by Ivy Blake
“Megan, it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure out who did this-” Sophie began, but I stood up cutting her off.
“I need to get out of here,” I said, ignoring my half eaten food.
Before Sophie could convince me to change my mind, I ran out of the hall filled with judgemental eyes that had all seen the images used to orchestrate my downfall. I ran into the girls bathroom and locked myself in the toilets allowing myself to fully break down. The tears came thicker and faster now that I had no one watching me. My chest felt like it was splitting in two and I wanted to scream and yell and lash out. What did I do to deserve this?
I grabbed some tissue from the dispenser and wiped at my face, knowing that my eyes would be all red and puffy by now. I blew my nose and was disgusted by the amount of snot coming out. I’d heard of this type of shit happening at other schools, to other people, stories about girls getting their nudes leaked. But why me? Firstly, I hadn’t even taken the pictures, and secondly what had happened between our text conversation last night and today that would make Austin want to expose me in front of the whole school?
The shame I felt was debilitating and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to go back in there and see all those faces again. This was worse than all the other times Austin had taunted me and made the whole school turn against me. The fact that he could tell me he loved me and then do this? It was too much for me to wrap my head around. My hands shook as I took out my phone.
I called Austin and waited for him to pick up. It rang once and then went to voicemail. Bastard. I rang again, wiping away tears as I prepared myself to give him a piece of my mind. Again it rang a couple times before going to voicemail. That meant he was hanging up on me on purpose. Now I was pissed and my tears had slowed down, I was starting to think straight again. Before I could send a text message, one came through from Austin.
What’s up? I’m kinda busy right now - A
Too busy ruining my life and laughing with his friends about it to even pick up my call?
Why did you send those pictures around?!
I didn’t care that he was busy, I had to get straight to the point if he was going to be difficult.
What the hell are you talking about?- A
Oh, so he was going to deny it.
You know exactly what I’m talking about.
Austin’s message came back quickly, clearly he wasn’t as busy as he claimed.
You sound crazy right now, I don’t know what you’re talking about!- A
I pocketed my phone and blew my nose again. So Austin was going to be difficult. So be it. But I could be difficult too. I’d given him way too many chances and let my guard down to the point where he could hurt me even more than he had when I’d barely known him. I hadn’t felt pain like this before and couldn’t help myself from bursting into tears again as I thought about how dumb I’d been to trust him.
I’d been stupid enough to trust Austin and hadn’t checked if he had deleted those indecent pictures of me. I’d gotten so distracted getting closer to him and been dumb enough to believe the shit he was telling me about his feelings- which couldn’t be real if he could pull this shit. It was my fault for trusting him. What if Lola and Mom saw these pictures too? As if she knew I was thinking about her, my phone buzzed with a message from Lola.
Woah, this must really suck for you.
No shit Sherlock. I didn’t bother replying and all I could think about was how mortified I’d be if Mom found out. How would I even begin explaining this shit to her? If she ever found out, she’d never let me forget about this mistake, that’s for sure. Knowing my mom, she was the type who would blame me for the pictures more than Austin, which would only make the situation worse.
I heard the door open to the bathroom and froze in my seat.
“Megan, are you in here?” It was Sophie. I flushed the toilet and checked my eyes in my phone camera before leaving the bathroom stall to join her.
“Hey,” I croaked, cringing at the sound of my voice. But this was Sophie, I didn’t have to hide from her.
“Aw, babe,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around me. Even though I’d spent a few minutes piecing myself back together, as soon as my chin touched Sophie’s shoulder I burst into tears again. Sophie rubbed my back and said soothing words into my ear until I calmed down again.
“Did Austin do this?” Sophie asked, her eyes urgent as if she was on a mission. I nodded my head, unable to admit to his crime against me out loud.
“What a fucking bastard, I knew we couldn’t trust him!” she growled, her eyes ablaze with fury.
“I just don’t understand why,” I sniffed.
“Guys like him don’t need a reason to be dicks,” said Sophie as she paced back and forth. “They just can’t seem to resist.”
“I can’t believe everyone’s seen it.”
“I think you should report him,” said Sophie sternly. I caught her eye and could tell that she was being serious.
“How? I don’t have any proof besides my own memory. He took the pictures to blackmail me into tutoring him,” I said, my shoulder slumping in defeat.
“So just say that, I’ll go with you to the principal’s office,” said Sophie, looping her arm through mine.”
