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“Jason went out with Melanie?”

“Once, anyway. I’ll try her instead.”

A terrible pause. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Melanie Brady is dead.”

Forty

Melanie Brady committed suicide. According to Amber, one morning before the bell, the halls at her school were alive with whispers. The kind that spread faster than flu. Apparently Melanie’d posted porn shots of herself on her Facebook page. She’d also Hotmailed the pix to her entire address book. Someone had taped up a printout in the guys’ washroom, and a couple of her so-called friends were flashing copies hidden in their binders.

Melanie wasn’t at school to defend herself. Kids were saying she should hide her face forever, she’s such a slut. That talk stopped with the morning announcements. The principal said there’d been a tragedy: Melanie Brady was dead.

All morning, guidance counselors dealt with weeping classmates who’d never had time for Melanie when she was alive. (As Amber tells me this, I have a flash of Ashley. If I died, she’d be first in line to get attention. No, I take it back. When a person’s dead, lots changes, and the rest doesn’t matter.)

By lunch, the word was out that Melanie’d swallowed sleeping pills and slit her wrists in the bathtub. Amber says everyone had questions: Was Melanie a secret druggie? Had she posted when she was high, then killed herself when she realized what she’d done? Kids who knew her said she was weird and impulsive. But this went too far to make sense even to them.

“Well, it makes sense to me,” I say. “You too, right? We know Jason. I’ll bet anything Melanie broke up with him. He had her password and went to an Internet café. He logged on to her Facebook page, wiped out her privacy settings and posted her file from his memory card. Then, in case the post got taken down, he sent the stuff through her e-mail account too. Sound about right?”

“So? We can’t prove it.” Amber chokes up. “You know, he threatened to do the same to me when I left him. I changed my password, but twice a week he’d call or text: ‘Today’s the day.’ That’s all he’d say, but I knew what he meant. The messages stopped when he moved away. But I’m still afraid. Please, please destroy my photos!”

I don’t have the heart to blackmail her anymore. “They’re history,” I say. “I burned the memory card ages ago.”

There’s a shudder of relief. “Thank you.” A deep breath. “Look, about the trial. I wish I could help, but I can’t. My dad’s real conservative. Mom too. I’m supposed to be perfect. They’d die.”

“Right,” I say.

“Forgive me?”

“I don’t know.” I hang up.

Katie gives me a back rub. We stare out the window. After a while, she gets bored and starts to paint my toenails. I stop her before she puts smiley faces on the big toes with Liquid Paper. She sighs and gets out her sparkle dust instead, like she’s Tinkerbell on happy pills or something.

“Not now!” I say, and yank my foot away. Katie thinks I’m mad. But I’m not. I’m just very, very determined. “Katie,” I say, “I’m having Jason charged.”

“Are you serious? You’ll be all by yourself.”

“I don’t care. I won’t live in fear like Amber. I won’t run away. Not ever again.” I hold her hand. “Without the other girls coming forward, Jason won’t get what he deserves. But, Katie, if I let him get away, the next time he does it, he’ll still be Mister Perfect. At least if I say what he did out loud in court his name will be on the record. There’ll be a trail. A history.”

“What if he tries to get even?”

“He can come after me no matter what I do. But each time he’s gotten away with things, he’s gotten worse. This is my only way to fight back.”

“What if the judge doesn’t believe you?”

“That’s the least of my worries.” I laugh at the truth of it.

Katie gasps like I’ve lost my mind. “You’re either the bravest or the stupidest person I know, maybe both,” she says. “But I’m with you no matter what.”

That night, Mom tells me the same thing, except she leaves out the “stupid” part.

Me, I’d leave out the “brave” part, too. It’s like, after talking to Amber,