Page 50 of Electricity

M y mother got up, took a shower, and had her turn in the chair.

She wanted every eye-witness detail from me, and I gave her what I could.

I claimed not to have any photos of Liam or myself, I said we’d been in the photo line when the ‘hacker’ ruined it, and she was surprisingly cool with that, instead going out of her way to pity me, and rail against the circumstances that’d led to prom’s quick end.

Then Barbara left and my mother retreated back into her bedroom and her own TV, leaving Allie and I to do homework while cartoons blared in the background—and every time anyone updated ZB I jumped.

“Are you okay?” Allie asked, squinting at me.

“Yeah.”

Her lips twisted like she didn’t believe me—just like mine did sometimes, it was like I was looking in a tiny mirror—and then went back to coloring.

That night, I texted Lacey again.

Still okay?

Yep.

You’ve checked ZB and everything?

Yep. Why? What’s happening with you?

I’m a whore. Death threats.

The usual.

Ugh.

She inserted a string of angry and then outrageously sympathetic emojis, ones with tears streaming down their tiny faces.

I am so so sorry, Jessie.

Me too.

Try to ignore them?

I am. But it’s hard.

I know. Believe me, I know.

And she sent another string of angry-sad emojis after that.

After that, I texted Darius.

I don’t suppose you’re getting death threats today?

And then the unexpected happened. He called and I picked up. “Hello?”

“Are you okay?”

The concern in his voice made me melt a little. “Yeah, so far.”

“When’d it start?”

“Last night. And then again this morning, and most of the day.”

“Jesus, Jessica—have you told anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you doing anything about it?”

“Other than hoping it’ll stop? No.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“While I appreciate the concern, I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought it would stop things,” I said.

“I just don’t think it will.” Between texts from unknown numbers and the anonymity of ZB—if I started fighting back, I didn’t know when it would end—or if it would.

At least this way I could pretend it wasn’t working and not give them the satisfaction of my ire.

He was quiet on the far side of the line. “What’re you thinking?” I asked him.

“About how pissed I am that this is happening to you.”

“Heh. Me too.” Another petal on the tight bloom that lived inside my chest loosened, unfurling out to him. “What’re you doing tomorrow?”

“I have some business calls to make. You?”

“Wearing black to properly mourn the travesty of prom, at least according to my mother, who’s told me I have two proms left to go at least thirty times.”

He laughed and the sound made me smile for the first time that day. “So I’ll see you on Monday then?”

“Definitely. Save me from the bus, Darius. You’re my only hope.”

“I’m going to pretend you’re almost quoting Star Wars on purpose and not by accident.” I smiled silently at the phone in response. “See you then, okay? And if you get any more threats—please call me.”

“Will do.”

“G’night, Jessie.”

“G’night,” I said quietly and hung up.

And thirty seconds after that I got a message on ZB telling me they ought to ‘ sew my cunt mouth shut .’

I stared at my phone after that, torn between laughing till I cried or crying till I laughed or throwing my phone across the room and smashing it to bits or running through the house and out into the street, leaving it behind.

No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, to not feed the beast of their ego on the other side, it was crazy-making.

And embarrassing. To admit that someone else had even the slightest power over me—God, it chafed.

And the knowledge that if I did complain about them, I was going to have to say that they thought I was a whore—it was one of those things that you couldn’t defend yourself against. No matter how it was put, to whatever authority I appealed it to, the first thing whoever I told would think was, ‘Well, are they right? Is she?’

I stared down at my phone. “Fuck you,” I whispered, and went in after them.

There was the ZB I knew and saw, that I participated in, the photo collages, the idiotic endless ticking, and then there was the ZB below, and falling into it was like falling into a haystack.

I could feel it all around me, jabbing me with lines of code, but without the context of ZB.

Lines—light—moved, but from here to where I didn’t know.

I felt my brain stretch, trying to encompass it all, and thought Darius might be right, this might be the exact moment when my brain did explode—when a slippery line flew by, meant for me.

