Let's Get Textual

by Teagan Hunter

  I shake my head and he pulls out of the driveway.

  I flip the radio on, lasting only a few minutes before I have to rest my head against the window and pretend to sleep for the rest of the ride. I can’t bear the thought of him trying to talk to me right now.

  It doesn’t feel like we’re in a car. It’s like we’re packed inside one of those giant walk-in coolers and someone’s twisted the lock so we can’t get out.

  “Delia? We’re about ten minutes from your apartment.”

  I pretend to rouse myself awake, but I don’t say anything to him.

  He pulls into the lot and parks the car. Neither of us moves.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s not just your period bothering you. Did I do something wrong?”

  It begins as a cough, but then it turns into a full-on belly laugh.

  And finally, I’m sobbing.

  “Delia? What’s wrong?” He reaches out for me and I dodge his touch as my sobs turn to laughter again.

  I know I sound like a maniac right now, but I don’t care. The anger that’s been simmering beneath the surface is threatening to bubble over, and I’m about to lose my shit.

  I feel like Little Red Riding Hood staring down the wolf, only I’m fighting back.

  “What’s wrong? Are you really asking me that right now?”

  His brows scrunch together. “Yes.”

  Oh Zach, what a great actor you are.

  “I’m worried about you over here. You’re starting to scare me. What happened? Please, tell me if I did something wrong.”

  Oh Zach, what an asshole you are.

  “You’re either an excellent actor or you’re getting some sick enjoyment out of this.”

  “What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Seriously, Zach?”

  He throws his hands up in frustration. “Yes, dammit!”

  Slamming the door open, I fly out of the car, the anger really setting in now.

  “Delia! Don’t walk away! Talk to me!”

  I pluck my phone out of my purse and pull up the text, stalking toward him and shoving it in his face.

  “This, Zach! This is why I am pissed. You took my private photo and sent it to your fucking friends. Remember when Zoe was calling me like crazy and I kept ignoring it? Well guess what’s all over campus.” I shake the phone. “This! I received a call last night from Caleb—my ex-boyfriend—warning me about the picture.”

  I turn the phone my way, staring at the image that broke my heart in two.

  “You were supposed to be the one person I could trust. You were supposed to keep me safe. You promised you’d never do anything to hurt me.” I sniffle and wipe away a tear. “I put all my faith in you and you threw it back in my face. That’s what hurts the most—not that the photo is out there and half the campus has seen me naked. It’s that you let me down in the biggest way possible.”

  We’re locked in another silent war, tiptoeing around the battlefield.

  When I finally gather the courage to meet his eyes, I’m baffled at what I see.

  Anger.

  “You don’t know me at all.”

  Then he’s gone, and I’m left standing there with more questions than I had before.

  Twenty-One

  “I can’t believe it. I thought he was a good guy. I believed he could be, you know, the one for you.”

  I nod. “Me too, Zoe. Me too.”

  “And you said he seemed upset when you confronted him? Mad he was caught?”

  “No. It was like he was mad at me—which is rich, considering everything.”

  “I don’t understand that one.”

  “Me either.”

  Zoe runs her fingers through my hair. I’ve been planted on the couch since I arrived back at home yesterday, alternating between crying and bitching about Zach. Neither of us have class on Mondays, and Zoe finally came home about an hour ago.

  I’ve been crying on her lap ever since.

  “Do you think…do you think you’ll ever talk to him again?”

  “I don’t know. I’m devastated right now. All I want to do is eat ice cream and cry.”

  “I can help with the crying, but we’re out of ice cream.”

  I whimper. “Why does the world hate me?”

  A knock sounds on the door and we exchange a glance, neither of us expecting a visitor.

  I pull myself from the couch and make my way to the door, making sure to check the peephole first.

  Gasping, I turn to Zoe. “You’ll never guess who’s out there.”

  “Chris Pratt? Did he hear our call for ice cream?”

  I pull the door open and greet our guest.

  “Caleb…what are you doing here?”

  He holds up a brown paper bag. “I figured you’d be needing this.”

  “Is that ice cream?” He nods. “Why couldn’t I have loved you?”

  Laughing, he pushes past me and enters the apartment. “Zoe.”

  She smiles. “Caleb.”

  “I wanted to come check on you, D. How are you holding up?”

  “Honestly? Not so well. I confronted Zach—that’s his name—yesterday morning. I cried and showed him the photo. He was angry and acted weird, then left. So, I’m fluctuating between pissed, confused, and heartbroken right now.”

  He pulls me into a hug and I can’t help the tears that begin to flow.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t come by sooner. I did as much damage control as I could over the weekend and this morning at class. I texted and called everyone I knew, trying to find out who sent it to who.”

  “Thank you, Caleb. I really appreciate it,” I tell him, pulling away and wiping my eyes. “Come in, sit down. Feed us ice cream.”

  I run to the kitchen to grab a few spoons before returning to the couch, planting myself between Caleb and Zoe.

  This isn’t the first time Caleb’s brought over ice cream and we’ve done this. He even got all three of our favorite flavors.

  I could hug him all over again.

  “So, how was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Anyone else have a naked picture of them passed around campus, or was that just me?”

