As I stir awake from my sleep, memories from last night gently surface in my brain, and I smile as I feel the telltale warmth of Clay Jensen sleeping soundly beside me. I rise slowly out of his arms to find my emergency change of pants, which I had stowed in the car for mornings like these.

I scoff as I realize my car had never left the school parking lot, and that class is due to start in ten minutes. I find an random hoodie to put on so I'm not totally exposed and tear the car apart in a frantic hunt for my bra.

As I search, Clay begins to stir, and finally jolts awake as I swear loudly, having found my bra but lost my shoes. He looks around wildly before laying back down again, remembering where he is.

"Morning." His voice is husky from sleep, but I can hear the smile behind his words as he pulls his boxers back on. Even though I sit in just a hoodie, frantically pulling on my jeans and clutching my bra, makeup smudged across my face, Clay looks into my eyes and grins. He leans over to kiss me on the forehead. "You look beautiful."

"So do you, Jensen." I smile at his sleepy expression, and toss him his shirt from yesterday as he glances around for it.

I pull my makeup bag out of my backpack and use my phone as a mirror, replacing yesterday's smudged makeup with a brand new look. I silently praise myself for keeping a spare pair of jeans just in case of days like today, where waking up in the arms of a sleeping boy and getting ready for school occured within the same morning.

"Shit, Isabelle, we never left school!" Clay exclaims suddenly, ducking from the window and throwing himself between the car seats, peering wide-eyed up at me.

A flash of oh shit strikes through me as people begin to flood into the school, passing only inches from my car window. I brush my hair quickly and smack Clay lightly on the arm with the hairbrush, bringing his attention back to my face.

"You need to get out before more people come," I say hurriedly. I don't even want to think about what the jocks might do to him if they saw us.

"Why?" Clay asks, looking slightly hurt.

Then the whole school will think I'm a slut. They'll know that Hannah wasn't lying. I think, but hold my tongue as his sad eyes meet mine.

I roll my eyes playfully and smile at him, trying my hardest not to hurt his feelings. "Just 'cause I'm pretty sure having sex on school property is against the rules."

The guilt of my lie stings, but I keep my smile plastered on my face as the sadness leaves his eyes.

"Yeah that makes sense," Clay says quietly, turning to leave with a brighter face than before. He turns excitedly to me. "So is there anything you'd like me to call you, like a nickname or something?"

I sit for a second and think. I haven't let anyone call me by my real nickname since Jeff had died. I know now that nicknames are a sure fire way to let people to close to me, just for them to get hurt.

I shake my head and push it aside. He was close enough to me that it felt necessary for a nickname, but the way that my brother Jeff, and eventually Hannah, used to call me Izzy caused me too much pain to let that name be used again.

"Just call me Ellie," I say, feeling comfortable but also uneasy at the dread in my chest from my decision. He brightens as a knot in my stomach unfurls, and I feel great peace.

"That's so cute." Clay grins, and I see him thinking of ways to stall and stay in the car longer. "I know it was an emergency fix, but your outfit is really cute today, Ellie."

Smiling, I thank him with a final kiss, and feel the unfamiliar butterflies churn at the bottom of my stomach. He tries to hold it out a little while longer, but I (begrudgingly) push my hand into his chest and he sits back, pouting. I kiss his cheek and open the door for him to jump out, throwing his backpack out after him. Looking down at my outfit, I see he's not entirely wrong.

I'm wearing a hoodie I recognize but can't remember buying, and ripped black jeans I had saved in my car. I tie the hoodie at the neck to look at least a little put together. It's good enough for being the only difference between this morning and a high school walk of shame.

Clay gets to walk around in the same clothes as yesterday without judgement, maybe even with admiration from people who know what it meant. It will always be different for girls, especially girls at the top of the pyramid like me, with people always trying to find reasons to tear you down.

As I walk towards the school, only a short distance away from Clay, I feel a pang of guilt in my chest.

