Her eyes flared. “Jacqueline—”

“You’re right, you’re right… God, what am I saying?” My hands trembled, sliding over my face, and Erin pulled them down gently.

“We have to make sure he doesn’t do this again.”

I nodded, knowing she was right, and she tapped out a text to Mindi.

Erin had just unlocked the Volvo when I heard my name and turned to find Kennedy jogging across the dorm lot. “Hey, Jacqueline. Erin.” When he gave her a tight, serious smile, she scowled at him. He turned back to me. “We need to talk.”

I glared at him. “About what? About you helping them talk Mindi out of pressing charges, when you know what he did to me?”

He huffed a tired sigh. “It’s not like that—”

“Oh? What’s it like?”

“Can we speak privately? Please?”

I glanced at Erin and she pursed her lips and gave my ex a cynical once-over before turning her attention back to me. “I’m picking Mindi up, and I’ll meet you at the house?” She was worried that I’d let him talk me out of this, as ill at ease as I already was.

I peered at Kennedy and I knew that convincing me to abandon the allegation against Buck was his agenda. “You’ll drive me over? Now? That’s the only way this talk is happening.”

Frustrated and maybe a little confused by my counter, he agreed. “Sure. I’ll take you over, if you’ll talk to me on the way.”

I stared across the top of the sedan at Erin. “I’ll meet you there.”

She nodded, unwavering hope in her eyes, and I followed Kennedy to his car.

After adjusting the stereo to backdrop level, he drove slowly, with one wrist draped over the top of the leather-wrapped steering wheel. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me.” He glanced across, his eyes skittering away from mine and back to the road. “I want you to know that I believe, one hundred percent, everything you told me Saturday night. I know Buck’s a scumbag—I just didn’t know how much of one. We’ve started proceedings to expel him.”

“Expel him—from the frat? Like that’s punishment?” Closing my eyes, I shook my head to clear it.

“Buck came to this campus thinking he was going to make pledge class president, thinking he’d move up in the ranks, run the whole frat and maybe the council by senior year, and now he’s about to be out on his ass, daddy or no daddy. Damn right it’s punishment.”

I gasped. “Kennedy, he raped a girl.”

He had the grace to flinch. “I understand that, but—”

“There’s no but! There’s no fucking but!” My chest heaved with the effort to clench my hands in my lap instead of pummeling his smug face. “He deserves prison time, and I’m going to do everything I can to see he gets it.” I couldn’t help thinking that if Kennedy had been sent to keep me from testifying, then this discussion had produced the reverse effect.

He pulled to a stop in front of the house and put the car in park. He gripped the wheel with both hands. “Jacqueline, you need to understand something. Buck’s been talking shit about hooking up with you for weeks now. Others have corroborated his account. Everyone knows about it. No one else buys your he-tried-to-rape-me-too story, now. It’s kind of late for that.”

My breath left me, my throat closing up, and pain shot down my arms to my fingertips. Closing my eyes, I fought dizziness and the welling of tears, and so much fury I literally saw red behind my closed lids.

“My… story?”

His green eyes met mine. “I told you, I believe you.” I stared into his eyes, this boy I’d known so intimately for three years. I could see that he did believe me, but that belief conflicted with his compulsion to save face. He wasn’t going to do the right thing.

“You believe me, yet here you sit, trying to talk me out of persuading anyone else to believe me.”

“Jacqueline, it’s more complicated than that—”

“The hell it is.” I threw the door wide open and jumped out. Slamming the door on any further protest, I turned and stomped up the sidewalk to Erin and Mindi’s sorority house. I was shaking with anger, and fear, and something else: resolve.

***

There were less than twenty girls in attendance at the meeting: Erin, Mindi, the sorority officers, and me.

As the president, Katie presided from the head of the long, polished table. Seated on either side of her were the senior officers; I recognized Olivia’s older sister as one of them. She and Olivia could have been twins, they looked so much alike—right down to the bitchy sneer.

“Mindi, sweetie, no one’s blaming you here,” she said, her voice dripping with an insincerity that contradicted her words. “But the thing is, you did go to his room with him. I mean, the expectation was there, you know?”

Erin put her hand on my thigh when I sucked in a breath—a warning against replying yet. I exhaled through my nose and fumed silently. I was an outsider. I could be removed easily, and that would be no good for Mindi. She needed all the support she could get.

“You weren’t like, a virgin, either, right?” another girl said.

“God, Taylor, that’s not material,” another said.

Taylor shrugged. “It would matter to me.”

Mindi’s face was pale and she looked like she was either going to vomit or pass out. Erin leaned closer to her and whispered, “Breathe, honey.”

