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  Sports is a huge deal in Newberg, and each win is celebrated by not just the school, but the whole town itself. Athletes and jocks are basically our local celebrities, so this new bit of socializing with Ivan and his friends feels like a lifeline to me, and I grab it to keep from sinking any further.

  KILLED ALIVE

  “Hey,” Linda says softly one fall afternoon when I’m changing in the locker room after practice. Since I have gotten used to my teammates ignoring me, at first it doesn’t even cross my mind that she’s talking to me. “I said ‘hey,’” she repeats, this time putting her face directly in front of mine, her head cocked to one side, her feathered side-bangs hair-sprayed into place.

  “Oh… hey,” I say, confused, but also intrigued, and I fumble around in my locker to try to seem calm.

  “So… there’s this thing we’re all going to.” Some of the other girls in the locker room are listening intently but keep their distance.

  “Oh yeah?” I ask, trying to keep it cool. But it feels like my heart is beating in my neck.

  “Yup. On Halloween after the game. And we want you to come.” She speaks with her arms crossed over her chest, her gum smacking inside her mouth like a drum.

  “OK, sure!” I say, trying to sound both friendly and casual—but not too much in either direction. Maybe they’re warming up. The school year is just starting, right? “Just let me know when and where.” I’m grateful for the moment and already trying to figure out what I am going to wear.

  Wow! It’s actually starting to happen, I think. I knew it would all come together. The question is, why now? Maybe Ivan told them that I’m not so bad after all. Maybe they’re starting to appreciate having me on the team. Maybe now that they see the guys being friendly with me, they are softening up. It doesn’t even matter. The fact that they want me to come to the party is all I need right now. Later in the day, they even agree to let me be the flyer for that game, so that’s confirmation that things must be on the up and up.

  “So, yeah, like, just come to the school parking lot after the game on the thirty-first. We’ll all leave together from here,” Linda says, gesturing toward the other cheerleaders. In that moment, I want to throw my arms around this girl and hug her with all my might; I want to thank her for making me feel included.

  I spend more time getting myself ready for the event than I care to admit, and in the car on the way to the high school I touch up my lip gloss and smooth down my hair at least ten times each. I feel equal parts excited and nervous, the latter of which shows up as a light coat of sweat on the palms of my hands. I turn up the music on the car radio.

  “So, where do I drop you off?” my mom asks, pulling into the high school entrance.

  “They said to meet in the parking lot,” I reply, wiping clean a little streak of stray mascara from my lower eyelid, and checking the mirror one last time to make sure there’s nothing in my teeth.

  “You sure, honey? I don’t see a single car,” mom says, squinting her eyes.

  “Yep. That’s what they said,” I answer, trying to camouflage any sense of creeping doubt. “I’m sure people will start to trickle in any minute now.”

  “All right, well here you are. Want me to wait, just in case?”

  “Nah, they’ll be here,” I say, now feigning certainty. I turn the music down.

  “OK. Well, why don’t I just hang out for five or ten minutes? Can’t hurt.”

  I shrug. Mom turns off the ignition and sits quietly. I look around a few times. I get out of the car and walk a lap across the lot. Maybe they hit some traffic; that must be it.

  Twenty-eight whole minutes pass. Still nothing.

  “Let’s just go, Mom,” I say, dejected, as I buckle my seat belt again.

  “You sure you got the drop-off info right? We could always try to double-check, and I don’t mind taking you wherever it is that you need to go. I gotta babysit your little cousin tonight, but not ’til much later.”

  “Nah. Let’s just get out of here,” I say, choking back tears. There’s no one to call, nothing to double-check. I don’t want my mom to even suspect what I already know—which is that I have been unequivocally pranked. Stood up. Lied to. Dissed. I feel confused, hurt, and enraged all at once. Being ignored was way better than being humiliated. Fuck those girls! Fuck Halloween. And fuck this whole situation.

  On the drive back home, mom puts her hand on my arm. We both stay mostly quiet. We don’t want to admit the obvious. Maybe if we don’t talk about it, it will just dissipate like a rain cloud.

