by T. Bester
“Probably,” replies Toby.
“We need to take it the fuck down,” snaps Nathan. He tosses the letter I found on my desk at Toby. “This was left on Savannah’s desk, with a bunch of dead fucking red roses.” He looks between Toby and Griffin. “Someone had better tell me what the fuck is going on. Someone is threatening Savannah, and if either of you fuckwits have something to do with it, there will be hell.”
I step forward to touch his arm. “Nathan, they might not have anything to do with each other.”
Griffin reads the note. “C.F? Who the fuck is that?”
Toby’s brows furrow. “Chelsea Foxcroft. Bitch has balls.” He rights his desk chair and flops down. “They’re definitely linked because I’m almost sure the fuckers who did this are Michael Drew and his buddies. They were after my laptop.”
“Why would they want your laptop?” asks Nathan.
Toby sighs.
“Just tell them,” says Griffin. “Like you should have done weeks ago.”
He glares at my brother. It’s the first time since they broke up that I’ve seen them in the same place.
“I’ve been investigating the Sigma Tau Fraternity after I got a tip from an anonymous source. Turns out, our ‘brothers’,” he spits the word with vitriol, “have been filming themselves while having sex with girls at their parties.”
My stomach rolls again, and I spin on my heel, racing for the bathroom. I barely make it before the contents of my stomach spills into the toilet, the smell rank and sour. Hands hold my hair out of my face, and rather than finding Zoey standing by me, it’s Griffin.
I see his face, and then it’s blurred by the tears forming in my eyes.
“It wasn’t me,” I cry. “I swear.”
“I know, Sav.” He brushes my hair out of my face. “But we need to know what information they were after, especially if they’re going to post those videos on your column. If I weren’t already so panicked, and sickened by the first video, I would ask him how he knows I’m Delilah. But it’s not really his opinion I’m worried about. If my readers see it, and I’m sure many of them already have, what will they think? Will they think I condone such a vile act as recording a girl having sex? God. My stomach lurches, and my knees hit the tiled floor.
“It’s okay,” soothes Griffin, his hand rubbing circles up and down my back. “We’ll fix it.”
A moment later, I hear Nathan’s voice behind me.
“I’ll take it from here,” he tells Griffin.
“I’m going to talk to Toby,” he replies. “Get this shit straightened out.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to breath around the throbbing in my chest, in my throat. The image of some nameless girl flashes through my mind, the fact that she was completely unaware of what was happening. Who would do something like this? And why?
I wipe my hands, flush the toilet, and stand, my legs unsteady.
“It’ll be fine, Sav.”
I swallow, and my throat stings from the bile. “And what about Chelsea?”
“I’ll deal with her, okay?” He hesitates, and then adds, “There’s a video of her too. With Michael.”
“W-what?”
“Toby backed up all the information he had, and when we looked through the videos, we found one of Chelsea and Michael, in his room at the Frat house.”
“Was she drugged, like the girl in the video they shared?”
Nathan shakes his head, and I frown. “So, do you think she knows it was filmed?”
“No, but she wasn’t drugged. But, she was caught colluding with Michael to drug the other girls, and have the guys film whatever they do.”
“God,” I cry, feeling ill all over again. “Why would they do something like this? Those poor girls.”
“I know, babe,” sighs Nathan. He kisses the top of my head. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
When we make it back to Toby’s office, he’s having a heated debate with both Zoey and Griffin, and neither of them look happy.
“Right,” says Nathan. “Start from the beginning. Leave nothing out.”
Toby places a flash disk on his desk. “I got a call about two weeks ago from an anonymous source claiming that a few of the guys at the Sigma house were filming their,” he clears his throat, “activities. Naturally, I couldn’t report anything yet, and I had to make sure there was truth behind it.”
“And was there?” asks Nathan.
