They hung up, and the car went silent.
That call had felt endless, time moving with the same viscosity of molasses, and yet it had been a relatively short call; all the information presented, all morsels of biting and sharp hearsay, was concise and told to them all with the delicacy of a hand grenade. The shrapnel was evident in the silence of each of the four people in the car: Anna, Olivia, Jake, and Vayuna. They had picked up the call, hitting the green button with rabid and hungry glee. They expected tantalizing gossip, the harmless information that would fuel their haphazard chatter for the coming school day—something small and innocuous like a cheating scandal. But no, the four of their faces—which started bright and eager, with Anna putting her finger to her mouth to silence the other three—dropped. It was all much more serious.
“Holy shit,” Anna finally said.
She rubbed the palms of her hands into her eyelids, groaning. There was a kinship in such exasperation. They were a group unused to the trials and tribulations of having to be exasperated.
“What the hell, guys,” Olivia said.
“You got to be kidding me,” Vayuna said.
Jake just moaned.
None of them knew where to begin, to take the knotted mess in their heads and unwind the thread to translate incomprehensive thought into eloquence, into a plan of action. It just been two hours before when they had walked three blocks to buy ice cream from that one store that called itself a Creamery and sold nonsensical flavors like Honey Lavender and Strawberry Honey Balsamic.
Sweetness had dissipated, leaving only the bitterness of truth—the bitter, bitter truth.
“I just can’t believe he,” Jake stopped before going. “I can’t believe he like… you know–”
“I just can’t believe it,” Olivia said, her face illuminated by the bright light of her phone.
“Is it bad that I can?” Vayuna questioned.
They all turned towards her, eyebrows raised high, and questions settled on the tips of tongues.
“No, no, no not like that, not like that,” she said, waving her hands to quiet a forthcoming brigade of voices. “What I mean is that—hearing what we just heard—like am I totally shocked that he did something like that? Well, no. Like we’ve been knowing he’s an asshole—like not that level of asshole but still an asshole. Like I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had a bad feeling about him for a couple of weeks.”
Silence. The windows of Anna’s car were fogged up, and it looked as though there was something clandestine happening in her car. Night had fallen easily as if there was no need to convince the dark to paper to sky, to cover the light of the day. It was close to midnight; a fact lost to all of the teens.
“You know what, I lowkey agree,” Olivia said. “Of course, I never like thought he’d have done something like this, but like I’ve always found him kinda fishy—just something about him.”
“The fucking pedo stache,” Anna muttered.
Light giggles before a prompt sobering of spirits.
“No like, now that I’m really thinking about it, he’s just been acting like such a douche recently,” Vayuna went on. “Like holy fuck, Anna, remember that comment he made about you and like calc?”
“Oh, my fucking god was that when he said he wouldn’t trust me to tutor you in Calc AB because I, and I quote, ‘spend more time doing my makeup than studying for calc.’ I had completely forgotten about that,” Anna said.
“He said that?” Olivia said incredulously.
“Mhm,” Anna said. “I remember laughing because in my head I was like ‘what the fuck do if not laugh?’ Cause like I wasn’t going throat punch him in the middle of the hallway, even if I really fucking wanted to throat punch him.”
“He’s always just gotten away with stuff too easily,” Vayuna said. “Like remember when he just like bailed on your birthday party, Jake, because he was ‘spiraling.’ Spiraling about what, who knows?”
“Maybe he was spiraling about the fact that he raped someone,” Anna said.
“Oh shit,” Olivia said.
They all looked at Anna, and they stared at her as if holographic images of either a halo or devil horns would appear above her head. It was half-joke, half-harsh-reality, and yet she had said it so crassly, so bluntly, that there was wrongness attached to her words. And yet it was Anna. Anna, who threatened to egg people’s houses at least five times a week. So, just as quickly as they wished someone, something, would tell or show them how to handle her comment, they quickly brushed past it, just attributing it to the “Anna-ness” of it all.
“Guys what are we gonna do?” Vayuna finally asked.
“Well fucking drop him,” Anna said.
“Okay, yeah obviously,” Olivia went on. “But like do we talk to him at school, outside of school? Do we like text him, call him, hang out in person? Like I’ve never had to drop someone before.”
“Umm I wanna say we do it at school, in person?” Vayuna said. “I don’t really know though.”
“Yeah I highkey don’t know either,” Jake added.
“I don’t think we fucking owe him that,” Anna said.
“Okay then what do you think we should do?” Vayuna asked.
“I think we just block him,” Anna said.
Olivia looked up from her phone.
