Towards the beginning of the book in the first "The Gang" chapter, a group of boys contemplates luring the female protagonist somewhere and raping her. The female protagonist's stepfather grooms her and sexually assaults her multiple times. He and several other people in their town want her to marry him, saying it is legal to do because they are not blood related. Her grandmother even supports this, saying she was 14 when she married her husband, who was 25 at the time. The stepfather finally fully rapes the female protagonist in the last few chapters of the book. In the epilogue, we find out that the racist news media produces a story that she was raped by a Black boy. In reality, she had been dating this boy consensually.