I caught it, not knowing what to do with it, feeling like I did when I was a kid and my dad took me fishing and had given me a flopping fish to hold, still on the line, and the hook had gone through the gills and pricked me.

I tried to ignore the words— stupid fucking whore —to understand it, to see where it’d come from, but when I finally let it go and tried to trace it back—nothing—just more sharp painful jabs, as I stretched the boundaries of what I could do to the max.

I caught other fish, ones not meant for me—those I could trace back to owners, their phones and computers, easy. They hurt less, too—although they still hurt. Everything hurt. It was harder and harder to stay focused.

Why couldn’t I trace back that one?

Because they—whoever they were—were good. Very good.

Almost like they’d done this before.

The realization made me resurface into the real world, to discover myself laying on my floor.

All my clothes were on—and there was light filtering through my closed blinds.

I stood, shaky. It was—dawn? No—my cat clock said it was 9.

AM? It couldn’t be—but my back was stiff, my tongue tasted like last night’s tater tots plus mold, and I felt like someone had been punching me repeatedly in the head.

Was this what a hangover felt like? No wonder my mother was always so angry.

My last memory was realizing that Danny, et al, had had time to practice.

Shana had graduated last year—but Jenny K was just a grade older, and Leslie—God, was she our age or a freshman?

And that wasn’t counting whoever the disembodied girls were that I’d seen, or ones who weren’t still on his phone but on his computer in some ‘originals’ file.

Clearly Lacey was just the latest in a string that stretched back who knew how far?

I sat down beside my bed again, cradling my head inside my hands. There was time-travel, and then there was this—at least eight hours, gone. I was lucky my mom hadn’t come in—would she’ve been able to wake me up?

I reached out for my phone, more out of habit more than anything—and a hundred new texts poured into my already aching head like acid. I dropped it, watched it bounce, and wished I could step on it like a bug.

Allie knocked on my door. “Hey Jessie—there’s a boy here.”

I stood so fast it made my head spin, then grabbed her and pulled her into my room. “Stay here.”

I walked to the front door. There were no windows in the hall, I couldn’t see whose vehicle was parked outside. I hoped it was Darius, but after everything on ZB—I pushed the curtains to our living room window open just enough to see a truck parked outside. Liam’s.

“It’s me, Jessie,” he announced through the door. My heart started revving up.

“You alone?” I asked, ashamed of how my voice broke—because if he wasn’t, I didn’t know what I’d do.

“Yeah.”

I rested my aching head against the doorjamb. I didn’t sense more than one person outside—and I didn’t think he’d driven over just to insult me in person, but who could say.

I opened the door slowly, as he stepped back to give me room. “What brings you here on this fine morning?” I asked with all the sarcasm I could muster.

“We need to talk.”

I carefully closed the door behind me so as not to wake my mom. “About?”

“Away from here?” he asked, gesturing toward his truck. I looked between him and the cab, and then he realized I was hesitating. “Do you really think I’d hurt you?”

I tilted my head as I looked at him. “As I believe you know, there’s about two hundred insulting messages on my phone right now, the most memorable of which threatens to sew my cunt mouth shut.

Seeing as sex-ed isn’t so good in this state, I’m not entirely sure if they mean my mouth-mouth, which they’re comparing to a cunt, or my vagina, which they possibly think has a mouth, because they’re that fucking stupid.

Either way? You don’t get to feel offended.

” I crossed my arms. “So what is it that you want to talk about?”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot and couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “I just wanted to tell you that it isn’t all of us. Not everyone agrees with what’s happening.”

“Wow, I find that so comforting,” I said, completely flat.

“Jessie—”

“No, really. Now if you could just talk all your asshole friends into signing their anonymous threats, then I’d feel really, really, safe, as opposed to the zero percent amount of safe I feel right now.”

Liam looked exasperated. “I should’ve known you’d make this harder than it had to be.”