I wasn't using him, it was true that I have liked him for so long, so why do I feel so guilty?

Because his true love was with Hannah. I think suddenly, and a knot springs into my throat.

Was Clay just using me to get over Hannah? He never actually said that he liked me back, I just assumed it. Just because he wanted sex from me doesn't mean he likes me too. Almost every guy at Liberty wants that from me. Why would Clay be any different?

My stomach sinks as the thought clouds my mind, and quickly becomes the only thing I can think about.

I slam the opening doors as I walk into school, quietly noticing a rise in stares as I enter, much more than there have been over the past week.

They know. I shake my head and push that thought away. There's no way they could know. It's just cause you came in loudly. I remind myself.

I push past a particularly gossipy group of freshman and shoulder checking Courtney Crimson on my way to first period.

"Hey!" she squeals, holding her arm in the exact princess way I expected her to.

"Boo-fucking-who," I retort at her as the fear deep inside my chest releases itself as a bitter anger that I don't even recognize as myself.

I throw the door open to my class and plop down in my seat with an agitated grunt.

"Someone's cranky today." A snort sounds from next to me, and I whip around ready to unleash all my anger when the face I see paralyzes me.

Bryce Walker smiles in the face of my rage, and instant terror suppresses any sense of bravado I had in me.

"This is an AP class, Isabelle, who knew you were such a nerd?"

His smile is friendly and his posture is neutral, but his eyes view every part of my body with a sickening hunger I had never seen until the night that I no longer felt part of my own body.

My mind immediately darts to Clay, and how I would kill to have him beside me right now, staring Bryce down with those beautiful blue eyes. I can see him across the classroom, he was so close, but he doesn't see me.

I try to muster an answer, to distract Bryce's eyes from trailing up and down my body. My legs tremble underneath the seat and my lungs ache as I realize I forgot how to breathe.

I swore to myself that I can never talk to him again after that night, and I had kept my promise merely to protect myself from exactly what was happening now. He brings his chair closer to my desk and my stomach plummets.

Voices around the classroom start to fade into a dull ringing as I watch his hands rest on his desk, and I can't put how those hands ruined me in that clubhouse out of my mind.

I feel the pain on my skin where his hands had dug into my body, where the long-healed scratches and bruises had formed from when I tried to fight them. If it wasn't for Clay, who knows what would have been.

I push my face into my hands as I try to block the memories, but they flood back nonetheless.

"Come on, beautiful, no one leaves without a picture! Don't be such a princess," he said as he held onto his camera with an innocent, boyish grin.

Bryce insisted on having a photo taken, and when I covered my face with my hands, he had ripped them off.

Justin's varsity jacket hid my shaking well, even if I was wearing only my underwear underneath the blue fabric. Marcus had thrown me and my dry clothes into the pool just minutes before, and my boyfriend, Justin, had done nothing as the whole group of boys watched me flailing in the water. Bryce had taken my clothes out of the water and hid them in the main house, and Justin had watched him with an unwavering smile.

That damn smile.

Marcus slithered himself onto my right side, and Bryce to my left, who handed Justin the camera. I tried to stand up and get away from them, but Bryce grabbed my waist and yanked me back down onto the couch.

"Just sit still and look pretty, okay?" His hand moved from the side of the couch to my thigh, and Marcus wrapped his hand around my back, turning to the camera just as it flashed.

I would never get that noise out of my head.

"Damn, Jeff's lil sister isn't so little," Marcus cooed as he pushed the jacket out of the way, revealing my exposed chest.

I whimpered and grabbed it back, but Bryce snatched both of my wrists with one hand and pinned them against the couch. "Don't be such a tease, princess. At least give us a little something before the rest of the boys get here."

As I wriggled against his grip, our eyes locked for a brief second. In his narrowed eyes, I saw a deep craze of wanting, almost like a wolf going in for a kill. My fight or flight response kicked in at full force.

