“Jesus,” someone says.
“We should have done something,” Lily says. Her lips are wet with tears. “Jenny, why didn’t we do anything?”
Jenny just shakes her head. She looks folded, like she’s trying to squeeze herself into two dimensions, like maybe if she is small enough, she can slip away from all these girls staring at her and demanding answers.
“She called me the next morning,” Lily says through her tears. “She was crying so hard I could barely understand her. She said something bad happened, something really bad, but she wouldn’t say what. And I kept asking her, ‘What happened, what happened,’ and she kept saying, ‘I don’t know.’?” Lily pauses and looks over at Jenny, who still won’t look up. “I was still so mad at her for ditching us at the party. We both were. Lucy was the one who made us go in the first place. Jenny and I didn’t want to.”
“She always wanted to be popular,” Jenny says, but now she doesn’t seem so angry. Now she just seems sad.
“I said, ‘Did you hook up with Spencer Klimpt?’?” Lily says. “And she didn’t say anything, she just kept crying. So I hung up on her.”
“She would do anything to be popular,” says Jenny, but now she’s crying too.
“She kept trying to call back, but I wouldn’t answer,” Lily continues. “Then she just stopped trying.”
Lily takes a deep breath. “I didn’t hear anything until Monday, when she wasn’t at school, and neither were the guys, and everyone was talking about how she and her parents talked to the cops, and there were so many different stories and no one knew what to believe. But it didn’t matter because everyone knew it was three guys who mattered against one girl who didn’t. I mean, no one even knew her name. They were calling her ‘some freshman girl.’ They didn’t even know her name and they already decided she was lying.”
“What did you think?” Grace says softly. “Did you think she was lying?”
After a long pause, Lily says, “No. I believed her.” She looks at Jenny. “But I pretended I didn’t, just like everyone else. I was still so mad at her.”
“I didn’t believe her,” Connie Lancaster says. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t. I believed what everyone was saying, that she made it all up to get attention.”
“I don’t get it,” Rosina says. “Why didn’t you want to believe her?”
“I don’t know,” Connie says, looking down, ashamed. “I hated her for talking about it. It was like she screwed up my life somehow.” Connie looks up briefly, then looks back down with a shudder. “I know how bad that sounds.”
“I remember she only lasted half a day when she came back to school,” Elise Powell says. “People were tripping her in the hall and calling her a slut everywhere she went.”
“And we just watched it happen,” says Sam Robeson, wiping her eyes with a purple scarf.
“Didn’t the ambulance come to get her?” says Trista or Krista. “I heard the school nurse called them because she was having a nervous breakdown in the office.”
“An ambulance showed up, but she didn’t go with them,” Connie says.
“I think her parents picked her up,” says Allison.
“And now she’s gone,” sniffles Sam.
“That is so fucked,” Rosina spits. “This is so incredibly fucked up.”
“I should have done something,” says Lily, quietly. “That night. I shouldn’t have let her go upstairs with him. I knew how drunk she was. I knew something bad was going to happen.” She starts sobbing. “But I thought it was her fault. I blamed her. She didn’t deserve that. I should have done something.”
“We all should have done something,” Sam says softly. “It wasn’t just you. We all ignored her when she came back to school. Nobody helped her. No one stood up for her.”
“A lot of people were at the party that night,” says Melissa Sanderson. “I was there. I saw her talking to Spencer. I knew what he wanted. I had no idea it was going to be anywhere near as bad as it was, that Eric and Ennis were going to be involved, but I knew enough. I knew Spencer was an asshole. I knew he had a habit of taking advantage of drunk girls. I knew she was a freshman. I knew it was wrong.” She closes her eyes, shakes her head.
“But it doesn’t have to be like that,” Rosina says. “It can’t be like that.”
“It’s only like that because we let it be,” Melissa says, locking eyes with Rosina. “We can help each other, but we don’t.”
“It’s time for things to change,” Margot Dillard says, with energy in her voice, like she’s getting ready to make a speech.
“But what exactly are we going to do?” Rosina says.
No one says anything for a very long time.
And then, in the silence, a small voice calls out: “What about a manifesto?”
“A what?” someone says.
“A manifesto,” Grace says a little louder. “Let’s write our manifesto. Let’s tell them exactly what we think.”
“We have to do more than that,” Rosina says. “We have to punish them. We have to do something to make them hurt too.”
“I have an idea,” Grace says.
ATTENTION:
Boys and Young Men of Prescott High School
We are sick of your shit. We have been putting up with it for too long. That ends now.
Our bodies are not toys for you to play with. They are not pieces in a game for you to manipulate and trick. We are not notches on your bedposts.
We believe Lucy Moynihan. She was telling the truth. In your hearts, you know it too. You know who hurt her. You see her rapists at school and in the community every day. You sit by them in your classes. You party with them on the weekends.
But you do nothing. You look the other way and let your friends hurt, use, and rape more girls. Or worse, you encourage them. You cheer them on. Or worse, you do it too.
Guys, we know you can do better. Call out sexism when you see it. Tell your bros their rape jokes aren’t funny. When you hear guys talking shit about girls behind their backs or bragging about their lays, call them on it. Help girls when you see them being harassed or taken advantage of. Be the bigger man.
Don’t keep silent when you know something wrong is happening. Don’t look the other way.
We won’t. Not anymore.
So until you face these facts and take action to change your behavior, and to hold your friends accountable for theirs, you do not deserve us.
Our demands are simple. We require:
1. Justice for Lucy Moynihan
2. That the male students of Prescott High School treat us with the respect we deserve
We do not want war. We want you on our side.
But until that happens, and until our demands are met, we will not engage in any sexual activity with the male students of Prescott High School. This includes but is not limited to: sexual intercourse, oral sex (aka blow jobs), manual sex (aka hand jobs), kissing, frenching, necking, making out, heavy petting, dry humping, wet humping, porking, screwing, banging, boning, boinking, and any other ridiculous word for hooking up that you can think of.
Do we have your attention yet?