Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,92

a series of portraits of women, pictures she takes from the little thumbnails in her art history textbook. SUBJECT/OBJECT she writes over each of their faces, across their eyes. Five of them in a row, picked at random: women staring into their era’s versions of the camera. Then five of her own selfies, same treatment: SUBJECT/OBJECT.

Then, black screen, just text:

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT WHEN I DO THIS WHAT I AM LETTING YOU DO IS LOOK THROUGH ME

then

NOT AT ME

then

MOSTLY.

Lulu blocks the camera and films the sounds of herself getting under the covers, making herself comfortable in bed.

She keeps the camera blocked and makes a video that’s just the sound of her own voice saying, “I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live, but I would stay away from Ryan Riggs if I were you.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “And any of his hotel properties too. They seem to have a way of seeing you even when it doesn’t seem like they’re looking.”

Then comes the audio from the afternoon.

It ends with one of Ryan’s stolen shots: a still from the security footage of Lulu and Cass lying on their backs near the pool, looking up at the sun, talking. Lulu doesn’t remember what afternoon that was. Even she has no idea what they’re saying.

When it’s ready, she registers RyanRiggsIsaCreep and posts the video there. She reactivates her account and Flashes the link out to her five thousand followers.

Then she sends it to Mr. Winters. The body of the email says:

I know it’s non-traditional, but please consider this my midterm project.

* * *

When Lulu wakes up in the morning, people are sharing it so ferociously that the hashtag #CreepShotsArentHot is trending on every social media platform she knows about. By mid-afternoon, Curbed has a write-up with the Riggs family’s real estate dynasty as the peg; the feminist film blog Celluloid & Cellulite does something on Connie Wilmott and the Bluebeard legacy around dinnertime. Local news outlets do segments that get picked up by national ones. Everyone loves a juicy story about fucked-up private school kids.

None of it means anything until Lulu gets a text that says:

hey it’s Sloane

Got your number from Jules ran into a certain someone at a function w my parents last night and he was in a frothingggg rage

Lulu replies: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Sloane says, They’re replacing him on the hotel project. They’re keeping his name off of anything real estate related going forward. And they’re cutting off his trust fund until he’s 21.

That’s just another few years, Lulu knows. The family is certainly already at work on a redemption narrative for him. They’ll do what it takes to clear their name—never mind that they’re just teaching Ryan that his bad behavior is tolerable, encouraging him to do it again. She hasn’t changed anything, really.

But now Ryan Riggs has felt afraid the way she has. He knows that he’s vulnerable. He knows that he’s not the only person in the world with feelings, or power, or rage.

This probably won’t teach him to be kind. But that’s not Lulu’s fault. She gave him the opportunity to understand something. She can’t be responsible for making sure that he takes it too.

Thanks for telling me about Emma that night, Lulu sends Sloane. And thanks for being so cool about all of this.

What can I say, Sloane responds. I am cool.

Lulu looks at her phone, trying to decide what to say next. When she got back to school after the Sloane Flash came out, Angie Dallow immediately tried to talk her into joining St. Amelia’s Out & Proud club, which meets Thursdays after school and organizes a couple of assemblies every year where queer speakers come talk about how it’s, like, so fine to be gay or whatever.

Lulu brushed Angie off; she didn’t understand why being openly bisexual meant she had to start hanging out with a bunch of people she’d never wanted to be friends with before. But lately, the idea of having friends who understood certain things about her without her having to explain them, friends among whom she’d be standard, instead of a deviation—that’s started to sound appealing. Lulu will never love anyone more than Bea, but Bea can’t be everything to Lulu, the same way Lulu can’t be everything to Bea.

I was thinking, Lulu says, what if we started being, like, friends

WILD, Sloane sends back. And then, but also, yeah, I’d be super into that

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

OWEN FINDS HER between periods on Monday morning. “Lu,”