Melinda Sordino meets senior Andy Evans at a high school party the summer before her freshman year. At the celebration, Andy rapes an inebriated Melinda. Melinda dials 9-1-1 while still in shock, but she is speechless and ends up running home. When the cops arrive to break up the celebration, some guests are taken into custody. Melinda loses her friends and is shunned by her peers after she summons the police to the party. Nobody questions Melinda about what happened, and she doesn't disclose it. Heather, a young woman from Ohio who is new to the area, makes friends with Melinda. Heather abandons Melinda to sit with the "Marthas," a group of females who appear benevolent and outgoing but are actually self-centered and vicious, after seeing that Melinda is depressed and a misfit. Melinda withdraws from her already distant parents and other authority figures, who perceive her quiet as a way of getting "attention," as her melancholy worsens, and starts skipping school. David Petrakis, her lab partner, whom she gradually befriends, prods her to advocate for herself. Near the book's conclusion, Melinda's former best friend Rachel, who had been seeing Andy, ends their relationship on prom night after learning that Andy had raped her during the party from Melinda. Andy confronts Melinda in an abandoned janitor's closet, where Melinda spends the majority of her time to avoid her peers, after realising that only one other person could have told Rachel. Students hear Melinda fighting back against Andy and are drawn to her screams, so they open the closet door and see Andy abusing Melinda. The students no longer view Melinda as an outcast but rather as a hero after news gets out about Andy's attack in the closet and the reality of what happened at the party.