Dead girls don't forget

A brutal assault shatters a young woman’s world, but her attackers walk free

The music was too loud to think, but not loud enough to drown out the wrong kind of laughter.

Eva nursed a flat beer and tried not to look like she was doing what she was doing—watching. Not anyone in particular. Just the swirl of bodies, the heat of too many people in too small a room, and the way the air shifted when Rhett walked past.

He had that lazy confidence, the kind that clung to small-town boys who never heard the word no from anyone that mattered. Quarterback’s smile. Letterman charm. The town’s golden boy, still coasting on high school trophies and a scholarship nobody thought he deserved, except the men who gave it to him.

His hand grazed her back when he moved by. Too casual to call out. Too familiar to ignore.

“Eva,” he said, all teeth and cologne, “didn’t think I’d see you here.”

She didn’t answer right away. He was already handing her something—another beer, this one cold—and she took it, out of politeness or pressure or both.

“I like it when you smile,” he said.

She hadn’t smiled.

Across the room, Denny and Cole were laughing at something on a phone. They didn’t look over. Not yet. Not until later.

The house smelled like spilled beer and Axe body spray and somebody’s mom’s vanilla candle, burning bravely on a corner shelf like it might cleanse the place. The walls were covered in Polaroids and permanent marker graffiti. Eva wanted to leave. She had wanted to leave since she got there.

But Rhett made it easy to stay. He asked questions, leaned in just enough, complimented her art. He said things like “you’re different from the girls I usually meet.” Said it like it was special. Said it like a trap.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew he was lying. But there was something in her that still wanted it to be true.

“Come on,” he said, when the kitchen got loud and the playlist flipped to something angry and awful. “Let’s go talk somewhere quieter.”

“Where?”

“Just upstairs. No pressure.”

It was never no pressure. But she followed anyway.

The room smelled like sweat and cheap detergent. A mattress on the floor. A flag on the wall. A small crack in the window, like someone had punched it once and gotten away with it.

He sat on the bed like it was his throne and patted the space next to him. She hesitated. He watched her hesitate.

“You’re not scared of me, are you?”

That was the trick. He said it with a laugh in his voice, soft like he already knew the answer. Like she’d look ridiculous if she said yes.

“No,” she said.

She sat.

The rest was fast. Words blurred. The door shut. Lock clicked. He leaned in. Too close. His mouth too hot. Hands moved where they shouldn’t. She said his name like it was a question.

“Rhett—”

And then again, firmer. “Rhett, no—”

He didn’t stop.

There were footsteps. The door opened. Cole laughed.

“Shit, man. You didn’t even wait for us?”

Rhett grinned. “She’s shy.”

Eva tried to move. The pressure increased. Rhett held her down with a hand on her throat—not choking, just controlling. A message: you don’t get to leave now.

Denny stood in the doorway, already pulling off his shirt. “Should’ve brought my camera.”

Cole said something she didn’t hear. They laughed again. The sound stretched out, unreal, like it belonged in a sitcom on someone else’s TV.

She twisted. Kicked. Scratched. Rhett caught her wrist mid-air and slammed it into the mattress.

“Stop fighting,” he muttered. “You’re ruining it.”

He said it like she was the one being unreasonable.

Hands replaced hands. Voices blurred into each other. They spoke about her like she wasn’t there.

“What’s her name again?”

“Eva. Something.”

“Looks different up close.”

“She smells like strawberries.”

“Shame she’s not more fun.”

They took turns like she was a dare, or a bet, or a goddamn party favor. No names. No faces. Just heat and skin and pain and hands she didn’t want, voices she’d never forget.

Someone held her down by her hair. Another one laughed when she cried out.

At some point she went still—not from fear, but from somewhere deeper. A place past panic. Past hope. Her mind floated somewhere above the room, untethered. Watching herself break, piece by piece.

The music from downstairs was still playing. Something poppy. Bouncy. Wrong.

When it was over, they zipped up and left like it was nothing. Rhett kissed her cheek and called her “sweetheart.” Denny spat on the floor. Cole took a picture on his phone and said, “She’ll thank us someday.”

She didn’t move.

She didn’t speak.

She lay there until the air felt solid again.

She found her shoes downstairs, left with shaking hands and no keys. Walked home barefoot in the dark. The grass wet with dew, or rain, or blood.

At home, she showered until the water ran cold. And still, she didn’t feel clean.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She didn’t sleep.

The next day, she filed a report.

And the day after that, they laughed in her face.