That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

She dressed to please herself, and to feel comfortable, and if these boys believed that her body was an object that existed for their pleasure, she’d be happy to tell them otherwise.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing that happened is your fault. It’s their fault. Those guys. Their fault.”

No one’s going to believe me, because I slept with him before.

“Look, just because a girl agrees to something once doesn’t mean she’s signed, like, a permanent permission slip. That isn’t how it works. We’re allowed to change our minds.”

“just that the world was one way, and now, all the stuff they could get away with, all the stuff nobody even noticed, now it’s all, as they say, problematic.”

Diana wondered how many desks the two of them had been chased around in their day, how much bad behavior they’d had to endure.

Hal had been flirting with her, chatting her up, cultivating the girl, like a farmer tending his fields, for just this purpose.

“No,” said Diana. “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known something like that.”