Screaming wildly, I kicked and scratched anything I could. The two just watched me with smiles on their faces, holding me away, like I was entertaining them.

My strength was leaving my body rapidly, and my vision clouded more and more by the minute.

They must have had drugged me. I think foggily, the only sentence I can piece together in my state of mind. I needed to leave, but there was no way out.

I watched helplessly as Monty stood from the corner to lock the door and felt Bryce's hand crawl up my ribcage towards my bra, soaked from the pool water. Marcus slid off the couch and went on his knees in front of me, and I swung my legs out of his reach, but he grabbed my ankle and forced them open.

I swallowed hard and mustered only enough strength to say, "Stop..." before Bryce's other hand clamped over my mouth.

"Don't avoid it, doll, the meds Monty gave you should be putting you out any second. Then you can just let us do all the work." His eyes met with mine again, filled with that ravenous hunger, and I lost my breath as my vision went black.

I came to again only seconds later, but the door had been opened in the time I had lost, and thirty more boys had crowded around us on the couch.

Why did you bring me here? I thought as my eyes latched onto my boyfriend Justin's across the room. You said you loved me, so why would you bring me here, if you knew what was going to happen?

The look on Justin's face was pure remorse, and quickly changed into a stone-faced stare as more and more boys piled into the room.

The flash of phone cameras lit up around me as I felt Bryce's hand find its way to the edge of my lacy underwear. Cheers sounded all around him and Marcus smiled proudly in their direction.

"You see this shit?" Marcus yelled happily, pointing towards me with tears streaming down my face, pleading for them to stop. "She doesn't know that just makes her even fucking hotter!"

I cried out against Bryce's hand, maintaining desperate eye contact with Justin. I prayed for just anything to help me. I imagined him swooping in to save me, pushing off Bryce and carrying me out the door.

He could say anything to get them to stop, just one word would do, but he never did.

And I will never forgive him.

A distant sound made the hands and the cheers fade away. Though it sounded muffled and felt very distant, I could hear Marcus whisper behind me to Bryce. "You fuck her first but keep her quiet, I'll go make sure no one is here." With that, he left.

Bryce, more than pleased that Marcus had gone, sprung into action. I was falling out of consciousness and my body had refused to respond to my brain any more. I was telling it to fight, to scratch him or bite him, but it disobeyed me as I lay limp in his hands, sobbing silently.

Marcus had returned and was sitting next to my head, moving his hands down my back to undo my bra. Bryce had removed my panties, his boxers, and the jacket that I had used to cover myself was back in my boyfriend's hands.

Justin stood paralyzed in the crowd of boys, watching me with the look of a lost puppy as my underwear was thrown to different corners of the room.

I was completely naked, utterly exposed. Bryce's eyes devoured the sight of me shaking violently with fear, and undid his belt hurriedly.

"Justin!" I yelled, throwing one hand out of some random jock's grip to reach out towards him. "Help me, please!"

Marcus shut me up by crashing his tongue into my mouth as I clawed desperately at Justin.

Reaching for him, my fingers barely grazed his shoe when he burst out of the clubhouse, sprinting for the door and leaving me all alone. My only hope was running far, far away.

My vision grew black again, and I opened my eyes to the bright lights of the clubhouse. In the time that had past, I had been thrown onto the floor, naked. At least ten different phone cameras were trained on me. Bryce stood over me, smiling with the boys clapping behind him.

I assumed the worst, that he had done exactly what I thought he did when I was unconscious and a fresh sob escapes me.

"Please let me go," I whispered, hoping that I would somehow get through to him. That somehow, despite the fact that we both knew his mind was set, there was a possibility he could decide to let me free. But that didn't happen.

A bang shook the clubhouse and I heard the cheery, unknowing voice of my brother Jeff outside. I felt Bryce scoop my naked body off the floor and saw Marcus hide my underwear behind a couch cushion. I was powerless and, again, unable to move.

They had drugged me with something, and it was doing a damn good job.

