Saving Jazz by Kate McCaffrey Page B

made to get on the bus.
    â€˜Wait,’ I put a hand on her arm, ‘other people may have it.’
    She was on the step above me and looked down. ‘I figured that. So what? There’s nothing there they haven’t seen already,’ she said flatly.
    â€˜But there is,’ I was holding the bus up. Al, the bus driver, called at me. ‘On or off, Miss Lovely. Make it quick.’
    â€˜It shows …’ I couldn’t finish the sentence.
    â€˜Jack and Tommy raping me,’ Annie said through tears. ‘Maybe now people will believe I’m not such a whore.’
    I followed her onto the bus and couldn’t look at Jack as we walked past him to the back seat.

Post 16: No excuses for girls gone wild
    So the first day at school was relatively calm. All the gossip and snide remarks were regarding the photos. I walked with Annie down the hallways, watching the guys huddle over their phones. It was really strange, but knowing there was something worse out there made those photos seem insignificant. It was easy to act like Casey had — defiantly. We — Annie, Jack and me — knew exactly what was on that video. We just didn’t know who had seen it or had it in their possession. Jack was our best chance of finding out, but by lunchtime he knew nothing more.
    â€˜No one has mentioned it,’ Jack told me. ‘Everyone is only talking about the photos. Maybe I was right after all. Tommy knows how bad this is forthe both of us. Maybe he only sent it to me and you.’
    I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Just doesn’t fit with his MO. Is he at his dad’s?’
    â€˜Guess so,’ Jack shrugged, ‘he was meant to leave yesterday. He hasn’t replied to any of my texts. Maybe he feels bad about it.’
    I may have snorted. ‘That would imply he cared — or had an ounce of compassion in his body. I don’t think so. This is his final hand grenade.’
    By the time the buses were arriving to take us home, I was starting to believe that the worst thing that was going to happen was Annie facing those photos. Dealing with that reputation. And when I assessed it like that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what we had feared. It would blow over, like it did for Casey. We were defiant enough — we could carry it off. We could face them all — the slut-shamers — and just be like, ‘Whatever. So what? I don’t care.’ But this time, actually and truly mean it. Maybe — and I guess at this point I was getting a bit fanciful — our defiance would take the sting out of this kind of shit. That if other girls saw how Annie handled those pictures, if other girls saw that Annie was so ‘in-your-face, Idon’t give a flying fuck’, then maybe it would end this kind of terrorism. And terrorism might sound like an exaggeration, but that is what it was. It took bullying to a new level. Gone were the days when you lived in fear of what someone could do to you. Now you lived in fear of your worst mistakes being paraded around the globe to take you down. And there was no defence because ‘you asked for it’. Well, maybe there was. Maybe we had unwittingly stumbled on an end to social and emotional terrorism. If there was nowhere for it to land — then it had no effect. Right?
    Sometimes optimism has no place in this world.
    Despite feeling so positive about the video never emerging, the sledging on Facebook increased overnight and into the next day. The picture of Annie face-down with Tommy’s obscenity written above her arse had been tagged to people beyond Namba. There were two guys in particular who made the most offensive comments and received the most Likes and responses. These two guys were getting off on the celebrity that Annie’s picture was giving them.
    BEN RITCHIE
    My anaconda don’t… Likes: 234
    DAMO MILLS
    Looks like Tom’s anaconda does! Likes: 256
    Underneath each of their