After the Initiation, you’re invited to all the senior parties. All the parties that mean anything. You made it through that—so guys don’t fuck with you. They accept you. At least that’s the concept. I don’t know anymore what I believe.
When I was a freshman, before the Initiation, you’d hear rumors about guys slipping a roofie in someone’s drink. A few guys recording someone going down a girl’s pants, a girl who was wasted, and then putting it on Twitter. But you didn’t have to go through something so traumatic to be put through hell. You just had to jerk off a guy at a party. Let someone finger you behind a pool house. I’ve seen girls go through hell for the most innocent acts, especially early on, because I put them through hell.
So to be in this exclusive group where your reputation is always protected—how could anyone not want that?
Except after, I didn’t feel like I did it for myself. I felt like I was doing it for them. Those needy boys. Those boys who take.
That’s when I met Dev. Well, I always knew him, that cute, shy boy in my AP class. The guy who always hung out with Sean Nessel. We were at a party down the shore. Drinking jungle juice from a garbage can. Dev was there, and Cate wanted to hook up with him. I was sent over to lasso him. To talk up Cate. Then it was an hour later, and Dev and I were still talking. Cate sneering at me from the corner. I shrugged. She had no chance with him anyway.
I latched on to Dev, and he made me feel protected. I told him about my mother. About my father. He hung on to my words and understood me. He didn’t want to play any games. And he wanted me with him all the time. Then it was the three of us. Me, him, and Sean. Fingers overlapping each other.
Dev’s the only other person besides Donnie who knows how I feel about the Initiation. He thinks it’s bullshit. That it was always bullshit. That it was some made-up thing concocted by some demented senior. Some girl who wanted to shame everyone.
“How could it be bullshit if I did it then, Dev?” I said. “Then what happens to me? Am I bullshit? Have I been used?”
I couldn’t believe that. I can’t believe that. Maybe it does work. No girls have been sexually assaulted since that time, none that I’ve heard of. So maybe it did work to a certain extent. Maybe the Initiation serves its purpose. Acts as a deterrent.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t scar you. That you never forget it. That I didn’t feel taken. That I still don’t.
That’s how I’ll approach Ali. I’ll explain to her that we’ve been in the same position. That everyone has to have some kind of initiation, even if it’s not organized like mine was. I’ll be empathetic, sure. I’ll tell her maybe Sean was wasted, that he pushed things a little too far, and it was uncomfortable for her. That it might really mess with her head. But then I’ll explain that Sean is a great guy. He couldn’t . . . he couldn’t help himself or something. That the whole night he was talking about how cute she was. He was so excited to be around her. He couldn’t stop himself. If she could have seen him that night crying. His silky hair falling in his face. Have you ever seen a god fall?
8
ALI
My father is waiting at the kitchen table wearing his Phish shirt because that’s what he always wears on weekends.
“What did you do to your hair?”
“I—” I touch my bangs. How do I say it? That I’m still drunk? That I’m in shock?
“Forget it, I don’t want to know.” He shakes his head. More disgusted than I’d ever thought he’d be. “You want me to ask questions or should I just let you talk?” he says.
“The way I see it is that you have some explaining to do too,” I say, hoping that his making out with his date Sheila the She Woman in the living room deflects whatever trouble I’m in.
“Yeah, well, I’m an adult, so I don’t actually have any explaining to do,” he says. And he looks at me like start talking.
“I didn’t sleep at Sammi’s.”
“Yes, I know that.”
My father sees right through all the bullshit, because the downside to having a cool dad is that he’s already done it all, and according to him, he’s done even more than anything I even know about. Whatever that means. Plus, I’ve recently learned about bands like Phish—specifically what people do when they’re seeing a band like Phish. As in they take a lot of acid, mushrooms, and whippits. My father’s been around.
“Cherie drove us to a party. But I’m not going to tell you whose house we were at, so you shouldn’t ask me that.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll make sure not to ask you.” He rolls his eyes. “What else?”
“There was a beer keg.”
“And?”
“And then . . . Sean Nessel. He walks into the party.”
“Hold up. Sean Nessel, from your collage book? With all the roses and the hearts, the kid in the school newspaper, Sean Nessel?”
“That one.”
Buzz in my back pocket. A text from Sammi.
Just want to know if you’re alive or dead
Can’t right now. Talking to my dad.
“And you’re not going to like this next part. At all. So close your eyes or something.”
“I’ve always told you that you’ll never—”
“I know, Dad . . . I’ll never get in trouble for telling you the truth, but that was before, when I had nothing to tell you. Except for things like I didn’t brush my teeth. Or I didn’t do my homework. But what I’m about to tell you is not like that.”
He rubs his eyes, weary.
“I need you to shut your eyes.”
“What? Ali—”
“Please, Dad. I can’t look at you.”
So he shuts them. “I’m ready.”
I tell him about how Sean Nessel started opening those little airplane bottles of vodka.
“Wait a second—” My father clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “Go ahead.”
“I thought I could tell you the truth— Why are you getting all uncomfortable like I’m going to be in trouble?”
“You can,” he says, “but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to react strongly. You’re not in trouble. Whatever you tell me, you’re not in trouble. But drinking vodka? You’re not in trouble—but I’m upset.”
“Well, there’s more,” I say. I focus on the furrow between my dad’s eyebrows that’s been there for the past couple of years. I don’t remember seeing it before then—it wasn’t in pictures. It’s something that grew out of worry. Fear. First with my mother. Now it’s going to deepen like a valley after I tell him this. I wring my hands and surrender my head to the table.