Toby nods, his expression grave. “I still have one or two guys in the house I have contact with, and I had them check it out for me. Michael, and a few of his teammates have some kind of game going, to see who can get the most girls over a weekend, and then they review their footage. I have ten videos so far, sent to me by my guys in the house. Obviously, someone knows I’ve been digging.”
“And you didn’t think to tell anyone else about this?” Nathan’s voice is severe, laced with anger and disgust.
“Nathan, if I start spewing shit to other people this goes public, and I can’t have that. I have to think about the identity of the girls in those videos, and if I were to go public, their privacy is infringed upon. It’s not as simple as you think.”
I touch Nathan’s arm. “He’s right, Nate. If this were to get out, those poor girls wouldn’t be able to come back to school.” I look at Toby. “Is there a way you can get this information to the authorities without having to go public?”
“Yes.”
“And what about the information on your laptop?” asks Griffin. “That’s what they wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” Toby runs his fingers through his hair, the bags under his eyes a clear indication that he’s worn down. “And I suspect that’s how Chelsea found out about Savannah. I had all that information on there too.” His expression is sheepish. “I’m so sorry, Sav. I had no idea she would be involved in any of this.”
“Nathan said you found a video of her too?”
He nods. “I did. It’s all on the USB drive.”
“So what happens now?” asks Zoey. “I mean, they have your laptop now.”
“They do, but I’ve backed everything up, and as soon as they try to copy the files onto a disk that’s not recognized by the computer program, the data shredding software is triggered. It will wipe the entire hard drive, and make the laptop unbootable. I’ve had it installed on all the computers in the office, for this exact reason.”
“Okay, but how did they post that video on Dear Delilah’s page? Isn’t that connection through the paper’s server?” This is from Griffin. “And why would they target Savannah? She’s got nothing to do with it.”
“It was Chelsea Foxcroft,” I tell him. “She left a bunch of dead roses on my desk, with a note saying she knows I’m Dear Delilah.”
“Foxcroft?” he asks. “As in Dean Foxcroft’s daughter?”
I nod.
“That fucking bitch,” mutters Zoey. “She’s had her beady little eyes on Nathan for quite some time.”
“Still doesn’t explain why she would do something like this,” retorts Griffin.
Zoey huffs, and rolls her eyes. “Seriously? Girls like that will stop at nothing until they get what they want, even if the guy is taken. Trust me, she’s twisted enough for a stunt like this.”
It all sounds ridiculous, really. I mean, if she wanted Nathan so badly, why go to this extreme?
“The video is being taken down as we speak,” says Toby. It does nothing to assuage my wayward emotions. I fear that taking the video down just won’t be enough.
“Shut the column down,” I reply.
“Savannah, you-"
“Do it!” I snap. “Just shut it down, Toby, before they post another fucking video. I can’t have people thinking Delilah would condone something so repulsive, and I won’t have another girl’s identity risked.” My lip trembles, and deep down, it’s the repercussions of a situation like this going public that unsettle me. “Shut. It. Down.”
22
SAVANNAH
MY BEDROOM DOOR OPENS, but I don
’t look up. I’ve spent the last hour feeling sorry for myself, and trying to assuage my own guilt over the video that was leaked. Toby had the newspaper’s entire website shut down until they are able to get rid of the video, and all the vile comments. Unfortunately, what they can’t fix is the amount of times the video was shared, or the backlash that resulted from it. Everyone thinks it was Delilah who posted it, and the more I think about it, the more sick I feel.
“Hey.” Nathan climbs onto my bed, and wraps his arm around my waist. Something inside me wants to recoil at his touch, but another part wants his comfort. “You okay?”
I shake my head, and roll over so that I can see him. “This is not what I wanted when I agreed to be Delilah.” My voice is hoarse from all the crying, my throat raw.
“It’s not your fault, Savannah,” he replies. He uses his thumb to wipe my cheek, his free hand resting in the hollow of my back.