“But, like,” Olivia motioned her flexed hands in swirls. “Okay this is gonna come across wrongly but like I’m nowhere near justifying or excusing what he did, but I just like think that maybe we owe him a conversation? Like I don’t know but he’s also been our friend for ages, so like maybe there’s something else to the story? Oh my god I know how I must sound and it’s like not like that, I just don’t know how to handle a situation like this, so I’m just kinda going based off of gut right now.”
They nodded at that, as Olivia had astutely brought up the newness of such territory. What to do, what to do, they all thought.
“Okay I can see what you’re saying, Liv, but also I think in these types of situations, even if there is nuance, I do think that there is a line needing to be drawn in the sand. Like what the fuck would we do if we found out—I don’t know–” Anna snapped her fingers. “Fucking Tony Smith assaulted someone? We’d block and ignore him because why the fuck would we wanna be associated with a sexual assaulter? Same situation. Both morally and fucking diplomatically, we have to just ignore him.”
“Diplomatically?” Jake asked.
“Yeah, cause I hate to admit it but this situation’s so fucking political. Because if we’re associated with him, what the hell does that do for our credibility? And of course this situation’s not about us, but it also kind of is. Do we really wanna graduate highschool being known as the people without moral backbones? The people friends with a rapist?” She finished.
They all nodded at that, as any sane and moral person would. Olivia silently thought about all of the Instagram posts she’d have to archive because he was in them, whether fully or partially it didn’t matter. She’d miss the Homecoming post she had uploaded. Olivia wouldn’t tell anyone in the car, but she hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch for a week for Homecoming, and she felt as though she looked good in her dress, which was the deep red of cherries, in that post. Vayuna thought about how awkward fourth period would be: she sat right next to him, and they spent the period talking about topics ranging from the politics of tanning to the age-old question of whether a taco was a sandwich. She secretly would miss these conversations. She couldn’t talk about anything political with anyone else in the group. Vayuna had once made a joke about Britain’s inability to artfully utilize the rewards of centuries of colonialism, and both Jake and Olivia had gotten very quiet, silently mumbling apologies for colonialism, slavery, racism, white supremacy, and all the other wrongs they felt obligated to acknowledge. Jake’s mind was blank. He dragged his finger across the fogged-up window, drawing smiley faces and stars upon the damp glass. His silence was unnoticed.
Anna pulled out her phone, and her aggressive tapping woke up the three of them from their reveries.
“Okay so I’m blocking him,” she said. “I don’t care what you guys do, and I won’t judge you, but this is what I’m doing.”
She pulled out his contact, aptly named “What’s-His-Face,” and scrolled down to the red button reading “Block Contact,” her finger hesitating for a split second before pushing down. Anna looked up and at the three of them, expectation emblazoned across her face. Slowly, the three others pulled out their own phones, looking between each other before swiping to his contact and pressing the same button. There was a collective sigh; they had done something, and they all felt assured in their action.
Later that night, as they washed their faces and brushed their teeth and scrolled on their phones, their exasperation, their confusion would be defused by their ability to make a stand, to hold tightly onto their morals. They would be able to sleep soundly knowing that they had done what was right, what was necessary, what was just.
It would be weeks later, and Anna and Vayuna were eating together in the hallway during lunch. They sat in the history hallway, their backs to Ms. Ryan’s classroom. With how busy they all were, there was rarely a day in which all four of them ate lunch together: there was mock trial and DECA on Mondays; Social Justice Club on Tuesdays; mock trial and choir on Wednesdays; DECA and band on Thursdays; mock trial and Asian Student Union on Fridays. It was Thursday, and Olivia had her quick DECA officer’s meeting, and Jake had his jazz band rehearsal. Vayuna and Anna had been chatting as they ate; they talked about Vayuna’s calculus quiz while eating bites of a bagel or pieces of pesto pasta.
“I just like don’t like l’hospital,” Vayuna said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I know you calc BC kids are obsessed with l’hospital, but I just don’t it’s easier than factoring.”
“Okay so that’s just a fucking wrong op-” Anna stopped.
Running towards them, through the empty hallway, was Olivia. Anna and Vayuna raised their eyebrows; Olivia refused to walk faster than a slow glide let alone a full throttle run through the middle of the school. She stopped near them, raggedly breathing.
“What the actual fuck was that?” Anna said.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Vayuna said, patting down on the floor for Olivia to sit.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I just like had to get here as fast as possible after DECA, so we can talk before jazz band gets out,” Olivia heaved.
Anna and Vayuna looked at each other.