Bryce took me out the back door and threw me into a patch of dead grass. "Just sit your pretty ass right there and don't move, or you'll regret it."

The look in his eyes, a murderous fire, forced me to believe I would truly regret it if I were to escape. I couldn't anyway, I had no strength left to move.

Feeling weak all over my body, I laid in the grass and cried into the dirt.

The happy voice of my brother sounded through the walls of the clubhouse, and I heard him chitchat about baseball, pleasantly unaware that his sister had been groped and exposed where he stood.

I was slipping in and out of consciousness, but I desperately wanted to call out for Jeff. He was my last hope. But still, my body wouldn't listen to me, so I welcomed the feeling of being lifted into the warm embrace of sleep until it felt like I was actually being lifted.

Opening my eyes just a sliver, I gasped as I saw the terrified face of Clay Jensen lifting me off the ground. He had covered me with his infamous zip-up hoodie, I was tiny enough for it to go all the way to my knees, thankfully covering all of me.

I felt tears spring to my eyes as I imagined how I must have looked to him, deathly pale and stark naked in the dead grass. Terrifyingly vulnerable.

I had worked so hard to be seen as the pretty girl, and now I must look like such a slut.

Throwing me over his shoulder, I felt his muscles contracting and his breathing shallow as he ran with me to a bright red car.

He lowered me into the backseat of the car, and Tony Padilla swiveled around with a shocked look on his face. "The fuck? Dude, why are you carrying a half-naked girl? Why is she in my car?"

Clay pulled the seatbelt over me as he glared at Tony with his eyebrows furrowed with worry. "It's Isabelle Atkins, I found her like this." He put a hand to my face to lift me up and my head went entirely limp. "I think she's been drugged or something."

The sound of a swinging door and shouts of anger came from the clubhouse. Tony and Clay both went silent as they strained to listen to it, I whimpered and used the last of my strength to fight against the seatbelt as the noises of angry boys grew louder and closer.

"Tony, you need to fucking drive," Clay said urgently.

"What?"

"I SAID YOU NEED TO DRIVE!" he barked, his expression of panic growing as I saw the outlines of the oncoming boys starting to form in the darkness beside the car.

Clay sat in the back with me as Tony sped off and drove aimlessly around town. He held my head up and covered me with a blanket, careful not to touch me in fear of scaring me more. He didn't ask what happened, but I don't think I would have been able to answer.

My mind was in utter disarray, and my body was covered in bruises where their fingers had grabbed at me. Pushing myself underneath his arms, I sobbed endlessly into the night.

"Get away from me, Bryce."

Shocked at myself, I dart a quick look at him to see him leaning back with a side smile, as though amused.

"I'm just trying to make conversation, Atkins, we haven't really talked since you came down to the clubhouse." Bryce's voice becomes quieter, closer to me, and lower. "We really never got to finish what we started."

His hand finds the inside of my thigh under the desk, gripping it as if I was his to grab whenever he wanted.

I shoot up from my desk and slam my hand on the table. "Fuck you Bryce! Don't fucking touch me after what you did!"

He meets my eyes steadily with a mastered poker face. The class is silent and I can see some students secretly recording from the edge of my vision. I can see Clay rising from his chair, unsure of what to do but clearly wanting to help me.

I glared at him and he sat down, trying to silently telling him that I need to do this.

Lowering my voice and bringing my face closer to Bryce's, I hear my own voice fill with poisonous venom. My hands curl into fists and grip the sides of the table, stabilizing me.

"You're going to rot in hell for what you've done. I'll make you fucking pay." I am inches from his face. Anger has never left such a fire in my body before, even when I found out that Sherri had killed my brother. Bryce had taken everything from me.

He stands and reaches a hand out to me. "Atkins, you need to calm down." His face is full of a fake pity that only makes me angrier.

I slap his hand, hard, and scream with every piece of strength I have. "Don't you dare call me that, and don't fucking touch me ever again! Fuck you!"