On the closing day of her life, Audrie Pott walked via a crucible of stripling torment. A curvaceous sophomore at Saratoga High School, dressed withinside the cool-woman’s uniform of a low-reduce pinnacle and supershort skirt, she seemed similar to continually, however interior she turned into quivering with humiliation. In the week in view that faculty had commenced, ladies have been giving her looks, and men had congregated round phones, smirking. On Facebook, messages had been pinging into her inbox, every one turning in any other intestine punch: “shit went down ahah jk i wager u already were given sufficient ppl speakme approximately it so unwell maintain it to myself haha. . . .”
“truely like definitely no comic story anyone knows. . . .”
“u had been one attractive mofo.”
An person display passed her a dress-code violation – her skirt turned into too short – despite the fact that all of the ladies in her elegance dressed that manner and video display units not often objected. She reduce what training she ought to, blowing off chemistry for 2 days in a row, hoping to keep away from confrontations with disapproving girlfriends. Then Kathy Atabakhsh, one in all her great buddies, tore into her at the faculty quad, accusing her of drinking, of forgetting who she turned into, of turning into a one-of-a-kind individual. “She have been, literally, the great individual you may meet – continually sincere and trustworthy,” Kathy says, recalling the episode nearly a yr later. “And I turned into so disenchanted that she had modified. It turned into tough for her to pay attention that from a near friend.” She recollects the closing phrases she stated to Audrie. “You want to return back again to reality,” Kathy instructed her.At lunchtime, Audrie texted her mother at work: “Mom, please select out me up.” Sheila Pott, a mortgage-mortgage officer, requested why and whether or not Audrie couldn’t await her to complete a commercial enterprise meeting. Audrie turned into insistent, after which stopped answering texts.
When Sheila pulled up in her vehicle later that Monday afternoon on September 10th, 2012, Audrie jumped in however remained silent on the quick force domestic. Sheila turned into used to her 15-yr-vintage daughter’s moods and stopped urgent her. When they were given to their ranch-fashion domestic, wherein they have been dwelling by myself collectively in view that Sheila had break up together along with her boyfriend the yr earlier than, Audrie retreated to her bedroom, with its Audrey Hepburn poster and silk-upholstered window seat. Around 20 mins handed earlier than Sheila determined to test on her daughter. She walked throughout the kitchen and down the lengthy carpeted corridor to the toilet door adjacent Audrie’s room. The door turned into locked. Audrie didn’t answer. Sheila knocked and knocked again. Something approximately the silence driven a panic button interior her. She grabbed the primary issue she ought to locate to jimmy the lock – the tiny metallic rod on the stop of her phone’s earplug – and jammed it into the doorknob. Flinging the door open, she faced a sight now completely etched in her memory. In the pale-peach bathroom, with its shell-fashioned sink, gold furnishings and slender bathtub, her most effective toddler turned into dangling from a belt connected to the bathe head, mascara streaking her face.
Sheila sprinted down the corridor, again into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and reduce her daughter down, looking to consider a way to carry out CPR even as dialing 911. Paramedics arrived inside some mins. They restarted Audrie’s coronary heart, however it turned into too late. The brown-eyed woman who cherished horses, artwork and pranks might in no way breathe on her personal again.
There turned into no note, not anything to provide an explanation for why her famous and quite daughter had finished it. In the hospital, Sheila commenced retracing latest events, seeking out a few clue as to what ought to have driven her daughter to take her personal life. She notion approximately Audrie’s unusual silence at the day after a sleepover the weekend earlier than. And she remembered the inexperienced ink she’d observed round her daughter’s cleavage, bizarre markings that Audrie had refused to provide an explanation for.
Saratoga High School, with its country-club-worthyquad, Olympic-length swimming pool and luxurious tennis courts, is one of these prosperous California colleges American teenagers apprehend from films and TV. Located withinside the coronary heart of Silicon Valley, the faculty is domestic to excessive-accomplishing youngsters of dad and mom operating at Apple, eBay, Netflix and different tech organizations centered inside 50 miles. If the Saratoga Falcons did now no longer frequently discipline a prevailing soccer team, there’s comfort withinside the truth that every graduating elegance has propelled dozens of children into Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Berkeley.
The summer time season earlier than her death, Audrie had commenced to change, shifting farfar from the children she’d frolicked with in view that center faculty. She had commenced to drink a touch and had dated a barely older guy. When she drank, the self-awareness that had troubled her in view that junior excessive melted away. She loosened up. Sometimes, she loosened up a lot.
On Labor Day weekend of the brand new faculty yr, Audrie’s friend, let’s name her “Sara” (some of the children’ names on this tale had been modified to shield their identities), stated her dad and mom had been away, leaving their white cottage-fashion residence with its lengthy inexperienced garden in her care. Sara – 15, quite, narrow and blond – and Audrie had grow to be near that summer time season and had been exploring a brand new realm of boys, bottles and small parties, ideally at parent-loose houses, that the Saratoga children name “kickbacks.”
That Sunday, Sara instructed her dad and mom that she turned into going to be drowsing over at Audrie’s, and Audrie instructed her mom that she’d be drowsing over at Sara’s. When Sheila drove Audrie to Sara’s, she assumed the ladies might be spending the night of their jammies in the front of the television, or laughing over ice cream and Facebook. But Sara had already texted round a dozen buddies to drop in for her kickback.
Eventually, eleven children confirmed up, lots of them to sip vodka and Gatorade cocktails. They all belonged to their elegance’s famous clique, the ladies dressed as provocatively as possible, even with the aid of using the unfastened requirements of California excessive colleges. “See-via shorts and thongs pulled up, shorts pulled down,” recollects an older woman. “That’s what the ‘cool ladies’ wore.” The boys they frolicked with preferred a uniform domestically dubbed “swagfag” – snapback hat, PacSun tank tops, knee-period chino shorts and Vans.