“No.” I pulled my arm loose. “I need to get him to admit to it or they won’t be able to do anything about it. I need to talk to him face to face.” My voice quivered as I thought through my next steps.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Sophie looked at me carefully. “I can do it for you if you want? I’m not afraid to let that asshole know exactly what I think of him.”
“No, I need to do it myself. How easy is it to get permission to leave?”
* * *
Sophie had taken me to the nurse’s office where she backed me up on a story about my awful period pains and episodic vomiting. The nurse gave me some painkillers and permission to go home to get some well needed rest. I hugged Sophie goodbye, appreciating her kindness and support throughout all this hell. As I pulled away, Sophie held onto my arms a bit longer.
“Meg, I know this hurts like hell right now, but you can do so much better than him, okay?”
I nodded at her even though deep in my heart I felt like it was so far from the truth. I waved her goodbye as I jumped in the car, texting Lola to tell her that I was going home and that she needed to find her own way back. I took a deep breath as I put the car in reverse, running over my words as I figured out how I was going to confront Austin. I turned up the volume to my music really high in an attempt to drown out my feelings, but every song seemed to be about love in some way, only making me feel worse about myself. I turned off the radio and drove to Nate’s house in silence.
Once I pulled up to Nate’s house, I sat outside for a few minutes second guessing myself. Maybe I’d made a mistake in coming here. Austin clearly didn’t want to talk to me and it was clear by the pictures he’d sent that he didn’t care about me either. For some reason, I was finding it difficult to believe that the same guy who’d done all these amazing things for my birthday, who’d told me he loved me would do all this. I had to do this for my sanity, to have some sort of closure.
I took a deep breath and opened the car door, smoothing down my skirt as I walked up to Nate’s door. As I knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer, I realised that I’d never come back here again. Austin had taken things too far this time. I heard footsteps from behind the door and my stomach turned in knots. I felt like I was going to be sick. The door opened to reveal a middle aged woman dressed in very chic clothes, looking at me with a perplexed expression.
“Hello, can I help you?” The woman said in a posh accent. I assumed that it was Nate’s mom and clearly she had no clue who I actually was. I also probably looked like a mess, which explained the expression on her face.
“I’m Megan, and I’m here to see Austin?” I stuttered, making it sound like a question even though it wasn’t. Nate’s mom smiled politely.
> “We were actually just in the middle of something-“
“Please, it’s really urgent,” I said, wanting to get this over and done with.
“Right, give me a minute, I’ll go and get him.”
“Thank you,” I breathed before she shut the door behind her. I’d expected her to invite me in, assuming that she didn’t mind strangers in her house considering the amount of crazy parties that Nate had. Maybe whatever they doing inside was private business and she was adamant to keep it that way.
“Megan.” Austin’s voice ripped me out of my thoughts as he appeared in front of me, a pissed off expression on his face. “What are you doing here?” His voice was indifferent, as if he hadn’t just ruined my life.
“I’m here to ask you why you did it,” I snapped.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed as he closed the door behind him, taking a step towards me. I took a step back. I didn’t want Austin near me or touching me. His presence and his touch had distracted me and prevented me from seeing the real him.
“Just tell the truth for once in your life!” I exclaimed, my voice climbing higher as I grew more and more annoyed. “Why would you do this to me?” I held up my phone, the screen displaying the message with my pictures. Austin blinked, confused, before his eyes narrowed.
“Megan, you know I wouldn’t do that,” he said slowly, his hand reaching out to grab mine. I pulled it away quickly and I saw the hurt flash across his face.
“I thought you wouldn’t,” I was sobbing now, “you’re the only one who had the pictures. I trusted you Austin!”
“So trust that I didn’t do it!” I shook my head as if I could banish his voice from my ears. He was so adamant to seem like the good guy that he couldn’t even come out and say it.
“Why should I trust you after everything you’ve done to me?” I said, hitting him where I knew it would hurt. Austin growled and I could see the tension in his arms and shoulders.
“I’ve apologised and tried to make it up to you, but it’s nice to know that my efforts aren’t appreciated,” Austin said, his voice cold as ice. I was crying uncontrollably now, even though I felt embarrassed to be losing my cool, the feeling wasn’t enough to stop the tears from falling.
“You’ve ruined my life, how am I supposed to go back to school?” I said through tears. “You can just waltz back in and everything’s fine for you!” The words were coming out quicker than I could keep up with, but my insides felt like they were going to explode.
“I’ve ruined your life?” Austin said bitterly, his eyes glaring at me with more disdain than I ever thought possible. “I’m running around trying to find lawyers to help me put my shitty stepdad in jail! I had to leave my home, I don’t know where the fuck my mom is but it’s your life that’s ruined?”