Several people said more stupid things, and others said more sensible things, and finally it seemed like everyone had spoken their minds except Katie, Erin, and the two people who ultimately held Buck’s fate in their hands: Mindi and me. Finally, Katie banged the gavel lightly, stopping all conversation and turning every head in her direction. Her posture so perfect that she could have been a queen wearing a heavy crown, she fixed her eyes on me. “Jackie, I understand that you’re alleging that Buck attempted to rape you on the night of the Halloween party?”

A couple of girls mumbled asides and one actually giggled. My hands tightening into fists in my lap, I ignored them, swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay sorry, I don’t see why she’s even here,” a junior class rep said. “If he didn’t actually do it—”

“He had every intention of doing it,” Erin said through clenched teeth. “He was just stopped before he succeeded.”

The other girl tossed her hair over her shoulder. “But she didn’t report it that night. Why not? And why now? I mean, how do we know this isn’t a ploy for attention? Or some sort of vendetta against Buck?”

Erin growled next to me.

“He was stopped by a guy who saw the whole thing and is willing to make an official report with me.” My voice wavered, and beneath the table, Erin took my right hand and held it tightly. “As far as why now instead of then… that was my bad judgment. It didn’t occur to me that he’d do this to someone else.” I glanced at Mindi, an apology in my eyes, and then Katie. “I thought it was just me.”

“What guy? One of the brothers? Because dude, they’re not going to testify against Buck,” Taylor said, and several girls nodded.

“No. Lucas Maxfield.”

“Oh, I know him,” Olivia’s sister said. “He’s yummy…”

“Is he the non-Greek guy who was at the Halloween party without a costume? Cowboy boots? Dark hair? Gorgeous eyes? Total hottie?” the girl next to her asked.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Mindi,” Katie interrupted, “I understand that Dean and D.J. spoke with you yesterday?”

Mindi nodded, her still red-rimmed eyes wide. “They want me to drop the charges. They said they would handle it internally.”

Heads pivoted back and forth between the sorority president and the freshman pledge as they volleyed questions and answers. “What are your plans, now?”

“I don’t know. I’m really confused.”

Katie pinned her with a look. “Did Buck do what you said he did?”

Mindi’s eyes filled with tears, and when she nodded, they spilled down her cheeks.

“Then what the hell is there to be confused about?”

Everyone sat in stunned silence for a moment, until the girl who’d pronounced Lucas a total hottie exclaimed, “Are you saying she should press charges?”

“Absolutely.”

Gasps sounded around the table, and I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t move.

“But this will look so bad for—”

“You know what looks bad?” Katie cut off her VP. “A bunch of women who don’t support each other when a guy pulls some shit like this. I’m sick of it. Less than an hour ago, I told D.J. where he could stick his goddamned fraternal reputation.” She stood up and leaned forward, her hands on the table. “Let me tell you girls a story, short and sweet. In high school, I was a junior varsity cheerleader dating a senior who was up for football scholarships. I’d slept with him several times, willingly. One night I wasn’t in the mood, but he was. So he held me down and forced me. The few people I told about it—including my best friend—pointed out what would happen to him if I told. They stressed the fact that I hadn’t been a virgin, that we were dating, that we’d had sex before. So I kept quiet. I never even told my mother. That boy put bruises on my body. I was crying and begging him to stop and he didn’t. That’s called rape, ladies.”

She drew herself up and crossed her arms over her chest. “So Buck can enjoy sitting in a cell contemplating how he blew up his life. That dickwad hurt two people sitting at this table. And you’re worried about who’ll look bad if they tell? Screw that. Dean and D.J. and Kennedy and every frat boy on this campus can all go fuck themselves. Are we sisters or not?”

***

Jacqueline,

I’ve attached the review that I’ll hand out on Thursday. I guess it’s technically preferential for me to give it to you a couple of days early, but I did tell you that you were my favorite, after all.

LM (aka Lucas, aka Landon, aka Mr. Maxfield)

Mr. Landon Lucas Maxfield,

It feels odd to get economics email from you. Like you aren’t really the same person. (I just remembered how I asked if you needed help in economics. I was all set to recommend you as a tutor to yourself. You must have thought I was so clueless.)

Thank you for the review worksheet. I won’t even look at it until Thursday. That way you don’t need to feel guilty about giving it to me early.

Mindi and I filed reports at the police station earlier. Erin drove us. It was the first time I actually gave anyone a detailed account of the whole thing. I was shaking and crying by the time I was done, and I felt weak and stupid all over again. Mindi was in even worse shape; the case worker said she may need to be treated for PTSD. She told us both to go to the school counseling office or a private therapist for treatment.

Mindi called her parents on the way back to campus, and they’ll be on a flight here in the morning. It never even occurred to me to tell mine. I don’t think I could deal with another I-told-you-so speech from my mother. Not about this.