  They chuckle, and I try not to cry.

  “Mine was fine, drove home to visit the family,” Caleb says through a bite of ice cream.

  “Pretty much the same. I did have the privilege of witnessing my uncles in a fist fight though. That was kind of fun.”

  “There was almost a fight at our meal too. Oh!” I slap my forehead. “I forgot to tell you. You’ll never guess who Zach’s brother is.”

  “Who?”

  “Shep.”

  Zoe shoots forward on the couch. “The Shep?”

  I nod. “The one and only.”

  “Wow. I… Wow!” She leans back again, taking a huge bite.

  Shep is still a sensitive subject for her. I’ll have to tell her later how Zach jumped to defend her honor, offering to rough Shep up for her.

  “I know. I had no idea because they call him—”

  “Slug,” Caleb finishes. “Holy crap. I know your boyfriend, D—Zach Hastings, computer nerd but doesn’t look it?”

  “He mentioned he met you a few times. He was shocked I moved from dating a baseball player to him.”

  Caleb takes another bite of his ice cream and shakes his head.

  “D, I need to be honest with you…I don’t think Zach did this.”

  “Why do you say that? I mean, you read that text. It was sent from ‘Z’. There’s no denying that.”

  “I know, I know.” He sits forward on the couch and puts his ice cream on the coffee table. “Hear me out though. Is there any way at all someone could have gotten ahold of his phone? Someone we all know is a sneaky, slimy dick?”

  What he’s saying clicks.

  “You think Shep did this?” He nods. “But why?”

  “Um, because it’s Shep,” Zoe answers, mirroring Caleb’s pose. “It makes sense, D. The guy is a total ass and if you poke at hi
m, he’ll strike back.”

  “That’s not a joke. He’s done shitty stuff to girls who didn’t fall for his bullshit, and he tends to brag about it in the locker room. I kind of hate the guy.”

  “Did you do anything to him?” Zoe asks.

  “No? I mean, I mentioned you and he was a bit of an ass about it, but other than that, no.”

  “I wonder if he got ahold of Zach’s phone before or after that.”

  “I’m betting after,” Caleb says. He shoots from the couch and begins pacing the living room. “I want to march over to campus, rip that asshole out of class, and beat him senseless for this shit.”

  “Calm down. We don’t know for sure that it was him.”

  “I don’t know, D. Caleb is making excellent points, and I have a feeling it was,” Zoe says. “Besides, you said yourself that you can’t believe Zach would do something like that. To me there’s nothing malicious about him…”

  “When I met him, he spent the entire night telling me about this non-profit he wants to start,” Caleb tells me.

  “You do know how the idea began, right?” Caleb shakes his head at my question. “It was because Zach developed an app in high school that was a hot-or-not kind of thing. It spun out of control and caused a ton of drama.”

  “So you’re saying you think he’s capable of sending out a naked photo of his girlfriend because he did a shitty thing in high school?” Caleb volleys back.

  Well…no, I don’t think that at all. I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time with all this. When Zach told me the story of what he did in high school, I felt his remorse. He was beyond sorry it ever happened. Whenever he speaks about Embody Positivity, he’s passionate.

  I don’t think he did this.

  And I’m a complete asshole for jumping the gun on him.

  Fuck. I think I screwed up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

  I release a heavy sigh and fall back onto the couch. “I’m the worst.”

  “You’re not the worst. The evidence was there, there’s no denying that. Besides, this is all theory at this point. We don’t have concrete proof that it was Shep.”

  “How do we get it?”

  Caleb continues to pace, mumbling to himself. Neither me nor Zoe can understand him. We sit and watch as he rolls a plan around in his head.

  Finally, he faces us, hands on his hips. “Let me take care of it.”

  “Okay.”

  “But, D? If it turns out he isn’t the one who sent the photo—though I’m fairly certain that’s highly unlikely—you need to be prepared.”

  My mouth goes dry at the thought. I got so wrapped up in the theory that Zach is innocent that I forgot to think about him being guilty.

  My stomach clenches.

  “I’ll be ready, Caleb.”

  My alarm clock sounds, and I reach over to the bedside table and launch it across the room.

  I don’t want to go to class this morning. I can’t.

  I’m not ready to face everyone. I know there will be at least one person in the class that’s seen the photo. Caleb claims no one knows who the girl is, but I’ll know, and every time someone looks at me, I’ll wonder if they know too.

  I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep, but it’s no use.

  I can’t sleep.

  I’ve been tossing and turning all night. Hell, I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since Friday—you know, before my world imploded and all that.

  Out of habit, I reach for my phone, searching for a text from Zach.

  I’ve caught myself doing this more times than I can count over the last few days. When you text someone non-stop for months, you grow used to them, and when they are ripped out of your life, you fall into a total pit of despair.

  I manage to pull myself from the bed as Zoe comes barging into my room.

  “Good, you’re up.”

  “Not for long,” I mumble.

  “Oh yes. You’re going to class today. There’s no arguing that with me.”

  “No, no way.” I throw myself back into bed and pull the covers tightly over my head.

  Zoe tugs on them, trying with all her might to rip them off me. I can feel the material sliding through my hands, and then she’s won.

