Prologue: A Stepping Stone

The past year stripped me down to my core in every sense of the word. I’m Nellie Maddox Née Genovese. The person I was twelve months ago feels like a ghost, one who mistook her clothes for armor.

It all started near the beginning of my senior year. The social landscape was shifting faster than my parents could process. A recent federal ruling has turned clothing into more of an option than a requirement. It was a change that clashed with every belief they held. I was still trying to find my place in that new world when life threw me a curveball that shattered everything.

I didn’t know it then, but the day everything unraveled started like any other. A sunny morning, a forgotten homework assignment, a tension humming under the surface of everything: school, home, even Pete. I kept telling myself it was just teenage noise.

I told myself it was just a game. That we were just playing. Even then, a voice in the back of my mind was screaming. The incident in Mr. Davison’s history class is seared into my memory with blistering clarity.

The intercom clicked, followed by the secretary’s voice. “Mr. Davison, the principal needs you in the office.”

He set his marker down and sighed. “Read ahead in chapters twelve and thirteen. Quietly. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The room exhaled the moment the door clicked shut.

Pete, my boyfriend, was there. The energy between us had always been electric, a little reckless. That day, it turned destructive. Pete sat two rows over. He didn’t smile. He just watched me with that electric, reckless intensity I had always confused for passion.

It started as a dare. A game. A test of boundaries in a world that suddenly seemed to have a few. Soon, it escalated. What was supposed to be a harmless rebellion mutated into something else. Something neither of us could stop once it began. There were too many eyes. Too much noise. In the middle of it all, Pete and I became trapped inside a moment that rewrote our futures.

“Nell,” he murmured, holding out his hand. “Come here.”

A few students glanced up. The tone in his voice pinned my feet to the floor before I forced myself to move. “Why?” I whispered as I reached his desk.

He didn’t answer. His hand closed around mine as he stood, guiding me with him up to the front of the room. “Pete ... what are you doing?” My voice came out thin.

His grip tightened. “Pete, seriously. This isn’t funny.”

He positioned me in front of the whiteboard, facing the class. A murmur rippled across the room. I felt twenty pairs of eyes shift onto me, sharp and eager.

Pete lifted his hands to my cardigan. “Stop.” I pushed at his wrists. “People are watching.”

His jaw worked, but his eyes held mine with frightening focus. No anger. No playfulness. Just intent.

The first button popped. The sound cracked the silence like a firecracker. “Pete, don’t,” I whispered. “We’ll get expelled.”

Another button. Then another. I tried again to pull his hands away. He brushed mine aside without effort. Something in me froze. My breath came shallow. Heat rushed to my face.

“Pete,” I tried again, voice breaking. “Please. I’m serious.” I wasn’t loud. I wasn’t forceful. It wasn’t enough.

He slid the cardigan off my shoulders. It fell to my elbows. A collective inhale passed through the room. Someone whispered, “Oh my God.” Another snickered.

This can’t be happening. My heart slammed against my ribs. I felt suspended outside my body, watching the moment unfold from a distance too small to escape.

He reached for the hem of my sundress. “Pete, please stop,” I said again, weak and trembling. “You’re scaring me.” He didn’t pause. The fabric lifted.

A few students leaned forward in their seats. One girl covered her mouth. Another boy muttered, “Holy shit.”

My voice died in my throat. He pulled my sundress over my head and threw it behind him. His hands weren’t gentle. He fumbled with the clasp of my bra, not with affection but with frantic urgency. The seams of my panties gave under the pressure. My shoes ended up under someone’s desk.

My arms hovered uselessly at my sides. I felt stripped in more ways than one. Peeled open in front of everyone, exposed down to the bone.

Later, Pete told me he hadn’t meant to hurt me. He claimed it was proof of love, of devotion, of closeness. I believed him because the alternative was unbearable. We were eighteen, and the world felt like it had been watching us since birth, waiting for us to fail. Maybe we were only giving it what it demanded.

I was exposed completely and utterly in the middle of the classroom. The world narrowed to the cold wood surface of the desk against my back, and the eyes of two dozen classmates fixed on me. Some watched with voyeuristic fascination. Others, those who had already embraced the new “living nude” norm, looked on with a detached acceptance that cut just as deep. Their faces blurred together, forming a human wall between me and the door in case the teacher returned.

Pete’s grip tightened on my waist. What happened next wasn’t love; it was a performance. Possession. A raw, humiliating exchange of power and submission staged under the relentless buzz of fluorescent lights. He pushed me down on that desk and entered me from behind in front of an audience.

When it was over, I was shaking. Anger, shame, adrenaline ... I couldn’t tell. Pete’s hands were still on my hips, holding me in place as if claiming me. The classroom was silent in a way that felt wrong, charged.

When Mr. Davison finally returned, the room had fallen into a deceptive calm. I was left with nothing; shivering, raw, and wrapped only in Pete’s arms as he held me from behind, my naked back pressed against his still-clothed chest. The smell of dry-erase markers and teenage sweat filled the silence.

Mr. Davison’s eyes swept the class, landing on me for only a heartbeat before flicking away; too fast, too careful, as if looking longer would make him responsible. Untrained for anything like this, he defaulted to the handbook. He told us both to go to the office. His voice was tight, pointedly neutral.

I gathered the pieces of my dignity scattered across the floor. I would have to find buttons for the cardigan. I wanted to scream, to run, to vanish. Instead, I stood motionless, still waiting for permission to move. A part of me kept thinking that if I stayed still long enough, maybe the moment would un-happen.

The aftermath unfolded like a controlled implosion. No one asked if I was okay. No one asked anything. The system didn’t care about context, only policy.

The walk to the office felt like a march toward execution. Students stared. Some whispered. Others looked away entirely, as if witnessing something contagious. By the time we reached the administration office, my fate already felt sealed.

Mr. Davison had called ahead. There was no hearing, no conversation, just a printed notice and perfunctory words: public lewdness and disruption of the educational environment. They didn’t see me as a girl who’d been humiliated. They saw a problem to be removed.