Austin was shaking with anger now as if he wanted to hit something. I paused, taken aback by this new information. He hadn’t told me what was going on with his mom, he‘d just implied that she was busy or something. Even though I was furious with him and still upset, I felt bad that I hadn’t realised he was going through even more than he’d been letting on.
“Austin, I didn’t know-”
“Of course you didn’t, Meg! You’re so wrapped up in your perfect life, worried about getting perfect grades. Worried about stupid pictures while some of us have real problems,” Austin spat, disarming me with every word that came out of his mouth. I narrowed my eyes at him. He was being unnecessarily rude. Just because things were more extreme for him, it didn’t mean that my worries didn’t matter.
“It’s nice to know that you think my problems are stupid,” I said with as much venom in my voice as I could muster. “At least you’re not going to be one of them anymore.”
Me and Austin stared at each other, our faces contorted with sadness and anger. Even after all the words we’d exchanged, a small part of me hoped that he’d apologise, he’d take back what he’d said, ask us to start over and talk it out.
“Thank fuck for that, then,” Austin snarled before he turned around and walked to the house, slamming the door behind him. I was left standing alone in Nate’s front garden, my heart splintering into a million pieces as I wondered what I’d done to deserve all of this.
Chapter Twenty Four
Austin
“Austin, is everything okay?’ I barely heard Susan’s voice as I walked up the stairs to my room. My throat was tight and I felt claustrophobic, not just in the space but in my body. How had I lost everything in a matter of moments?
I’d spent the whole morning speaking to the lawyer, arranging the details of my case so that we had everything set before we tried to nail Steven. I’d been really confused when Megan had texted me in the middle of the meeting, accusing me out of nowhere. Then to see her turn up to my house with puffy eyes that told me she’d been crying heavily and for a while had made me even more confused and angry at who or whatever had led her to feel this way.
Then she told me that I had done it. That I had sent those pictures of her around the school. And while I did still have them on my phone, I couldn’t believe that she would think that I could do something like that to her. After everything we’d been through together. Megan still saw me as a monster and I guess that’s what I’d always be in her eyes. As I rolled a joint, I thought about how I hadn’t gotten high in a while, had been using Megan as a distraction from my feelings. But now that she’d turned on me, like I had feared she would, I was left alone with my dark thoughts and feelings. Tears were streaming down my face and I wasn’t quite sure what was causing them.
Was I upset that Megan didn’t believe me? Or was it that Steven had been right, that I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love? Megan had one thing right, I was capable of something like this, and before I knew her really well I probably would have done something similar. But I hadn’t, and the fact that she didn’t believe me punctured a hole in my chest and made the whole situation worse. I was stupid for trusting her, for thinking that Megan was any different. People had let me down so many times before, and I’d sworn that I was never going to allow myself to be put in such a vulnerable position again. Yet here I was, crying over some girl like a little bitch with no life.
Megan’s face flashed before me as I lit up my joint. I took a long drag, not caring that Nate and his parents would be able to smell it from downstairs. I didn’t care, I simply needed to block it all out, block her out. You ruined my life, she’d said, and she really believed it. I took another drag, holding the smoke for extra-long, hoping that the feeling of my burning lungs would replace the other feelings I was having. The memories and moments we’d shared, thinking they could lead to something, but no.
Technically this was still my fault. Nate had been right when he’d said that I’d somehow fuck Megan over. I had taken those pictures in the first place for blackmail. And even though I hadn’t leaked them, someone else had beat me to it. Fuck. The realisation that someone had gotten into my gallery was shocking enough to poke through the cloud that had started to settle in my mind. I unlocked my phone to see if I’d been sent the message and I’d simply missed out on it. No new messages. I remembered Megan’s screen, the message she’d shown me had come from an unknown number so there was no way to trace who the asshole was that had done this to her. I stared out of my window as I recounted all the details. Someone had to be setting us both up. That was the only possible explanation unless I’d sent the message in my sleep with a burner phone that had disappeared into thin air. The question that remained was why? What did this person have to gain from exposing Megan in this way?
There was a knock on my door, startling me in my inebriated stupor. Just as I turned to see who it was, Nate let himself into my room, even though he was meant to be at school.
“Hey man, what’s up? Mom called and said you were pretty upset. She wanted me to check on you,” he said slowly, his eye falling on the joint in my hand. I raised my eyebrow, daring him to say something. Luckily for him,
he kept his mouth shut.