoping I’d see Darius. But what I saw was a hundred—no, a thousand—times better: Lacey’s blue Impala. She pulled up beside me, rolled the passenger window down, and said: “Want a ride?”

“Yes. So very yes,” I said, and hopped inside. The sun’d already been up long enough to make the vinyl of the passenger seat hot. I got inside and twisted over to hug her. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“I know how much you hate the bus.”

I grinned at her. That was true, but—it was seeing her, here, in the flesh again, living proof against all the stagnant pictures in my mind. If I concentrated on her, I’d blot them all out eventually, I knew it. “Are you sure you’re ready to go back?”

“Mrs. Ellis called my mom. It’s either attend or repeat tenth grade. One more year in that hell hole? I don’t think so,” she said, and put her car into drive just as the bus pulled by.

Was Darius…intending on picking me up again? Or not? I didn’t know—if he was—I reached into my bag and touched my phone and tried to sound like I wasn’t assuming anything.

Hey—don’t know if you were coming over this morning? If you weren’t it’s OK—if you were, I’m riding in with Lacey.

“Were you, uh, doing it then?” Lacey’s brown eyes glanced over at me in the rearview.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you can do that—even though I’m still a little jealous.”

“You might be less jealous if you knew what it did to my head. When my mom realizes how much Tylenol I’m going through, she’s going to freak out.” I felt stupid after I said it—like my head hurting even began to compare. Luckily she pressed on.

“Are you going to be able to do that for the rest of your life?”

“Don’t know, really. I’m just glad it worked yesterday.”

“How did you even meet him?”

“It was Darius, really—turns out Mason’s a stoner. Took me with him on a sales call, and I was able to get his phone.”

“Cool. No, not cool,” she corrected herself. “Useful.”

“I wish I’d done it sooner is all.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, remembering my latest headache. “You know you weren’t the only one.”

“What? Who?”

I could see them. Burned in my mind. Shana, Jenny K, Leslie.

I’d seen their faces, and I’d been in locker rooms with them before, I knew their naked skin.

“I don’t know if I should tell you their names.

The ones I know, that is. Because they’re in the exact same situation as you—where they don’t want people to know anything, either. ”

Lacey nodded quickly. “I probably don’t want to know—but—how many?”

I closed my eyes, taking myself back to Mason’s phone. “Three for sure. Plus maybe a couple others—limbs mostly.” I put a hand up to my neck to indicate where pictures had stopped. “Headless girls.”

“God,” she said. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know what I can do. Telling them Mason has photos of them won’t help anything. Maybe just make things worse. I mean, some of them may not know.”

“And some of them may think they know, but not remember, and just feel dirty and wonder.” My stomach turned anew as she balled one hand into a fist and pounded it against the steering wheel with surprising force. “Damn it! I just—I wish there was a way to make them pay!”

“Me too.” Instead, we’d have to just be happy dodging prom. “But look—after prom its just a few more weeks of school, then summer.”

“Yeah.” She wrung the steering wheel with both hands as if winding it up could wind her down.

I had a thousand other things I wanted to ask her—how her mom was, how she was, really, how she was going to manage to get through the school day today?—but for now I was OK with pretending that everything was fine until we got to campus.