“I know, but the whole point of Dear Delilah was to have a safe place for girls to ask for advice, a place they could receive encouragement to express their sexuality and embrace a side of themselves that they’ve been told to keep secret.” I let out a shaky breath. “Now, they think I’m encouraging sexual assault under the guise of the freedom of girls to own their bodies. That’s not why I chose to do this, Nathan.”
It’s late afternoon, and the setting sun shines through my bedroom window, casting shadows over the lines of Nathan’s face. He traces my ear, running his finger over my pulse. He does that a lot. “I know that, and so does everyone else. But I’ve always been curious, why did you really agree to do it?”
“At first, it was because Toby told me I had no other option but to do it, but after the first letter, I kind of looked forward to it. When I did my own research, I realized that despite living in such a progressive society, there’s still so much negativity surrounding female sexuality, how we express it, and the choices we make. There’s still this ridiculous notion that we should wait until marriage, or that if a girl has a casual relationship she’s a slut. And I don’t know, maybe I thought I could change that with Delilah, or at least tell girls it’s okay to be exactly who they are. Whether they’re in serious, long-term relationships, summer flings, one-night stands, casual friends-with-benefits, or even same sex relationships, it shouldn’t matter what they call it as long as they respect themselves and their bodies. And love themselves, I want them to love themselves instead of feeling like they have to be someone else just to be accepted.” I twine my legs with Nathan’s, and he pulls me closer, always closer. “I didn’t think it really mattered, you know? But then girls started writing to me, and I realized that to them, it did. And now…” I shake my head, and swallow again. “Now, some poor girl has her sexuality splashed all over the damn place and people will think that’s what Delilah is about.”
“It will blow over,” Nathan reassures me. “Toby will have those scumbags arrested, and those girls won’t have to worry about having their identities revealed.”
“I still have to worry about mine,” I remind him. That’s what contributes to my guilt the most, the possibility of people knowing who I am.
“Would it be such a terrible thing if people knew who you are Sav?”
“I’m just scared that if they know who I really am, they’ll realize I’m a complete fraud, and I have no more experience with this whole ‘sex’ thing than they do, and I’m just learning as I go, just like they are.” The tears start afresh, my biggest fear rising to the surface. If people were to know who I really am, they’d come to see that I’m just an ordinary girl trying to find her place in world full of fakes, a world full of people are more concerned about what society thinks of them than what they think of themselves. “I’m not scared when I’m Delilah, Nathan. I feel empowered and confident and vindicated, and when I’m writing to my readers, I feel like I can give them all of those things. I’m not sure I can do the same as ‘just’ Savannah.”
“You can be both, Savannah. You are both.”
I nibble on my lip, and mull over his words. I wish the confidence with which he says the words could seep into my bones, and fill me up so that I could feel what he feels, but it doesn’t, and I don’t.
“And if I have to choose?”
“You won’t have to,” he tells me, but I can see in eyes that he doesn’t believe that, and neither do I.
THE OFFICE is closed, but I go in on Monday to help Toby clean up. I hadn’t heard from Chelsea again, but by lunch time that changes. I get a text from an unknown number, asking me to meet at the coffee shop two streets up from mine and Zoey’s apartment. I don’t recognize the number, but I know it’s Chelsea. My first instinct is to call Nathan, but he’s busy, so I call Zoey instead. As far as anyone else in the office knows, it was just a standard, run-of-the-mill break-in on Friday night. No one believes it, and I’m sure once it’s all been handed over to the authorities Toby will be able to tell the whole truth, but until then, he’s staying tightlipped.
“You should really tell Nathan,” says Zoey. “You can’t go see Chelsea on your own.”
“I’m not going alone, you’ll be there.” I grab my messenger bag. “But before we go, I need you to distract Toby. I need something from his office.”
Her brows furrow. “What are you up to?”
