Everyone thinks Erin can’t read people. That’s what they’ve been telling her for her whole life. But Erin has no problem recognizing obvious emotions. She knows what crying means. She knows what angry shouting sounds like. She knows teasing. She knows the looks between people when she accidentally walks into the wall when rounding a corner, when she blurts out inappropriate things in class, when she rubs her hands together so hard they make a sound. It’s the more subtle things that get confusing. Things like irony, attempts to hide feelings, lying. For these things, Erin’s spent countless hours learning, getting tutored in reading facial expressions and interpreting body language. She has been trained to pay attention, to study human emotion and relationships with an intensity rivaled only by psychologists and novelists. Because it is not intuitive, because she is an outsider, sometimes she sees things other people miss.
For instance, she suspects Grace may have been considering liking this Jesse guy. If she didn’t like him, she’d have no reason to look so disappointed by the news that he may not be likable. Erin notices Jesse’s happy stuffed-animal face turn sad as soon as he sees the way Grace’s looking at him. Maybe he was considering liking her, too.
“They look so normal,” Grace says. “Those guys. You can’t even tell they—”
“Did you know that otters rape baby seals?” Erin says, knowing full well how shocking and inappropriate her words are, but she desperately wants to change the subject. Sometimes shocking people is the best way to get their attention. “People think they’re so cute and cuddly, but they’re still wild animals.”
“Jesus, Erin,” Rosina says.
“They can’t help themselves,” Erin says. “It’s in their natures.”
“Someone has to do something,” Grace says.
“About sea otters?” Rosina says. “Like sensitivity training?”
“About Lucy. About those guys. They can’t just get away with it. They can’t just sit there eating lunch like nothing happened.”
“You’ve seen the website, right?” Rosina says.
“What website?”
“Trust me,” Rosina says. “You’re better not knowing.”
Grace looks at Erin for her opinion, but Erin just shrugs.
“What website?” Grace says again. “I want to know.”
“It’s more of a blog, really,” Rosina says. “It’s called The Real Men of Prescott. Hey, Erin. Give me your phone.”
“You have a phone,” Erin says.
“I have a crap phone,” Rosina says. “I need yours.”
“Who writes it?” Grace says.
“Nobody knows for sure,” Rosina says, typing something on Erin’s phone. “But most people think Spencer Klimpt is the main one behind it. It surfaced right around the time Lucy and her family left town. The blog had a couple hundred followers last time I checked.” Rosina scrolls down the phone’s screen. “Shit! It has more than three thousand now.” She shoves the phone at Grace like she can no longer bear touching it. “Here,” she says. “See for yourself.”
They are silent as Grace scrolls through the blog. Erin hasn’t looked at it since she first heard about it at the end of last school year, but she can only imagine what Grace is reading. Stuff about how to pick up girls. Rants about how feminism is ruining the world. Degrading descriptions of women the author has supposedly slept with.
“Oh my God,” Grace says quietly. “This is horrible.”
“There are a bunch of links on the sidebar to other sites just like it, even bigger ones,” Rosina says with disgust. “It’s called the ‘manosphere.’ All these guys online, a whole network of assholes who believe this shit. So-called ‘pick-up artists’ sharing advice on how to manipulate women. They call it a ‘men’s rights movement,’ but basically they just hate women.”
There is so much Erin has tried to forget. Not just this. Not just Lucy. The wrong is bigger than Lucy, bigger than their school and town, bigger than all of them. But it is also as small as her own private memories. It is a tiny box she locked them in and left back in Seattle.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Erin says, pulling her phone out of Grace’s hand. She is thinking a trip to the library might be in order.
“I appreciate your passion, Grace,” Rosina says. “But Lucy’s gone. No one knows where she went. No one can help her.”
“Maybe we could,” Grace says. “We could help her.”
Rosina laughs. Erin shudders. “Even if we wanted to—which we don’t,” Rosina says, “who would listen to us? Erin and I are like the freaks of the school and you’re new, and no offense, but you’re kind of sabotaging your social capital potential by hanging out with us.”
Grace is different today, Erin thinks. Until now, she’s mostly just sat quietly and a little hunched over, like she’s not quite sure she has permission to speak. Now she won’t stop talking. Erin thinks she liked the old Grace better. This new Grace is far too exhausting. This new Grace is bringing up things Erin doesn’t want to think about, and certainly doesn’t want to care about.
“Hey,” Rosina says. “Think of the positive. At least we’re not getting married off to old guys at nine years old and getting our clits cut off.”
“Gross,” Erin says. “Too much.” She looks at the chopped nuts and veggies in her bento box, and for the moment she’s glad Mom has made her a vegetarian.
“Why do you care so much?” Rosina says. “You never even met Lucy.”
“I don’t know,” Grace says. “It’s weird. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Maybe your house is haunted,” Rosina says. “And you’re possessed by her ghost. Except she’s still alive.” Rosina’s face pales. “I hope.”
Grace opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then closes it and starts chewing on a fingernail. Maybe she does think her house is haunted.
“Get a hobby,” Erin says. “You need a hobby.”
“Or a job,” Rosina says. “You can have mine. Do you want to get paid less than minimum wage and get yelled at all night by my uncle?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Grace says, obviously not listening. She is looking over at the troll table like she’s thinking the kind of thoughts that can get a person in trouble.
“You can’t change nature,” Erin says, but she knows Grace doesn’t hear her, so she doesn’t say the rest of what she was going to say, which is probably for the best because she knows Rosina would get mad at her. They’ve had this conversation before, and it ended in Rosina throwing a water bottle at her.
What Erin was going to say but didn’t is that boys are animals, and they act like animals because it’s in their natures, even the ones who seem cute and cuddly like sea otters. But like otters, they will turn ruthless in an instant if certain instincts are triggered. They will forget who you think they are supposed to be. They will even forget who they want to be. Trying to change them will never work. The only way to stay safe is to stay away from them completely.
Erin knows none of us are better than animals. We are no more than our biology, our genetic programming. Nature is harsh and cruel and unsentimental. When you get down to it, boys are predators and girls are prey, and what people call love or even simple attraction is just the drug of hormones, evolved to make the survival of our species slightly less painful.
Erin is lucky to have figured this out so young. While everyone else wastes their lives running around chasing “love,” she can focus on what’s really important and stay away from that mess completely.
US.