How was a person supposed to start covering their tracks, after the worst had already happened? As she rushed down the stairs (the exact same way her mom had gone a few minutes ago), Rachel started thinking she had entered into totally irrational territory. This moment called for some irrationality, she thought. She’d irrationed her way into it and she would have to irration her way out of it. The first step was to meet up with Melly and figure out exactly how bad this was going to get.
Now that she’d been confronted with it, with it, she couldn’t fathom what she’d been thinking. A girl was supposed to get into some trouble in her first year away from home. That was what Thanksgiving breakups were all about. However, the last few weeks had been… a little more than some trouble. There were things her parents hadn’t known about her when she was living under their roof. A preference for vodka over rum, a little bit of experimentation with girls, and a first time with one of her classmates at the afterprom. But ever since she’d gotten out from under Miranda Byrne’s watchful eye, it was like she’d become a different person. ‘More herself,’ as she’d described it internally. ‘A total fucking hoe,’ any given outsider might say instead. Her body count had gone from two at the end of the summer (following a hookup with a friend who she’d actually had a crush on from high school, but who totally ghosted her after) to… well, she didn’t like to keep count. But somewhere in the dozen+ range. And it had been an intense dozen+.
Hence the photos.
The problem was that the photos were only the beginning. Though they’d never really acknowledged it, she knew for a fact that Leo had at least one video of her… in the act, so to speak. He’d shown it to a mutual friend of theirs, Walton, who’d warned her he had ‘some really unrepresentative things’ he was showing people. Walton had told Leo to piss off, and she’d been enormously thankful. So thankful that she’d given long-suffering Walt head in the laundry room late that night.
Rachel hit the bottom of the stairs and sank to the floor. She put her head in your hands. “Holy shit, you really are a slut,” she squealed to herself in shame.
Melly.
She **** herself to get up. Melly was waiting for her at the entrance to Grammer. It took her about three minutes to sprint her way up the street, and arrived at her friend’s door red in the face and completely out of breath. “Hey,” she wheezed.
“Hey???” Melly asked. Her red hair, normally curled to perfection by nature alone, looked like a birds’ nest. Last night’s mascara was smudged to give her raccoon-chic bona fides. She was wearing the double-ex-ell tee shirt she’d gotten from her high school boyfriend. That meant she hadn’t been out of bed before the text had come in either, and was now showing herself in public in pajamas. In other words, shit had gotten real.
*Oh good,* thought Rachel. *You’re not the only one freaking the fuck out.*
