A few of the kids clapped as Tina did a little shimmy. She stumbled briefly before catching her balance again.
“Dare you to take off your bra!” shouted Jimmy Parsons, one of the rough boys, who was a year ahead of Marissa. Instead of laughing and sitting back down, Tina slowly reached back with both hands, but she wasn’t looking at Jimmy. Her eyes, outlined in a bright turquoise, were staring straight at Skip.
Marissa heard the quick intake of breath of the guy on the other side of her.
The tenor of the evening changed instantly, as if the darkness just beyond them had seeped into their circle of firelight.
“Do it! Do it!” Jimmy chanted.
“Do it!” several other guys joined in.
The boys’ energy was palpable; it felt to Marissa as if a pack of wolves had picked up the scent of a rabbit. Tina was too impaired and too desperate for attention—even the wrong kind of attention.
Marissa jumped up. “Hey, Tina. Why don’t you have some water? Maybe it’s time to go home.…”
“Who are you, the hall shark?” one of the guys yelled, bringing up the nickname of the school monitor who kept tabs on the students.
“C’mon, man.” Skip reached over and gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder.
“We’ve all seen her tits anyway,” Jimmy said, leering. “It takes one beer to kiss her, two beers to touch her, three beers to undress her, and four beers to fuck her!”
More hooting and hollering came from the other boys, and Marissa watched as Tina crumpled, as if the words were stones raining down on her.
“Screw you!” Tears streaked down Tina’s face. She grabbed her shirt and began to run.
They all watched her go, then Jimmy said, “I didn’t even get to what she does after five drinks!”—which made everyone laugh, except Marissa and Skip.
The laughter must have carried to Tina. As Marissa watched Tina slip as she struggled to run in the soft sand, Marissa found herself thinking about how before Tina’s parents divorced and the two girls would have sleepovers, Tina used to fall asleep snuggling a stuffed monkey. How utterly alone she must feel, Marissa thought.
“One of us should get her home,” Marissa whispered to Skip. “Make sure she’s all right.”
Skip looked at her in surprise. “Yeah?”
Marissa nodded. The thing swelling between her and Skip—it could wait.
“Do you want to go, or should I?”
“Let’s both go,” Marissa decided.
But that had been the wrong call: Of all the things Marissa regretted in life, this topped the list. She should have chased after Tina alone and hugged her and invited her to stay over again. Maybe then Tina would have been safe.
Seeing Skip and Marissa together had only upset Tina more. She’d lashed out at them, then run away again. By the time Marissa unlocked her front door later that night, her parents were sound asleep. She slipped upstairs quietly, put her clothes in the hamper, and brushed her teeth.
She lay awake for a long time, though.
The next morning, she awoke much later than usual and headed into the kitchen. Both her mother and her father sat huddled at the small table whispering, which made no sense, because who was manning the store?
They lifted their heads and stared at her. She’d only seen them look that way—so pale and stricken—once before, when her maternal grandmother had suddenly died of a heart attack.
“What is it?” Marissa had gasped.
“Sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice caught. “We have some terrible news. Tina…”
Her mother didn’t continue—maybe she couldn’t—and Marissa felt her heart pound. Dread infused her.
“Tina was found dead,” Marissa’s father finally said. “The police think she was murdered.”
Marissa’s legs buckled.
Everything changed again, seemingly in an instant.
The whole town went on high alert. No kids were allowed out alone, even in the daytime. Marissa’s father closed up the store in the evenings while she stayed home with her mother and Luke. Details and rumors seeped out: Tina had been beaten to death. No, she’d been suffocated. Her body was found on a pile of rocks near the water. She’d been raped—or maybe she’d had consensual sex. She’d been discovered by an early-morning fisherman, but had likely been killed around ten the previous evening, shortly after she’d left the bonfire.
The police questioned all the kids who’d been at the beach that night, including Marissa, who told them about Truth or Dare, Tina’s drinking, and how she and Skip had gone after Tina and tried to console her, but she’d resisted, calling Marissa a bitch and physically lashing out at Skip and scratching his forearm, so they gave up.