  I silently close my bedroom door and cry into my pillow. I don’t want my father to catch even a sliver of my weakness. They’re both already so proud of my performance as the team flyer that day that I don’t want to tarnish the one thing that feels good right now. But when I go online, I see that Linda and all the other girls are actually at a party, drinks in hands, having a fucking ball. Linda is wearing bunny ears and making a kissy face, while two of the other girls wink and throw peace signs. For a moment, I consider deleting my Facebook account. I fucking hate them. After a good cry, I pull myself together, take a good, long look in the mirror, and decide to snap out of it. Screw those girls and their dumb party.

  And I guess the universe is on my side, because at around nine o’clock, I get a text message from Ivan. He says a bunch of the guys are going bowling, and he asks if I want to join. Perfect! Who needs those catty bitches? My mom isn’t thrilled about me leaving the house so late, but I think she feels so bad for what happened earlier that she lets it slide. I wipe my makeup clean, tidy my hair, put on a happy face, and jump in the car with the guys when they pull up to my house.

  We have a total blast, which shouldn’t surprise me, because after all, this is who I am. I’m the girl who can hold her own with the guys. We eat mountains of fries and chase them down with icy Cokes, and the guys seem impressed every time it’s my turn to go. When they drop me off at home again, I feel like a new person. Sometimes all you need to do is open a different door, I say to myself. Maybe I’m the kind of girl who does better with boys, and that’s just all there is to it. At the end of the day, that’s not a bad thing.

  I feel relieved that the day is ending on a positive note, and after the emotional roller coaster of the last few hours, I’m pretty beat and ready for some sleep. But just as I’m brushing my teeth and getting myself ready for bed, I hear my phone buzzing again. It’s another text message from Ivan. Huh. What could that be about?

  Yo. That was fun, P.

  Since it’s Halloween, we decided to keep the party going.

  A bunch of us hangin at my friend’s house.

  You in?

  I smile to myself, feeling a sense of relief course through me. Relieved that people want me around, that I am thought of, that my presence means something. I start to write back, but I’m not entirely sure what to say. On the one hand, it’s pretty late already (even if it is Halloween), and I really was just about to get into bed—but on the other hand, I don’t want to fuck things up with them. If they had so much fun with me that they are already calling back on the very same night, I must be doing something right! Before I respond to the text, I check in with my mom and ask her if I can go.

  “Absolutely not,” is her answer. “You were just out with them, and it’s already past midnight. No way.”

  Shit. “Come on, Mom!” I plead. “I’m really trying to make this work! It’s a Friday night! Please, can I?”

  “No, honey. I’m sorry, but enough is enough. Don’t you think there’s been plenty of excitement for one day? There’s no reason to overdo it. Your dad will freak out if you’re not home by the time he is, and besides, I can’t drive you anyway. I have your baby cousin here and no car seat, so you very well know I gotta stay put. End of story. Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

  I borderline scream something incomprehensible even to myself and stomp down the hall to my room, where I slam the door, and stew for a few moments in my own growing rage. She knows
I’m having a hard time. How could she not get why this is important? It occurs to me that this is one of those moments when I should take contrary action for my own sake; that right now, maybe it’s more important to think for myself than to temporarily appease my mom for the “little miss perfect” title with which I’ve held up. Also, it’s Halloween, for the love of Jesus! I’m not gonna just sit here while everything gets screwed up. No freaking way. Not tonight. So, with a heart laced with panic, but a mind determined, I do the one thing that I have never once done—or even thought of doing—ever before: I wait until she’s asleep, and like a stealth ninja, I sneak out of the house.