“Make what harder? Unless I don’t want to know.”

“I’m trying to be nice to you. And tell you not everyone hates you.”

“Yee-fucking-haw, Liam. Do you realize how goddamned hollow that is?”

“I tried to warn you! You shouldn’t have gone fucking with Danny! What did you think would happen when you messed with Redson’s new golden arm?”

I leaned in. “I actually didn’t fuck him. But he is the fucking problem, so to speak.”

Liam opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. I stared, watching him, breathing hard and inside my head, tumblers clicked.

“You knew,” I said low, almost a whisper. “You told me he gets what he wants.”

“I—” he began, then his jaw clenched and he swallowed loudly.

“You knew,” I said again, my voice like a snake rustling through the grass.

“I don’t know what I knew! You know how people talk!” He threw his arms wide, spreading blame. “He says he’s awesome in bed, says girls line up to fuck him. And then he’s got these photos to prove it?—”

“You’ve seen them?” If he had, I was going to strangle him immediately.

“No! I’ve just heard the other senior guys talking. Bragging rights.” I deflated a little, and Liam pressed his case. “He’s trouble. And he’s an asshole. But when you win as much as he does, you don’t have to be nice.”

And that was what it came down to, really. What incentive was there for Danny to be human or humane, when all of Redson acted like he was Colton Lewis’s second-coming?

Still pissed, I said the only thing I could think of that might hurt Liam. “Your brother has a nice aquarium. Too bad he couldn’t take it with him to college.”

“How—how did you know?”

“Because I saw it in the photos Mason was about to share at prom.”

The color drained from Liam’s face. “Colton’s room? They were in Colton’s room?”

“Yeah. Bison red curtains and Bison red sheets. In every photo.”

Something changed in Liam then. Anger rippled through his body, his jaw clenched, his shoulders pulled back and down, as his arms came out, hands in fists, ready to fight someone.

I took an involuntary step back. “Those fuckers,” he muttered.

“Run Colton’s name through the dirt? They’re not fit to lick his cleats!

” He started pacing in a small circle, swinging his arms.

He was more upset that it’d happened inside his house then that it’d happened at all, which I would’ve called him on, only I was worried that he would fly off the handle. At least someone else finally felt as impotent as Lacey and I had.

Another filthy message zipped home into my phone and it buzzed.

What did I have left after this? Nothing.

I’d shielded Lacey for a moment—or I hoped I had—but at the cost of everything.

I didn’t have a goddamned thing left to use against Mason or Danny—but, as I watched Liam grapple with the betrayal of his teammates, I realized maybe he did.

“I need something on them, Liam.” I took a step nearer to him, and tried to look as sincere as I felt. “Both you and I know this’ll never end, if I don’t have ammo to fight back. You know what’s right, Liam. You’re not like they are. Not deep down inside.”

He looked over at me, eyes the color of a cloud going tornado, dark grey. “They’re my teammates.”

“For what, four more weeks? Their season’s almost over—but you’ve got two more years.”

His chest heaved and then he looked away. “I can’t. I have to protect the team.”

I’d lost him. I knew it. He started for his truck.

“Jessie?” I heard my name yelled behind me at the same time the trailer door slammed open. “Oh—oh—Liam! I’m sorry—want to come in?”

“No, Mrs. McMullen, I was just leaving,” he said, polite until the end, as he walked away.

A wind struck up, and my mother’s robe fluttered against her as she reached out a hand, looking like the old-timey-wife of a sailor going off to war.

“Sorry to hear about prom!” she shouted, so that Liam would hear her inside his truck’s cab.

For a heart- wrenching second I was afraid he’d race out and ruin things, but then he gave us both a confused nod, and peeled away.

My mother waited on the porch for me and gathered me up like a duckling. “I’m still so sorry, honey.”

“It’s okay,” I said as she herded me inside. “I’ll, uh, see him on Monday.”

She wiped a hand across her eyes and yawned. “In that case, I’m going back to bed.”