turn to see Tommy holding up his iPhone.
âAwesome girl on girl action,â he says.
I donât know why, but it seems funny and I laugh. I prop Annieâs head on my shoulder and pose for Tommyâs camera. Then Tommy says, âShow us your tits, Jazz.â I untie my string bikini and let it drop.
âTheyâre hardly tits,â he says, snapping away on his phone. And I donât know why I do it, Iâm awash with some type of jealousy, but I say, âYou want tits, Tommy?â And I lift up Annieâs top, cup her boobs and make out like I am kissing her ear. âHow about them then?â I say.
âSheâs got fantastic tits,â Tommy leers.
I pull her top back down and lay her on the bed. âAnnie, you okay?â I ask. She kind of grunts, so I get a light blanket and cover her. Then I leave.
I grappled with the images before me. I did that? I couldnât believe it â but I had. Iâd treated her like a piece of meat. A drunk, passed-out girl. Iâd manhandled her, touched her, abused her. My own friend.
I bowed my head in shame. No, in horror. And I remembered it. I know, dear reader, you are reeling at this revelation of me â me, the would-be campaigner for girls, the one who seeminglydefended my friend in her hour of need. But I was reeling more. To be faced with such images of yourself, acting like someone else, was horrific. In that toilet stall I remembered everything. It had seemed harmless. A joke. Propping her up and doing that. But to the sober Jazz Lovely, who was in class with the victim of her abuse? It was more than horrific. How could I have done that? What on earth was I thinking? Buoyed by booze? Fuelled by Tommy? I was sick, sick to my very stomach. I actually gagged. And here is what I did: exactly what the others had done before me. I walked out of that toilet and vanished. I couldnât face anyone. Let alone Annie.
I ignored her texts.
ANNIE
Why? Why? I thought we were friends
ANNIE
Jazz reply to me
ANNIE
You owe me that
ANNIE
I fucking hate you
I sat in my bedroom watching each text bling onmy screen. And I did nothing. I never responded to her. In the light of what happened next, I wish I had been a better person. I abused her, but then, even worse, I abandoned her.
Post 19: Confessions
Thank you, dear reader, for your comments of both encouragement and vitriol. I deserve everything I get. Iâm not looking for sympathy. This is, according to Greek theatre, what catharsis is. The release of emotion. An attempt to make sense of the horror. And that is what Iâm doing â I have no other choice. Because after I was revealed as Judas, after I betrayed Annie three times, things got so much worse. More than any of us in our little insular Greenhead community could ever have imagined.
That next day, I had to face the masses. Their judgement, their hatred. While Annie was being labelled a slut, she was the target. Then Jack and Tommy, the rapists. But I was about to be hit withthe worst of it. I know it sounds like me, me, me. But this was what I was about to face. The one thing you can be sure about haters is that they love to hate. And give them something out of the norm â theyâll find a way to hate it more. I couldnât shake the images. Iâd stayed up all night on Facebook. Iâd watched the mud slinging, the things they were saying about me. âDog act.â I knew Annie had been watching too, and Jack, and Tommy â from his protected little hidey-hole. All of us, alone in our rooms, yet spectators at the same show. It was unavoidable. I couldnât escape the confrontation and there was no point in delaying it further. I had to go and face them. Face Annie.
Annie wasnât at the bus stop in the morning and my heart sank. What if she didnât turn up? Then I had put myself out there for nothing. I shrugged, it didnât matter anyway â this wasnât something
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