  There’s a crisp chill in the air as I walk to Ivan’s friend’s house, which is not far from where we live. Fallen leaves in rainbows of rust, gold, and brown crackle beneath my sneakers, and the candy-confetti remnants of the night’s trick-or-treating activities also trail the streets. You can almost smell the sugar in the air. There are graveyard vignettes and skeletons dangling off doorways. Fake cobwebs made of stretched gauze wrap and droop on some of the mailboxes, and toothless pumpkins smile at me with a sinister look in their blank triangular eyes. I feel slightly guilty about defying my mom, but also relieved that she won’t come after me, not with my baby cousin on her watch. Dad won’t even know I’m gone. I may be doing the wrong thing as a daughter, but this loneliness is fucking killing me. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, I keep telling myself.

  I arrive to the address that Ivan gave me, where I expect to hear music, or at least the sound of talking or laughter. But when I ring the doorbell, I’m struck by how quiet things are. When the door opens, a waft of skunky-smelling weed smoke comes barreling out, and I quickly see that there aren’t more than four people there, all of them guys.

  “Hey,” I say meekly, trying to make sense of the scene.

  “Hey yourself,” Ivan says, his eyeballs pink and his eyelids droopy. “Come on in, party’s just getting started.” His voice is low and sluggish. Maybe they are watching a movie or something, but it’s clear to me that it’s not a party—or at least not the kind of party I was expecting. I linger in the doorway for a few seconds, for a moment wondering if this is a good idea. Ivan looks at me and smiles. “Well?” he inquires, the door now creaking wide open. Screw it, I go in. What could be wrong with staying for half an hour? I decide to make the most of it and chill.

  “Come on, this way,” Ivan says, walking through the house in his socks, until we reach the back bedroom. Dub music is playing loudly, its trippy, loopy sounds riding a heavy bass line. They all look pretty stoned, sunken somehow, but they perk up when they see me walk in. One of them theatrically loads up a glass bong the size of a small person, lights it, and sucks in a mouthful of cloudy smoke so thick it’s practically opaque. He holds it in until his face goes red, while the other guys cheer in approval. I don’t smoke pot—never have—so I make every effort to steer clear of the smoke. Part of me starts to feel like I should just head back home and call it a night. After all, I gave it a chance, I came over, and now that I see it’s just a bunch of dudes getting high in their shorts, I lose total interest in being there.

  One of the other guys is holding a bottle of watermelon-flavored vodka, whose fermented sugary aroma mixes in the air with the dank stench of the freshly smoked marijuana.

  “You drink before?” he asks me, while the others look on, their eyes only half open.

  “Sure, I have,” I respond, which is a blatant lie. I have never done any drugs or drank any alcohol. I’ve also never lied before just to fit in, but again, sacrifices must be made.

  “Awesome. Then you’ll love what we have in store for you on this very special Halloween,” he says, assembling a little arsenal of shot glasses on a makeshift tray of textbooks, filling each one to the brim with the foul-smelling pink booze. The rest of the guys mumble and chuckle unintelligible words, and even though I am in there with them, I suddenly start to feel left out. “Bottoms up, Paige,” he says, handing me a little glass. I don’t want to drink it, but I don’t want to be rude, either. I am in high school after all; I’m going to come across alcohol at some point. May as well be right now. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and take a sip of the stuff, its rank flavor pungent in my throat. “Oh, come on now, Paige. You can do better than that, can’t ya?” he says, with a hand motion signaling me to finish the whole shot. I look around for Ivan’s gaze, since he’s the one I know best out of all of them. They’re all smiley and droopy eyed, watching to see what I’m going to do next.

  “Drink up, Paige. We’re celebrating,” Ivan says, with enough friendliness in his tone that I reluctantly allow myself to oblige. I quickly chug the rest of the shot, after which I start coughing wildly, my eyes burning, and my throat now on fire. The guys laugh and clap. “Give her another one,” someone says. He’s plucking the strings of a ukulele with his pinky fingernail, which he keeps longer than the rest of his nails. “She just needs some practice.” I feel queasy from the first one, and I definitely don’t want any more, but before I can even decline, another shot glass is shoved right under my nose. “You can do it, you’re a tough girl. You’re one of us now,” Ivan says, rooting for me (I think). I drink the second one, the sugary poison in my larynx like lightning, and again cough like a beast, this time my eyes tearing up a bit, my breath momentarily sucked away. More laughter. More claps. Another round of bong hits ripped. Another mammoth cloud of smoke blurring the unfolding reality inside this horrible little room.

