It’s West, of course. West and me, together. Out in public, around campus, so obviously a couple, so obviously into each other.

What did Nate tell me that night at the party, when he blocked me from leaving the room? That he was worried about me. That we were friends, we’d always be friends.

What did he want that night when he came to West’s apartment with Josh and offered to buy weed? To stake some kind of claim over me? To prove he was better than the guy I ended up with?

“I think he might still have feelings for me.”

“I see.”

Then my dad is silent, and I have to endure the ticking of the grandfather clock and await his judgment.

“I’m going to have to speak with Dick,” he says. “He might have some insight into the best course of action on matters like this.”

Dick Shaffer is my dad’s friend, a prosecutor.

“I’ve looked into that,” I say. “And I have a meeting with the Student Affairs office this afternoon, where I’m going to ask about possible approaches. It’s not illegal to share sex pictures online, provided they’re pictures of an adult and they’re the possession of the person who shares them—that they’re not stolen and they weren’t coerced. Which means, I think, there isn’t much of anything the police can do. But if we go after Nate for violating the technology policy—”

My dad’s gaze sharpens. “Go after him?”

“Yes, because the post he made last night, if he was using the campus network, that was a violation of the campus tech policy, and I think if it goes to a hearing—”

My dad stands up abruptly and carries his laptop over to his desk, where he leaves it, silver and shining. He tucks his hands behind his back and begins to pace, deep in his own thoughts.

I’ve lost the thread of my argument. I don’t think he was listening, anyway.

I don’t know what to say to get him to listen.

“Do you remember,” he asks, “what I told you when you turned fifteen and I allowed you to have your own Facebook account?”

“Yes.”

He twirls a finger at me. Repeat it.

“You told me to be careful, because the Internet is a public forum and nothing I do or say online will ever go away.”

“And I told you it was especially important for you to be careful, didn’t I? More than your sisters. Because you want to be a lawyer. You want to be a leader of men.”

I did.

I do.

“Is this the behavior of a leader of men, Caroline?”

That question—it makes me dizzy for a second. It sends a wash of fire through me, a hot rush of some feeling that I can’t immediately identify.

Before my sophomore year at Putnam, I’d never understood that your whole world can pivot on a few words.

A text message that says OMG.

One question from my father: Is this the behavior of a leader of men?

The answer comes up from deep inside me. From that place beneath my lungs, that ripped-open wound that’s been cut and kicked and battered. The part of me that has refused, still refuses, to give up.

Yes is what it tells me. Yes, it fucking is.

If there’s anything I learned from a childhood spent poring over the biographies of world leaders, it’s that people who make a difference in the world succeed not despite what’s happened to them but because of it. Being a leader—it’s not about only doing things your father will approve of. It’s not about being good and smart and pretty and lucky. You can’t lead from inside a bubble.

You have to live to lead, and the past few months I’ve been alive. I’ve been falling in love with a boy my father forbade me to talk to. Hell, not a boy, a man. A smart man who works hard and never skips class except when he has to because I’m in the middle of a crisis.

A drug dealer. A brawler. West is both of those things.

But he’s also a son, an older brother, a generous lover, and a kind, amazing guy.

This year I’ve been figuring out who I am. I’ve been learning what I want, and it’s the same as what I’ve always wanted, only I’m different.

Leaders live and grow and learn. They run into dragons, get burned by them, temper their swords in the fire, and take them on.

That’s what I want to do. That’s who I want to be. Not this girl cowering in her father’s office.

I want to be fierce.

So I stand up, too. I plant myself in the middle of his rug, cross my arms to match his. I let my eyebrows draw in, the corners of my mouth fall, and I ask him, “What do you mean by this?”

“Sorry?”

“You said, ‘Is this the behavior of a leader of men?’ What do you mean? Are you asking me if leaders have consensual sex with their long-term monogamous partners? Yes. They do. Are you asking, are leaders ever betrayed? Yes. All the time. The question is—”

“The question is one of judgment,” he interrupts. “There’s a reason you’ve never seen a sex-photograph scandal involving the president of the United States, Caroline, and it’s because—”

“It’s because Monica Lewinsky didn’t have an iPhone, Dad. Are you kidding me with this? Do you know how many senators have been caught sending pictures of their penises to staffers?”

“Enough that you should have known better.”

That catches me up short. Catches my breath in my lungs.

I should have known better.

Of course I should have. Things with Nate were never quite right, and I should have known that I liked him for the wrong reasons, that I had to work too hard for his regard, that he didn’t care about me the right way. I think that was always part of his mystique—the sense that I might never be quite enough for him, that he’d picked me out but I was a little too brainy, a little too naïve, and I needed to prove myself in order to make his deigning to go out with me worth his while.

I figured it all out eventually. I broke up with him because it wasn’t working, because at Putnam I had more confidence that I might find someone better. Someone like West.

I just didn’t figure it out soon enough.

Be careful what you put on the Internet. I’ve heard it a hundred times. Be careful what you do in this digital age. Don’t let yourself be made a victim, because if you do, it’s your fault. Your mistake.

