In the same way that certain brands of toothpaste house the component colors of the toothpaste in separate chambers before a compression pump unites them on the brush, my mind seemed to contain two contradictory paradigms that nevertheless existed simultaneously: 1. The gossip might stay contained to the world of high school, and there were pretty even odds of whether or not Jason, who would no doubt hear tomorrow that I was gay and making out with grandads in cars, would tell Aunt Deedee. After all, he told Aunt Deedee nothing else that went on. And even if he did tell her, couldn’t I deny it? The only person who had actually seen me was now in a medically induced coma. I could pretend it was just a vicious rumor. Maybe she would even feel badly that I was being bullied at school. I made good grades, I worked a job, I paid for my own clothing and food, and last month I had even paid her electric bill because she was a month behind. She wasn’t going to just kick me to the curb. 2. Her face would go dark when she found out. Jason would tell her immediately, and her reaction would be visceral. Hadn’t she told me? No boys in the house. And didn’t we both know that it meant: No boys? Sure, I hadn’t brought a man home, but I had behaved so foolishly that now the entire town knew I was thirsty for seniors. Jason would refuse to share a room with a “known homo.”

I had been living in a careful system of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and I had violated the agreement, and now the bonds of family and obligation would be null and void. In such circumstances, returning to my mother’s household would be out of the question. Just yesterday, I might have fantasized about running away with Anthony, but now that idea seemed flimsy and childish. Really, the best outcome I could possibly see would be if Ray Lampert would loan me the money to put a deposit down on a studio apartment and quit school so I could work full-time. And if he wouldn’t lend me the money, then perhaps Terrence would. And if Terrence wouldn’t, then perhaps I would live in a shelter. Didn’t they have shelters? Or maybe I could buy a beater car and just live in the car? I didn’t even know how to drive. The one thing that was tripping me up was that I couldn’t imagine staying in North Shore. I would have to get a new job. I would have to start entirely over. It was too much to think about.

And so I scrolled and scrolled through my phone. Ann Marie’s accounts were silent, obviously. She wasn’t well enough to post dramatic ER selfies.

I checked Kelsey’s Snapchat, another girl on the volleyball team, best friends with Ann Marie. There she was, in the hospital waiting room, looking somber in a selfie. She had put crying-face emojis over it and the text running across the bottom in a stripe said: “Praying for my best friend.” Then I checked the Snapchat stories of the rest of the team. Half of them were in that hospital waiting room or had spent some portion of the evening there. Even Naomi was there. She had taken a picture of Ann Marie’s mother, Ms. Harriet, her shoulders hunched, staring off into space, sitting under a TV she wasn’t watching. Her face looked numb and frozen, as though if you pinched her it would feel like chicken breasts that hadn’t thawed all the way. The text Naomi had chosen said: “Psalm 34:19.” I didn’t know the Bible, had never been to church even as a child, and while I knew Naomi went to church every Sunday I had not given this considerable thought. It was just something she did, the same way she did her homework. In my defense, so many of her opinions were openly blasphemous that a display of sincere religiosity caught me off guard.

I googled the Psalm, and it said: “The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all.”

Was Ann Marie the righteous person? Was that how it seemed to Naomi?

I couldn’t imagine what she meant, although there was something about the word “righteous” that did ring a distant mental bell. Almost as though you didn’t have to seem right, you had to actually be right. Straight and unbent. True. Inside yourself, the circuitry untangled and clear.

I looked at the picture of Ann Marie’s mother and I understood that her baby girl had been attacked, her face mutilated, her brain damaged. And she might die tonight.

For the first time that day, I understood that it was real. That Bunny had done this monstrous thing, and that none of it could ever be undone.

* * *

—

When I woke up in the morning I had a text from Anthony. It said:

 Sometimes I am terrified of what we are doing. I read these lines by Jack Gilbert last night and thought of you: A feudal world crushed under / the weight of passion without feeling. / Gianna’s virgin body helplessly in love. / The young man wild with romance and appetite. / Wondering whether he would ruin her by mistake.

I read the poem almost numb, and I could feel one part of my brain go down the familiar track of sympathy and delight, that Anthony felt these big feelings, that Anthony framed his life so metaphysically, and I was interested in this “passion without feeling,” what a phrase. What did that mean: to have passion without feeling? Some kind of numb, ecstatic frenzy! And wasn’t the young virgin to be pitied? And wasn’t the young man wild with romance and appetite to be pitied? And weren’t all these big dramatic feelings to be pitied and explored and charted and indexed and treated with the same reverence an astronomer feels toward the stars?

And on the other hand, I thought: You fucking pathetic piece of trash. Send poetry to your wife. Stop finding children to explore your romantic feelings with. Because really, what was he saying? He was saying I was the young virgin Gianna, and he was the young man wild with romance and appetite. Wasn’t that it? But he wasn’t a young man wild with romance and appetite. He was a sixty-year-old man who had made a mess of his life by refusing to be honest with himself. And it struck me as boring and gross. As boring and gross and sad as the fact that I had been having sex with adult men since I was thirteen years old because I was so ashamed of myself, and so terrified, that I didn’t think a boy my own age would be interested. I didn’t think I was worth something more normal. I didn’t think the happiness I saw all around me was on the menu for me.

I texted back, I don’t have time to go through this right now, I’m going to high school, talk to you later. By the way, do you have grandkids?

And I hit send, cruelty flushing through my veins like adrenaline, energizing my limbs with an eerie cold.

* * *

—

Bunny was not in school. Ann Marie was not in school. Naomi was in school, and even though we sometimes ate lunch together with Bunny, when I saw her in the cafeteria, sitting with the rest of the volleyball team, she wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I understood that she would not be sitting with me or being seen with me or associated with me in any way. And it made sense. She was going to jettison Bunny as quickly as a sandbag falling hoists a piece of scenery out of view in a play. Naomi was here to win. An association with Bunny would only harm her standing on the team and more largely in the school. In fact, without Bunny, she was the uncontested star player of the team and would stand out even more strikingly to recruiters. I also think Naomi was truly disgusted by Bunny’s behavior. And why shouldn’t she be?