Page 88 of What Happened to Lucy Vale

But we couldn’t imagine what had compelled Lucy Vale to go to the police. It felt to us like a dramatic miscalculation—an attempt to regain some degree of power over Noah Landry that had badly backfired. It was impossible to believe that Noah Landry, our Noah Landry, was responsible for hurting Lucy. The accusations were outlandish, almost cliché, direct parrots of the rumors our swimmers had been dodging ever since Nina Faraday had vanished. If something had happened to Lucy Vale on New Year’s Eve, we felt sure it was a mistake. A misunderstanding.

After all, we were all there. We were all jostling around the beer pong setup in the basement, or refillingSolocups in the kitchen, or packing bowls and smoking cigarettes on the back porch.

If something had happened to Lucy Vale—something bad, somethingwrong—then surely, surely, we would have known. We would have felt it. We would have heard something. We would have seen a disruption at the party, a sudden thrust of people, a clamor to help out.

We were not bad people.

We would never, ever simply stand by if a girl were getting raped.

Eight

We

In the aftermath of Ryan Hawthorne’s party, we suffocated. Every day was dulled by the dread of something terrible arriving. Information came in gasps. Whispers about the new sheriff covertly investigating. Rumors that Ryan Hawthorne had been placed on suicide watch. Reports that Noah Landry had been called to the sheriff’s department twice.

Our parents spoke in whispers about thepoor boys’ families. The Landrys went to church. The Hawthornes hired a lawyer. JJ Hammill and Bailey Lawrence came to school holding hands.

Bailey Lawrence and Savannah Savage blocked all of Lucy Vale’s socials.

For days the gates of 88 Lily Lane stayed closed. Again Akash reported seeing phantom footprints in the light dusting of snow outside the house and lights on in the upstairs windows. But no one answered when Mrs. Sandhu finally insisted on walking over to check on their neighbors. The second time she attempted, even the gates were locked.

Someone had taken a marker to Lucy’s mailbox. Mrs. Sandhu wasn’t sure that the Vales had noticed; junk mail was overflowing inthe snow. So she directed Akash to go out there with bleach and a toothbrush.

He almost lost a finger to frostbite, he told us, just trying to scrub off the firstwhore.

Lucy did, eventually, try and come back to school. That was in the early days of January, before the Investigative Committee announced its involvement—when the rumors about Lucy Vale’s report were still nebulous and the details unclear.

Sofia Young was the first person to see her. Sofia was late to school that day, as she often was junior year. She’d started smoking weed behind the athletics complex before school with some of the senior stoners. Her new crowd.

We were surprised to see her back on Discord. She’d dropped off the server again right after Casino Night, soon after she first started hooking up with Harry Oakes, who sold pills to half the upperclassmen. But suddenly she was back, with no apology and no explanation for why she’d logged off. Nothing.

Still, we forgave her right away when she told us that she’d just run into Lucy Vale at her locker.

@goodnightsky:so awkward

@goodnightsky:what was I supposed to say?

@badprincess:oh my god. Did she try andTalkto you??

@goodnightsky:no tfg

@goodnightsky:she didn’t even look at me

@lululemonaide:how does she look??

@goodnightsky:she cut her hair

@goodnightsky:other than that, normal

@ktcakes888:what is she thinking??

@gustagusta:you gotta give it to her

@gustagusta:she’s got some balls

@badprincess:that’s sexist

@gustagusta:save it for the Investigative Committee