I look around, and then lower my voice. “If I know anything about girls like Chelsea, it’s that they have leverage, and right now, she’s holding Dear Delilah over my head. If I’m going to see her, then I have to be prepared to negotiate and in order to do that I need some leverage of my own.” I stayed up half the night thinking about it, and decided that having everyone know that I’m the columnist behind Dear Delilah should be my choice, not Chelsea’s. I didn’t think there was anything I have that she could possibly want badly enough, but I realized that she wants Nathan, and since that day in the studio, she hasn’t really considered me a threat. “And Toby has what I need.”
“I don’t like this,” says Zoey. “You need to tell Nathan, let him be the one to go with you. If the bitch goes psycho, I can’t protect you.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re being dramatic, Chelsea won’t do anything, okay? Now,” I spin her around and push her towards Toby’s office. “Tell Toby you need to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“Tell him you want a job or something, Zoey. Talk to him about his breakup with Griffin. Hell, talk to him about your visit to the gynecologist for all I care. Just buy my five minutes, please?”
She huffs. “You’re lucky you’re my best friend, otherwise I’d tell you you’ve lost your damn mind, and we’e not in some John Wayne Western movie. But, if you’re going up against Chelsea, we’re taking the psycho bitch down together.”
And she calls me dramatic. She stomps over to Toby’s office, and a few seconds later they’re leaving his office. I have no idea what she told him, but as soon as they walk past me, I take the gap and slip into his office.
“Where would it be?” I whisper to myself. “Where would he put it?”
I rifle through the papers on his desk, and then open the drawers, shuffling the random papers and stationary around in search of the flash disk he showed us on Saturday. Where would he-
I find it between the pages of a magazine, and if I weren’t so focused on the task at hand, I would berate him for keeping it in such a careless place, but, priorities. I pull my laptop from my bag, and shove the stick into a port, quickly importing it to my desktop. When that’s done, I’m sure to leave Toby’s desk exactly as I found it, USB stick back between the pages of his magazine. When I walk out, I scurry towards the elevators just as Zoey says goodbye to Toby.
“You get it?” she asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Are you sure you want to come with me?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
EN ROUTE TO the coffee shop, Zoey drives while I search for the video of Chelsea and Michael. My stomach rolls, knowing that I have all these other videos to look through, but I keep my mind o
n track and when I find what I’m looking for, I delete the rest. I don’t know if Toby has given the rest over to the authorities yet, but it wouldn’t feel right keeping it. Not that what I’m about to do is the right thing, but in my mind, it’s justified. I can probably get into a whole lot of trouble, but it’s not just my own identity that I want to protect, but the also faceless girls who have been violated. They have names too, and what these guys did is unimaginable. If I can help them, even if it means giving up Dear Delilah, then I’ll do it.
I get out the car, Zoey in tow, and when I spot Chelsea sitting at a table in the corner, Zoey goes to the counter and orders coffee, taking a seat a few tables away.
I sit down.
“I didn’t think you’d show,” says Chelsea. Her red hair is perfectly straight, her make-up flawless and on the outside, she looks so well put-together you wouldn’t assume that she’s a heartless bitch. But, looks can be deceiving, and I’m wary of the kind of person I’m dealing with.
“Tell me what you want, Chelsea.”
Her grin is sinister, fraught with the ugliness she hides with perfect hair and perfect make-up. “Well then, I see someone isn’t here to play.”
“This is not a game,” I tell her, vexation fortifying my justification for even entertaining this idiocy.
She laughs, and then leans forward, her forearms resting on the table. “It’s actually quite simple. I want Nathan.”
“That’s obvious,” I retort. “But what does my column have to do with it?”
I already know, but I want to hear her confirm it.
“Simple. I won’t tell the whole campus that you’re Delilah, and in exchange you give me Nathan.”
Does she not realize how absurd this sounds. It feels like I’ve stepped into an episode of One Tree Hill. Nonetheless, this is not fiction, and this girl is serious.
“He’s not a possession, Chelsea. I can’t make him be with you, and from what I’ve seen he’s turned you down several times.”
“You let me worry about that.” She taps her long-ass nails on the table. “So, do we have a deal?”