Free Saving Jazz by Kate McCaffrey

turn to see Tommy holding up his iPhone.
    â€˜Awesome girl on girl action,’ he says.
    I don’t know why, but it seems funny and I laugh. I prop Annie’s head on my shoulder and pose for Tommy’s camera. Then Tommy says, ‘Show us your tits, Jazz.’ I untie my string bikini and let it drop.
    â€˜They’re hardly tits,’ he says, snapping away on his phone. And I don’t know why I do it, I’m awash with some type of jealousy, but I say, ‘You want tits, Tommy?’ And I lift up Annie’s top, cup her boobs and make out like I am kissing her ear. ‘How about them then?’ I say.
    â€˜She’s got fantastic tits,’ Tommy leers.
    I pull her top back down and lay her on the bed. ‘Annie, you okay?’ 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 couldn’t believe it — but I had. I’d treated her like a piece of meat. A drunk, passed-out girl. I’d 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 — 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 couldn’t 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. I’m 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 I’m doing — 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 — they’ll find a way to hate it more. I couldn’t shake the images. I’d stayed up all night on Facebook. I’d watched the mud slinging, the things they were saying about me. ‘Dog act.’ I knew Annie had been watching too, and Jack, and Tommy — from his protected little hidey-hole. All of us, alone in our rooms, yet spectators at the same show. It was unavoidable. I couldn’t escape the confrontation and there was no point in delaying it further. I had to go and face them. Face Annie.
    Annie wasn’t at the bus stop in the morning and my heart sank. What if she didn’t turn up? Then I had put myself out there for nothing. I shrugged, it didn’t matter anyway — this wasn’t something