  “It’s getting late—I think I should start heading home,” I try to say, the smell of my own breath now physically revolting me.

  “Home? Are you kidding?” one of them says. “You just got here, girl. You don’t wanna be a party pooper, do ya?” Everyone else laughs and continues to drink and smoke. I am handed yet another glass, after which the guys all start chanting, “Chug it! Chug it! Chug it!” Their voices are eager and loud. I don’t want to drink anymore, but I am in deep now, and I don’t have a better option. I can’t go home now reeking of this booze, on top of already having sneaked out. That’s a double whammy that I am not prepared to face. So I drink the shot, vowing to myself that it will be the last one, knowing that I am in the throes of a peer pressure so heavy that it feels inescapable. When I empty the glass and slam it down, the guys howl with delight. I try to speak again, to say that I am leaving for real this time, but the words start to melt in my mouth. My thoughts become kaleidoscopic, and a wave of nausea comes at me like a typhoon. I don’t even have the energy to puke. All I can do is sit there, my weight sinking deeper and deeper into the ugly carpet beneath me. Someone turns the music up, and suddenly the room starts to spin. Glassfuls of liquor keep getting shoved in my face, and one of the guys even tilts my head back to make sure I drink everything up. I have somehow completely lost control of the situation without understanding how it has happened. I lose agency over myself, but my mind is present, watching. Wasn’t I just out bowling with these people? What in God’s name is happening?

  With my eyes, I can’t see clearly anymore, and everything starts to blur into a fog. The rest of the guys are drinking, too, but none of them seem to be struggling the way I am. Something is clearly wrong here. I try to lift my arm to take my phone out so I can call someone for help, but one of the guys plucks it right out of my hand and turns it off. “We don’t need that, do we?” I hear him say, his voice now sounding warped, muffled, and distant, like a record played on too slow a speed. My body starts to go numb, even though my awareness is still very much in the room. It soon becomes evident to me that I can’t move my arms or legs, and my whole body feels like the weight of a hundred sandbags, like I’m stuck in a tank full of thick, viscous molasses.

  Time starts to feel like a series of haphazard strobe lights, slivers, and shards of scenes like half dreams flashing in and out of focus. Now I’m lying on my back on a bare mattress that’s on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, where hulking shadows move around me in ways I don’t quite und
erstand. I’m being held down, my shoulders pinned into submission. Someone is taking my pants off, and then my underwear. Someone is playing the guitar, its normally sweet sounds the soundtrack of a living nightmare.

  There is a bustle around me, and then on me, a living massiveness holding me down. There is a constant pressure on my wrists and thighs. I feel a hot breath close to my face, and perspiration on my skin, which I can tell isn’t my own. Suddenly my insides feel abnormally compressed, and there’s a tightness and a painful pressure within me, inside me, that almost takes my breath away. No one seems worried about my being conscious or not. It’s their ritual, I’m just a prop.

  “It’s my turn,” says another voice, drunk with equal parts substances and a disconcerting eagerness. They move me around. They change my position. I fail each time I try to resist, my limbs like wet cement on my body, my brain a heavy fog. I am awake and conscious, but my body feels dead. I know what is happening but can do nothing to stop it. I have no voice or choice but to submit and pray that it ends soon. I can think of only one thing to do right now: I try to fall asleep. I hear laughter. I keep smelling weed. And the hideous sound of the ukulele keeps going, just like these guys. I am paralyzed but somehow my mind goes into prayer. I pray not to die, to figure out some kind of escape. But they drain me of dignity, over and over again, until I am nothing but a pile of my own bones. I have glimpses of their greasy acne faces, like monsters. Their different body odors pungent with every breath I take. There’s a line of Axe body spray bottles on the nightstand where the TV sits, and I try to fix my gaze on them, because I need some kind of anchor.