I knew the pictures were a bad idea. I had my mouth on Nate’s dick when he lifted the phone in the air and took the first one, and it didn’t feel sexy. It didn’t feel risky or clever, a secret shared between us. It felt wrong.

I decided to give him what he wanted so he would be nice to me. So he would approve of me, act like he loved me, like he was proud of me.

He took that picture. He came in my mouth.

Afterward, he wanted to do body shots. One, two, three, four. My cleavage sticky, my senses dulled, my jaw sore, I did what he asked me to.

I was eighteen years old, and I thought I loved him. I should have known, but I didn’t.

And I don’t deserve to be abused for it. Judged for it. Called names.

I don’t deserve to have my life ruined.

“I trusted him.”

“You shouldn’t have. Do you think Professor Donaldson will be able to write you a recommendation letter for law school now, with these photographs on his mind? Do you think he’ll be able to attest to your intelligence, your drive, when he’s seen this?”

“Probably not.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to get an internship this summer, next year? That you’ll be able to apply for scholarships with this on your record?”

“I know it’s an embarrassment, Dad, but—”

“It’s not an embarrassment. Embarrassment fades. This is a black mark. You might as well have committed a felony, Caroline, and all because you didn’t use your head.”

“Nate is the one who posted the pictures.”

“And you’re the one who let him take them.”

“I trusted him.”

He makes a disgusted sound. Looks away from me. Wipes his hand over his mouth.

“You shouldn’t have,” he says, for the second time. And he looks at me, more sad than angry. “I thought you had better judgment than this. I’m disappointed in you. I’m … I’m disgusted with those pictures, and I’m disappointed.”

It breaks something inside me to hear him say that.

It hurts.

But I think the thing it breaks—it’s not my heart. It’s some last delicate fragment of the bubble. It’s the part of me that was still my daddy’s girl, living in hope that if I were perfect, he would love me best. Love me most. Love me always. And his love would make me powerful.

It hurts to hear that I’ve disgusted him. It hurts to know that from here on out, he’ll never love me in quite the same way, if he finds a way to love me at all.

But I don’t need his love to be powerful.

I’m already powerful.

And there’s enough work for me in the world, just trying to fix this one thing, that I could spend the rest of my life doing it.

“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” I tell him. “But I’m human. I’m nineteen. I make mistakes sometimes. And I think … you know, maybe I should have told you right away. Maybe that makes this harder for you, because I’ve had seven months to think about what these pictures mean and you’ve had, like, seven hours.”

I step closer to him and put my hand on his arm.

If he flinches slightly—if my heart contracts—I ignore it.

I’m not disgusting. I’m his daughter.

“But, Daddy? Here’s what they mean to me. They’re an act of hate. They’re vengeance against me, from someone I never treated badly. They’re undeserved. And even if they were deserved, what does that mean, exactly? That if someone takes naked pictures of me, I’m a bad person, so they get the right to call me a slut on the Internet? Are you trying to tell me that just because I didn’t stop Nate from aiming his camera, I deserve whatever happens to me, forever? I deserve this attack because I asked for it? Do you hear how ugly that is?”

“I never said you asked for it.” He sounds different, his voice choked and unsettled.

“Yeah. You did.”

My father has always told me that the first step toward getting what I want in life is to know what I want. You figure it out, and then you go after it.

So I make him look at me. I make him hear me.

“You did.”

This is my power now, and he doesn’t have to like it.

I’m going to use it whether he likes it or not.

I’m going to keep using it until people start listening.


West stands up as soon as he spots me.

He’s been waiting in the Student Affairs reception area, sprawled opposite the office assistant in a high-backed pink chair that is too small and entirely too fussy for him.

I was in the meeting for over an hour, but he’s in exactly the same spot where I left him. The only thing different is that his hair has arranged itself into grooves—plowed-through furrows that I stare at blankly for a moment until I figure out they’re from his fingers.

How many times did he have to run his hand through his hair to leave it looking like a springtime field?

“How’d that go?”

He touches my elbow when I get close, slides his hand to my waist. With light pressure, he steers me through the door and into the hallway.

Student Affairs takes up part of the basement level of the student center, along with a gallery and some other offices. It’s a bright white labyrinth down here, and I’m always getting lost in it, but I’m pretty sure we came in on the other end from where West is leading me.

“Okay, I think. I told them a bunch of stuff, and they asked some questions. Then I gave them all my log printouts. They’re supposed to talk to Nate next, and then we’ll see.”

West’s expression darkens. “That’s it? ‘We’ll see’?”

He’s been like this since we left my dad’s. Keyed up, bitter, a little sarcastic. I think he must have been under the illusion that just because I’m right, everyone will take my side. As if that’s the way the world works.

For my part, I’ve moved beyond thinking anything is going to be handed to me without a fight.

“Well, yeah. What did you think, they’d tie him to the back of a horse and drag him around campus?”

He doesn’t find the joke funny. I reach up and feel the deep worry line between his eyebrows. “Hey. What’s this for?”

“Nothing. You hungry? You should eat something. Get some rest. I want you to sleep while I’m on at the bakery tonight.”