Revenge of the Sluts

TWO

One of the first stories she'd pitched to the Weekly freshman year was related to the lack of racial diversity at St. Joe's, how insular the community was, and how difficult it could be to find footing. Since Ronnie had moved here from New York the summer before freshman year, she was one of the few people at St. Joe's who had an honest outsider's perspective.

The pitch hadn't been picked up and it hadn't made her popular, but it meant something to me that it'd even been suggested. She opened my eyes to the experiences I'd had with my own classmates and people I'd called my friends, made me realize I could be critical of my hometown and school. I trusted her immediately and we stuck by each other as two people who felt like they didn't belong at St. Joe's except in the newsroom that they helped run.

I knew what Ronnie was saying; students were already skeptical of her, and her running an investigation—especially one that would probably lead to those who bullied her the most—would be hard on her. The unfairness of it all made my skin itch.

"You'll do a great job," Ronnie said. "I'll still contribute where I can and I'll make sure everyone else on staff does too. This is an opportunity, Eden. Seriously. You can't pass this up."

The underlying tension in her voice wasn't lost on me; taking herself off this story was going to be impossible for her. But I also had known her long enough to know she wasn't going to change her mind. She had made her decision and there was no way around that, even if I was feeling cautious. And, reasonably, I was, since the story was going to be a huge undertaking. I was already having a difficult time balancing college applications, schoolwork, and executive editor duties.

"What if I conducted interviews and you helped write it?" I offered, trying to find a way to make this work. "We could split the interviews, at the very least. I'll take the douche-y guys."

"You know the girls feel the same way about me," she said.

The female population of St. Joe's was stuck between wanting to make their own path and wanting to make their families proud. It was a familiar pressure to me.

Being a student population raised by some of the wealthiest and most successful families in the area, we had more than enough female role models to aspire to. Most of the students were raised by empowered, intelligent women: the first female CEO of a massive locally based business, a district attorney, a chemical engineer. My mom was the head of trauma surgery at the biggest hospital in the state. But many of the women were also public figures in some sense who kept a watchful eye over their family and their reputation. Even with upper-level jobs and progressive attitudes about female leadership, their values were old school and often not so different from those of their male spouses or coworkers. The chance that students here would want to risk the wrath of their parents by being quoted on the record about nude photographs was minimal.

Before I could respond, Principal Yanick spoke up from the front of the room. She looked composed as usual, her gray hair up in a tight bun that accented her high cheekbones and intense green eyes that caught even the smallest details. She was one of the most intimidating women I had ever known, her intensity punctuated by her severe wardrobe of muted pencil skirts and impeccably tailored blouses. During the meeting where she initiated Ronnie and me into our new positions as editors, I barely said a word to her and I'd managed to avoid any in-depth conversations a month into my position. Thankfully, Yanick kept herself and the entire St. Joe's faculty removed from the day-to-day business of the newspaper—unless we were reporting on something that made the school look bad.

"Hello, students."

The hum of voices slowly decreased in volume as she looked out over the sea of faces. "You must be well aware of the email that was sent out earlier to the entire student body. This kind of communication is expressly and wholly banned, and the consequences for the sender will be swift and far-reaching. The faculty and I have reason to believe that the person who sent it is a student at this school."