“No, what did you say before?”

“Oh, that.” He took a step closer to Sandy, then leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You look just like Jenna.”

Frat Chat

Here are the chatters in your area. Be kind, follow the rules, and enjoy the ride! And if you don’t know what the rules are: READ THEM FIRST! You must be 18 to Chat with the Frat.

I think it’s Sadie Cresh. She’s been getting seriously round in the belly.

Fat, I didn’t even think of that. Why don’t they just round up all the fat girls and test them or something?

1 reply

Because there ARE too many!

What about Ellie Richards and Jonathan Strong? They’d definitely kill a baby before they’d risk not going to Harvard together.

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Jonathan Strong is totally gay.

He grabbed my ass in the locker room.

You guys, it’s Harry Trumble with the candlestick in his mom’s room. Have you seen her? She’s hot as shit.

You are all disgusting pigs.

3 replies

I agree. I can’t believe I know you people.

Pretentious bitch.

You are some sick shits. Funny as hell but sick as shit.

You know you’re supposed to be in COLLEGE to be on this thing.

1 reply

Fuck off, loser.

I think it was Aidan Ronan. His baby. He killed it.

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I heard he did some fucked-up shit in his old school.

And have you seen his mom? I heard she fucks everybody. That probably messed him up.

I saw him last week with some skanky bitch downtown.

I’ve seen him with her, too. Total crack ho.

I heard he once tried to kill his little brother.

I heard that, too. Choked him so hard he had to go to the hospital.

That’s bullshit. He’d be in jail.

Not bullshit. His parents lie for him all the time.

I heard he got kicked out of St. Paul’s for bringing a hunting knife to school.

MOLLY

APRIL 17, 2013

Justin and I had our first argument today. The first since we lost the baby. It was stupid, about dinner plans for our anniversary that I don’t even care about.

Lost the baby. Lost the baby. Lost the baby. I’m supposed to keep writing that in here. Not supposed to—Dr. Zomer never tells me what I’m “supposed” to do. But she says I need to normalize the experience.

But how to make killing your own baby normal? Because I know what happened is my fault. Who else’s fault could it be? I was the one who was supposed to keep track of how often she was moving. I was the one who was supposed to notice the second she stopped.

And I didn’t. I didn’t notice a thing. And I let myself get so stressed out the night before. That whole weekend. So stupid when I think about it now. The doctor made a point of telling me that none of that mattered. That it wasn’t my being upset that made her heart stop.

But how can they know that for sure when they don’t know why it DID stop?

The saddest part about my fight today with Justin was how relieved he seemed. So happy to have a regular old fight. Like the ones we had before. Before we lost the baby, before we had Ella, before there was even really an us. Because that’s where we are: a place where a fight is the best hope we’ve got.

Molly

When I arrived at Ridgedale University’s main administration building, I spotted Deckler, the Campus Safety officer from down at the creek. He still looked weirdly muscular, now in a long-sleeved lemon-yellow spandex shirt and the same snug black bike shorts. He was standing next to the building’s front steps, hands on his hips, like he’d been expecting me. Or maybe he’d just been expecting someone like me. There were several news vans parked around the green, and I’d seen notepad-carrying people milling around in town, pointedly avoiding eye contact. Like if they pretended they were the only one covering the story, they’d beat everyone to the headline-grabbing punch. Surely this was only the beginning. How big the story became depended entirely on how salacious the details.

“I wondered when you’d get here,” Deckler said.

“Oh, hi,” I said, hoping I sounded glad to see him even though I was not. “Deckler, right?”

“Yes, Molly Sanderson from the Ridgedale Reader,” he said in this odd robotic way that was maybe supposed to be funny but was extremely creepy.

“Yes, that’s right.” I forced myself to smile. “That’s me, Molly Sanderson. And what did you mean that you wondered when I’d get here?”

He shrugged. “You’re a reporter who’s going to cover all her bases. Campus property and all that.”

That wasn’t it. He’d meant something else that he wished he hadn’t hinted at. He was wrong anyway. Coming to campus hadn’t been my idea. Erik had suggested it after I’d updated him about Rose.

Univ. student in the hospital. New mother. Hospital refusing release, I typed away, wanting to tell someone, not fully considering the implications. Might be related.

Okay, came Erik’s quick reply. Follow up on campus. Get her story. Try dean of students. He usually comments without referring to Communications Department.

As a reporter who’d stumbled onto a lead, I knew that was the natural thing to do: follow up. But I did feel conflicted. It had been easy to say that I wanted to find out what had happened to the baby, to get at the truth. But what if that truth implicated the baby’s mother? And what if she’d been one of those desperate terrified women I knew all about? Not to mention that it felt wrong pointing a finger at Rose when I didn’t know for sure that she was an official police suspect. That was one thing the arts beat had going for it: no moral complications.

But asking a couple questions about Rose on campus was hardly the same thing as running a headline calling her a baby killer. It seemed likely that the police already knew about her, and soon others would, too, including the press. I could at least poke around, see what there was to find out, and commit to reporting whatever it was, if and when the time came, with great care.

“I’m surprised they let you leave the creek,” I said, trying for friendly chitchat with Deckler, even though there was something about him—the weirdly intense way he had of looking at me, perhaps—that made me genuinely uncomfortable. “With all that ground to cover, I’d think they’d want every available set of hands.”

“Let me leave?” Deckler asked. “I’m surprised they didn’t run me over with one of their ‘cruisers.’” His fingers hooked the air dismissively. In the Ridgedale Police’s defense, I found it hard to take Deckler seriously, with that baby face and tight bike-cop outfit.

“Sounds like you don’t think much of the local authorities.”

Deckler shrugged. “It’s a club, and some of them have been in it a long time.” He stared at me pointedly. “They treat all of us on campus like we’re second-class citizens, even though we’ve had the same training and passed the same damn tests. Plus, we get paid about twice as much and get free housing.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me.” So why do you seem so pissed off about it?

“It is,” Deckler said, eyeing me like he was trying to figure out if I was mocking him.

“Okay, well.” I took a step past him toward the building. “The dean of students’ office is in here, right?”