The Thrashers(20)
I WANT HIM TO LISTEN TO ME LIKE THAT. LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT. LIKE I MATTER. LIKE WHAT I HAVE TO SAY MATTERS.
BUT HE HAS GIRLS AROUND HIM ALL THE TIME. BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. THREE OF THEM. I GUESS THEY’RE CALLED THE THRASHERS. SOMEONE SAID IT’S BECAUSE THEY TRADE OFF SLEEPING WITH HIM, BUT THEN I ASKED IF HE’S HAVING SEX WITH THE OTHER DUDE THRASHER, AND I WATCHED THEIR THEORY FALL APART IN REAL TIME. I DON’T THINK ZACK WOULD HAVE SEX WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE. HE’S NOT A PLAYER LIKE THAT. AND A FEW OF THE GIRLS DON’T LOOK LIKE THE SHARING TYPE.
I TRIED TO ASK HOW SOMEONE BECOMES A THRASHER. THEY SAID, “YOU DON’T.”
Chapter Six
Zack was eighteen.
That was all that Jodi could think of as Charity Thrasher gave her a cup of French roast and assured the four of them that Zack wouldn’t spend the night in jail.
“If Greg can get a judge to set bail tonight, he’ll be home in a flash. Don’t you worry.” She squeezed Paige’s shoulder and handed her a cup of cocoa with a slab of whipped cream on top. An unlit birthday candle was stuck in the center of it.
From her spot next to Paige at the kitchen island, Jodi glanced at Lucy in the living room, standing next to the couch and flipping news channels back and forth to find the reports that Mrs. Montgomery had called Paige about.
“New information in the Emily Mills suicide. Several of her classmates have been accused of ‘bullying her to death.’ The five friends reportedly took Emily into their circle, and then maliciously cast her out—”
The channel switched.
“—going by the nickname ‘the Thrashers,’ this clique of five is facing scrutiny as more reports come forward about their bullying and harassment of Emily Mills, and one of them is facing statutory rape charges—”
Footage of the five of them escaping from the vigil played on the next channel. Jodi watched herself run behind Paige and Lucy.
She needed to call her dad.
“Did Zack have sex with Emily?” a soft voice asked.
Her head snapped to Paige, who was watching her with watery eyes, waiting for an answer.
“You’re asking me?” Jodi said.
“I don’t think he would have told all of us, you know? It would have been a really shitty thing to do to someone like Emily.” Paige paused and glanced up at Jodi. “Unless he actually liked her.”
Jodi blinked, forcing her mind to think about it.
The five of them didn’t talk about sex as a group. Maybe it had to do with the mix of girls and guys, or maybe because three of them had a crush on Zack. Or maybe—Jodi feared—they all considered her a prude, so they talked about it without her. Maybe they thought she’d be judgmental. When Zack had lost his virginity to Lucy in the middle of sophomore year, Jodi hadn’t taken it well. She knew Paige was upset and jealous, too, but she’d hid it better. Jodi didn’t know how to sit with Zack and Lucy at lunch and pretend it hadn’t happened, so she didn’t. She didn’t see any of them for a week. She’d been panicking, hurt that the boy she was in love with had sex with someone else, and afraid that their group would change with it. Lucy had claimed she was “over it” and “moved on” a few months later, but Jodi saw the way she still looked at him. She’d dug herself a grave by being too casual about it. Zack had moved on as well.
She was the only inexperienced one among them, and Julian wouldn’t let her forget it.
Glancing over to where he sat in the dark outside, feet hanging into the pool, she said to Paige, “If anyone would know, it’s Julian. Zack doesn’t tell me about that stuff.”
“I don’t think he did,” Paige rushed to say, “but I just wondered if he told you anything … or if you saw anything.”
“I can’t imagine Zack actually having sex with her.” She jerked her hands away from her coffee cup. “Um, that’s not to say she wasn’t pretty—”
“Yeah. Totally. Of course.”
Jodi nodded, then reached for her coffee again. She thought about how much Zack thrived on respect and attention, and how Emily gave him those things in high doses.
She shook her head and stood from her chair. “I have to call my dad.”
Slipping out of the kitchen, Jodi rounded the corner into the guest bathroom. Her dad was the second contact in her Favorites, after Zack.
He was supposed to be on a quick overnight to Nevada, a trailer drop and back. She listened to the phone ring.
“’Ello?”
“Dad. Can you talk?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said quickly, feeling the opposite of okay. “I’m safe, but there’s a situation here.”
His voice was tense with worry when he said, “I’m two hours away from Spring Valley, but I can turn around—”
“No, don’t do that. It’s not an immediate emergency.” She took a deep breath and turned her back on the mirror over the sink. “You remember the girl at school who died?”
“Your friend Emily?”
She blinked at the hand towels with the monogrammed T. “Yeah. Well, there’s an investigation into why she killed herself. And they think we bullied her.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Bullied her? You were her only friends.”