A Girl Called Shameless. Laura Steven
energy into action.
How can Bitches Bite Back stop this? Writing blog posts and launching forums isn’t enough. We need to take real action. But how? We’re just teenagers. We have no power.
But that isn’t true. I think of the marches organized by victims of school shootings, kids like me who wanted to channel their pain and grief into change. Could we organize a protest maybe? Our town is small, but if enough women and non-awful guys got behind it . . .
No. It’s not enough. Those victims had a clear goal: stricter gun control. Our message would just be: hey, maybe stop being such unbelievable cretins toward young women?
So . . . we should do the same. We should demand comprehensive revenge porn legislation. It’s the only thing that would provide an adequate deterrent for guys seeking to destroy a woman’s reputation. These laws already exist to varying degrees in other states, but the South in general is yet to follow suit. And with far-right senators like Ted Vaughan in office, change is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Yet a plan is formulating in my mind. I’m aware I’ve been sat in silence for several minutes, and things round the table have gotten a little awkward, so I lay my palms flat on the sugar-dusted table, fingers splayed, and say, “I have an idea.”
“Always dangerous,” Ajita says. “Go on.”
“I think we need to arrange a meeting with Ted Vaughan.”
Meg blinks twice in quick succession, pushing her glasses up her nose. “The senator?”
“The father of the dude you banged on a garden bench?” Ajita adds.
I nod once, solemn as a nun. “The one and only.”
Nothing is ever going to change. Not unless we force it to.
7.45 a.m.
Despite last night’s wild sequence of events – namely landing a job and experiencing severe second-hand pain on Hazel’s behalf – I leave the diner and walk home in good snuff. [For the uninitiated, this is entertaining old slang for “in a good mood”. I am not sure if you can culturally appropriate Middle Ages England, but if you can, please send the Tudors my apologies.]
We spend the rest of the BBB meeting drafting an email to Ted Vaughan’s office, requesting a meeting to discuss the state’s condemnable lack of revenge porn legislation. We even use words like “legislation”, to give off the illusion of savvy. The BBB email account pings immediately with an auto response: someone will get back to us in three–five business days. The impatient imp who nests inside my skull wants to march down to the office right now and demand they see us this very instant, but I beat down the impulse [geddit?] for once. We all know I’m not fantastic at will power, or generally behaving like an adult in any way, shape or form. So we must consider this show of spectacular restraint a win.
Having a plan makes me feel fierce and determined, rather than angry and helpless. I cling to it like a life raft.
Hazel’s sex tape is the talk of the town. The guy who leaked it – a former jock nicknamed Bakehead on account of his well-documented pot habit – is apparently her ex-boyfriend. He cheated on her, she wouldn’t take him back, so he sent their sex tape to everyone he knew. She filmed it in trust, and that trust was shattered.
Lots of girls have left the group chat in a show of solidarity, but plenty haven’t. The follow-up messages are now into the hundreds. The majority are lewd, crude and skin-crawlingly vulgar, although there are a handful of brave souls who’ve chimed in and called out the guy who started the group chat, labeling him a pitiful bully and a pathetic, immature dick. But those are few and far between. It’s mainly water-squirt emojis.
Carson, God bless his soul, commented saying, “Hey, man, this is uncool. Delete it, right now.” It remains undeleted, but I appreciate his sticking up for Hazel nonetheless – because as soon as he does a few of his teammates follow his lead. It’s nice seeing guys actually call each other on their bullshit, and even nicer when it’s your boyfriend leading the rally cry.
Even Danny – who has abstained from the general internet since I found out he leaked my nude pictures to the entire world – has heard the news, on account of the fact it’s a small-ass town, and you can’t even take a dump without your neighbor speculating over its consistency.
Despite the fact we haven’t spoken in months, he messages me the following:
Hey. Heard about Hazel. Hope you’re both okay.
I sigh and shove my cell phone back in my pocket, breathing in the crisp winter air and vague scent of log fires. I don’t think there is a Pulitzer Prize for uninspiring text messages, but if there were, I think this dry-as-toast attempt would definitely make the shortlist.
In fact, all this text does is stoke my fiery rage. No, neither of us are okay, and it’s all your fucking fault. How dare you massage your own conscience like this.
To be honest, I don’t even care about Danny. I know who the good people in my life are, and he is not one of them. His support, or lack thereof, means nothing to me anymore. [Hold that thought, past me.]
Even though we have a plan of action and having an outlet for my anger is already alleviating its intensity, I’m still dreading school today. I can’t watch Hazel suffer like I did. I can’t go through the stares and the whispers and the laughs all over again. My emotional armor isn’t robust enough – there are chinks and holes from the open fire it endured for months on end.
But I’m an O’Neill. We get by. We always have, and always will. So instead of letting fear and anger paralyze me, I’m going to go into the kitchen, make coffee for Betty and me, and tell her the news about my new part-time job. I’m briefly concerned the excitement will cause her to shit herself right there in the kitchen, so I take a mop just in case. The last thing we need is Dumbledore using a poop as a chew toy. Again.
RIP, couch. May angels lead you in.
3.17 p.m.
School is nowhere near as bad as it has the potential to be, which is probably the first time those words have ever left my mouth/fingers.
Hazel stays home. I don’t blame her. Rumors are flying around about the awful shit that’s happened to her since the tape was sent around. She was instantly fired from her weekend job at Hollister, and her ultra-religious parents have grounded her so severely that she’s not even allowed to be on the cheerleading squad anymore. She’s an honors student, by all accounts, with lofty career ambitions. Does she feel like her future has been snatched away from her, like I did? Like I still do, in my darkest moments?
At least Hazel’s friends seem to be rallying around her. The squad are on a letter-writing campaign – to Hazel’s parents, begging them to let her back on the team, and to Hollister HQ, demanding she get her job back. Carson’s teammate’s mom knows a guy who’s high up at Abercrombie & Fitch, and offers to reach out to him explaining the situation. Baxter and a couple other guys on the soccer team corner Bakehead and threaten to kick his teeth in if he doesn’t delete the group chat. He obliges, thank God, but the damage is largely done. The tape is burned into everyone’s minds forever – and saved to camera rolls all over town. It’s only a matter of time before someone shares it wider.
As a general rule people suck. Hazel’s locker has been adorned with pompoms, flimsy underwear and a strip of condoms. Ajita, Meg and I help her friends hastily tear all of this down and stuff it in an overflowing garbage can, to the soundtrack of many loud “booooooo”s from the assortment of teenage dirtbags around us. The entire time we’re working, chills run up and down my arms, pooling in the palms of my hands. Watching this unfold all over again is like a waking nightmare I can never outrun.
At lunch I take myself away to the restroom and huddle