  I lie there anyway.

  “Up. Come on. Caleb said no one knows it’s you and I believe him. There was no indication on the text about who it was and no one on campus has seen you naked other than Caleb. You know the secret is safe with him. So, up!”

  “Never!”

  She jumps on the bed and bounces around, hard—so hard that I’m flopping around on the bed as she moves up and down.

  It’s not long before I’m giggling, and it feels so good. I haven’t felt like laughing in days, and I love to laugh.

  “Stop, stop, stop! You’re going to break my bed and I will make you buy me a new one.”

  She settles down and collapses next to me, giving me puppy-dog eyes. “Please come to class. Please. I promise I’ll only leave you for the lecture. I’ll walk in with you and meet you at the door afterward so you don’t have to do the walk of shame alone.”

  “Walk of shame? I thought no one knew.”

  “No one does, but I know you—you’ll think everyone has x-ray vision and can see your boobs and will know exactly who it was in the photo. Also, can we please talk about how you’re not supposed to send sexy photos to someone’s phone? You SnapChat that shit, disappears real quick.”

  “Sent many naked pics yourself?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe. I do have great tits, you know.”

  I shake my head and push myself off the mattress until I’m sitting up on my knees. “Okay, fine. I’ll go to class, but you have to walk in and out with me. I don’t want to run into Shep.”

  “Deal. Now, go shower. You’re ripe as hell.”

  I lift my arm and smell myself. “Oh…yeah. Let me go take care of that real quick.

  I cross the room and open the drawer on my dresser. All of a sudden I’m hit with memories of me and Zach and a certain time I stood in front of this dresser.

  The tears silently slide town my face, my shoulders shaking with the unreleased cries.

  Zoe wraps her arms around me from behind and I take comfort in her support.

  “It’ll be okay, D. I promise it will. We’ll figure out who’s to blame and I’ll kick them right in the dickhole.”

  “You’re a really good best friend, Zoe.”

  “I know.” She smacks a kiss to my cheek. “Go shower, smelly. We have class in forty-five minutes.”

  I do it again when I slip into my seat.

  I check my phone.

  Nothing from Zach—not that I’m really expecting anything, but still.

  Caleb comes rushing into the room at the last moment and takes the empty seat beside me.

  “How are you holding up?”

  I lift a shoulder. “As well as expected, I guess. I feel like everyone suddenly became an X-Man and they all acquired the exact same mutation: x-ray vision.”

  “Well stop worrying. No one suspects a thing. I asked around at practice this morning to see if anyone had any idea who was in the photo.”

  “And?”

  “Not a clue, though they wouldn’t shut up about how hot the chick was.”

  He winks at me, and I don’t even have the stomach to be flattered. I’m too pissed off at those shmucks for passing the photo around to begin with. I mean, who receives a naked photo of someone they don’t know and then forwards it on?

  Dicks, that’s who.

  “Any leads on cracking the case?”

  Caleb gives me a look but doesn’t answer my question. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  My stomach drops.

  This can’t be good.

  I spend the entire class unfocused and not paying an ounce of attention. My head is swimming with everything but whatever it is our professor is rambling on about.

  I attempt to wish away the time, but the more I close my
eyes and beg, the slower it goes, so I give up and zone out entirely, staring at my notebook.

  Luckily Caleb is diligently typing away on his laptop; I’ll have to grab the notes from him later.

  My fingers wander to the phone sitting on the table in front of me. I press the home button and the screen lights up.

  No phone call.

  No text.

  No hope for us at all.

  Class finally draws to an end. Everyone gathers up their things and rushes from the room, not wanting to be stuck behind the slow movers and aisle blockers.

  Today, I’m a slow mover.

  When I’m finally ready to face Caleb and get this dreadful conversation over with, he’s not there.

  I see him rushing up the stairs and I call after him.

  “Later!” he calls out to me.

  My shoulders sink. Here goes another day of worrying about everything.

  Zoe’s standing outside the door when I exit. “Everything go okay?”

  “Caleb said we’ll talk later.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say, which is a total shit move because—”

  “Now you’ll be worrying all day. Great.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure? I can skip my next two classes and come home with you now if you need me to.”

  “No way. You forced me here, so you have to stay. Besides, I don’t think I’m heading home yet. I might grab a coffee and then come back later to pick you up. That way I’m not at home sulking.”

  She loops her arm with mine. “I think that’s a great idea. I should be done in about two hours, so it’s not that long. Afterward we’ll grab a pizza to take home and then we’ll be bums on the couch.”

  “Sounds like a plan—but we’re not watching that weird show you’ve been hooked on lately.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Fine, but only because you’re heartbroken and all that.”

  Twenty-Two

  I don’t know how I ended up here, but it’s too late to backtrack now.

  I push through the doors of Level Up and my eyes scan the room of their own accord.

  He’s not here.

  I’m caught between feeling elated and upset at that fact.

  I make my way to the front counter and order the drink Zach first picked for me. The barista squints at me from behind his glasses and I realize it’s the guy who was working the night Zach brought me here. I quickly avert my gaze, hoping he doesn’t recognize me.