Page 181 of Sins of the Hidden

"Oh, there's definitely a party," Jensen said, pushing himself off the hay bale and sauntering toward us. His gaze dragged over our bodies with such naked contempt that I instinctively stepped closer to Anne. "You're looking at it," he laughed, raising the bottle in a mock toast. "Welcome to the Annual Pig Roast, ladies."

The air left my lungs in a painful rush as understanding dawned.

Michael explained the rules. Every year, the guys held a contest to see who could bring the "biggest pig" to the barn. The winner got fifty bucks and bragging rights. Karson had won this year's competition by bringing two sophomores—a two-for-one special, they joked.

Anne's face crumpled, her carefully applied makeup suddenly grotesque under the bare bulb hanging from therafters. Something in her eyes went dark, like a light switching off.

But Karson was already at the door, sliding the heavy wooden bolt into place.

"Nobody's going anywhere," he said, and I didn't recognize him anymore—this stranger wearing the face of the boy who'd once shared his lunch with us when we forgot ours. "We're just getting started."

What came next existed only in jagged shards of memory. Rough hands pinning, claiming, destroying. The taste of whiskey burning down my throat as I choked on my own begging. Anne's screams piercing my soul, then fading to whimpers, then to a silence more devastating than any sound I'd ever heard. The click and flash of a camera immortalizing our shame. Laughter that transformed human boys into something monstrous, something I still heard echoing in my sleep sometimes. The moment I felt my soul detach and hover above, watching as my body became a thing, an object, a conquest—no longer mine, perhaps never to be mine again.

Hours or minutes or centuries later, it ended with them laughing and Michael saying, "You should be grateful men like us would even fuck pigs like you."

They all left, stumbling to their cars, headlights cutting through darkness as they drove away. The barn door remained open, a cruel invitation to freedom that came too late.

Anne and I remained crumpled on the dirt floor like discarded wrappers. We couldn't look at each other. Couldn't speak. The weight of what had happened pressed down on our chests, making it impossible to breathe.

I didn't remember who moved first. One moment we were paralyzed, the next we were stumbling through the woods, hand in hand, unable to bear the thought of going home like this—of our parents seeing us defiled, broken. What would we tell them? How could we explain?

We slept in the woods that night, huddled together under a fallen tree, shivering despite the mild temperature. Every snapping twig jolted us awake, bodies tensed for escape. Every rustling leaf became them coming back to finish what they'd started.

At dawn, we dragged ourselves to a gas station miles away. In the single-stall bathroom, we took turns standing guard while the other tried to wash away the evidence with rough paper towels and pink industrial soap that smelled like chemicals. The water ran pink, then clear, but no matter how hard we scrubbed, we couldn't wash away what had happened.

Anne and I sat on opposite sides of the gas station bathroom, a universe of distance between us. The invisible thread that had always connected us was severed, replaced by something else—a shared horror too vast to acknowledge.

We made up stories to tell our parents—we'd fallen asleep at a friend's house, our phones had died, we were so sorry for worrying them. They were angry, relieved, suspicious, but they believed us because they wanted to. Because we were good girls who never lied to their parents.

As for me, I stepped through my front door into a life that no longer fit. My parents asked about the sleepover and I lied—said it was fun, said I was tired, said everything was fine. Then I locked myself in the bathroom and stood under scalding water until my skin turned raw, scrubbing at stains no one else could see.

For two weeks, Anne and I barely spoke. Not at school, where we still sat together but were miles apart. Not on weekends, when our regular movie nights evaporated without discussion. We texted occasional empty words—"how are you"and "fine" and "talk later"—the language of strangers who used to be something else.

I tried calling her repeatedly one Sunday, but she never picked up. I told myself she needed space. That we'd find our way back to each other eventually. That some wounds just needed time.

I was wrong.

I was researching recipes for a stress-baking session when my phone lit up with her name at midnight. Just seeing it sent my heart racing—she hadn't called in days when we used to be on the phone for hours whether talking or in silence. I nearly dropped the phone twice before answering.

"Anne?" I whispered, afraid my parents would hear.

"Hey, Oak, you there?" Her voice sounded distant.

"Of course I am."

Silence. Then a shaky breath. "Remember when we were little and we'd make those silly wishes on dandelions?" Her voice was soft. "I always wished for the same thing."

"What was it?"

"That we'd always find our way back to each other." She paused. "No matter what."

"Anne, are you okay?" I sat up straighter.

"I just wanted to say that you're the best thing that ever happened to me. You made all the bad stuff bearable."

"Where is this coming from?" I frowned. "It's the middle of the night."

"I found that picture of us from summer camp. The one where we fell in the lake trying to catch frogs." A small laugh. "We were so happy then."

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