“Jazz band?” Anna asked.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Olivia said. “Okay so like basically I’m in botany today, and you know how I sit at a table with Lucy and Sebastian?”
They nodded.
“Okay so I’m sitting with them and we’re talking about—wait what were we even talking about? Umm, I think we were first talking about Emma Reynolds because she was like dropped by her friend group because—okay and we’ve been knowing this—because she’s a fucking bitch. But like we were talking about this together and then Lucy brought up like…you know who. She brought him up because she kinda put two and two together. Okay so she brings him and up and kinda asks why we dropped him, and I’m kinda dancing around the topic before basically telling her it was because he assaulted someone. And then, and then oh my god, she like gets really quiet, and I’m like, ‘oh she’s just shocked by the info,’ but then she goes, ‘but you’re still friends with Jake?’”
Anna and Vayuna whipped their heads around.
“What?!” They said in unison.
“I know, trust, I know. So I’m shocked of course, but then I’m like, ‘you can’t be talking about Jake Moore, right?’ and it turns out that’s exactly who she was talking about. So I get really quiet and she basically tells that years ago, back in eighth grade, he like apparently assaulted his girlfriend at the time. She was being really murky about the details and stuff. Like she wouldn’t tell me explicity what happened, who the girl was, or anything like that, and she ended the convo by basically going that nothing was confirmed and most of it was basically hearsay and speculation,” Olivia finished.
There was other chatter in the hallway; teachers walked together, holding their Tupperware containers and thermoses filled with coffee, chatting about the latest BLT meeting or how awful their second period was; clubs circumvented in rooms, loud laughter and presentations echoing into the halls; others ate in the hallway, flashy pieces of gossip being traded for apple slices. There was an overall condition lacking for any constructive thought, anything save the dull hum of radio static.
“Jake? Jake?” Vayuna asked. Her tone was desperate; she sounded as though she was asking God as much as she was asking Olivia.
Olivia nodded, sweat slicking a normally dry brow.
“Jake? Possibly the meekest man at our school? Has literally never said a negative thing about anyone ever? Literally drove to Magnolia on Christmas to bring me crackers and ginger ale because I texted him saying I was sick?” Anna questioned; the same desperation lacing her words.
“We need to talk to him about this,” Vayuna said. “Cause, like this stays between us, I don’t know how much I believe this. Like of course guilty until proven innocent in this respect, but like…Jake? I don’t buy it.”
“Yeah and you were talking to Lucy Lake, who has the biggest mouth at this school. Like you know what they say about the choir kids: Their singing is amazing because their mouths are always open.” Anna said.
They nodded at this. Olivia grabbed her pink and cream Owala, taking small sips and looking intensely at both Anna and Vayuna. She thought of that conversation they had held weeks ago in Anna’s car, of how they—specifically Vayuna and Anna—had conversed that night, how they had held themselves and how they had utilized their language. In presenting this information to them, Olivia had expected a very similar reaction from the two of them; she expected the heated rhetoric of injustice and morality from their mouths instead of this denial-soaked conversation. If she were a more righteous person, she would have cut off the two of them, proudly proclaiming that she was going to drop him and block him, as she had done before and as she vowed to do in the future. She would feel strong and mighty, reposting something about allyship and the work needed to be done—whatever the “work” was didn’t matter as she had basically done it and was doing it; she was leading the charge as a true trailblazer. But no, Olivia was just young and weak, and she was scared that the only thing that would change would be her age, and these reveries of justice would only ever be daydreams lived out by a braver version of herself.
“Yeah, so is the plan to talk to him?” Olivia asked.
“I think we owe it to him as much as we owe it to ourselves,” Anna said. “I don’t think I could live with myself if we dropped Jake—one of the sweetest people we know—over something that isn’t true.”
“Or something completely blown out of proportion,” Vayuna said.
“True, true, true,” Anna said. “Like wasn’t he Mormon for like twelve years? Mixed with COVID, the duo doesn’t really breed the most socially aware guy. So if something did happen, which I lowkey doubt, it was probably just a mix up.”
“Yeah, honestly I think a really open and honest dialogue would be really important for all of us,” Vayuna said.
Olivia just nodded. Anna grabbed her phone.
“Okay I’m gonna text him,” she said. “Just let him know that—Oh shit my texts aren’t going through.”
“It’s just the shitty school wifi,” Vayuna said.
“No, but the texts are now green,” Anna said.
Vayuna went over and Anna and her looked at the phone with deluded misunderstanding, becoming increasingly agitated and distressed, while Olivia just sat there, thinking to herself, What a shame we can’t have a conversation with him, I was really looking forward to an open and honest dialogue.
