Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I wrap my arms around my body and make my way into the men’s restroom down the hall. As I head in, I see the stairwell at the end of the hall. The one we fucked in. I don’t make it to a stall before I throw up, vomit spraying across the tile floor.
Shit!
I race into a stall and gag over the toilet, nothing coming out. Apparently, I already got rid of breakfast.
I spit out the rest and take shaky breaths, a wave of heat rushing to my face. Am I going to vomit again?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Images from my imagination—of my parents’ reactions—play through my mind. Over and over and over again. What am I going to do when I’m passing through these same halls and others have seen this? There’s no telling how many people know about it already. If Greg found it, who the fuck knows who else has seen it?
Everyone’s gonna laugh at me. Just see me as this greedy bottom who took the school drug dealer in the ass.
I pull up Tim’s number on my phone.
I need answers.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
Who the fuck did you show that video to? And why would you fucking do that to me? Put me at risk like that?
Shaking, I drop the phone, and it slides into the toilet.
I curse repeatedly, hating myself. Hating the world. Hating Tim.
I slam my back against the wall and bash my fists against it in rage. Sliding to the door, I curl into a ball. I need to lie here for a minute. I need to lie here until it all goes away.
It reminds me of the day I lost Becky—when the reality slammed into me. It was like being buried in a mound of bricks. Being crushed beneath them, feeling trapped as I suffocated in my grief.
The tears come fast, and I don’t plan on stopping them. Not today.
Mom will never forgive me for this. And neither will Dad.
How could Tim let this happen? I thought he wanted to keep me safe.
I trusted him.
He told me he wouldn’t hurt me.
33
TIM
Nanna and I sit at the table, playing a game of rummy, chatting about a story on the news about a baby who was discovered in a well.
We talk more now that I can be myself. I’m not constantly hiding things from her. Nanna deals the next hand, and I take the opportunity to text Mark again. I check the time and see that he’s been out of class for about twenty minutes, so I’m getting a little worried about him.
It’s probably nothing. Like my worrying about Nanna.
It’s likely he just got a call from his mom.
I hear a click as the door opens.
I push to my feet and hurry to greet him.
“You’re home early,” I say, my voice unable to disguise my enthusiasm.
I notice his face is unusually pale. He looks like he’s about to be sick.
“Mark? What’s wrong?”
He stares at me blankly as I approach him. In a daze.
“Mark, we need to get you a glass of water or—”
“We need to talk.”
His words cut through the air like a knife.
A knot twists in my gut. Talk? What the fuck is going on?
Nanna even has a worried look on her face. I excuse us and take him out the back door so we can have some privacy.
When he turns back to me, I approach him. I want to be here for him through whatever he’s dealing with.
He backs away and raises his hands before him.
“No,” he says clearly. Not loud. Not angry. Just like he wants me to stay the fuck away from him.
“You need to tell me what happened.”
“You haven’t heard?” he asks, as though the world has been suffering through the apocalypse, and I’m the only one who hasn’t noticed.
He laughs, but it’s not like he’s amused. It’s the way a crazy person would laugh. His eyes are wild, his expression twitching about. “Who did you show that video of us fucking to?”
“What?”
“At the Governor’s Mansion. The night in the basement. There had to be someone. Unless you decided you wanted to share our video of us fucking in my mother’s house with the world.”
“That’s not possible. I deleted them.”
“Maybe you did, but who the fuck did you share them with first?” he shouts, his face bright red, tears running down his face.
I can’t tell which is worse—his rage or his hurt.
“Give me your phone,” he says.
As I retrieve it, he snatches it from my hands.
He pulls up a video and hands it to me.
I’m balls deep inside him, giving it to him as he begs for it as much as he always does.
My face is red. I’m horrified. On one hand, I’m freaked out that my body is exposed like that. That somehow it ended up online for everyone to look at. But this is all my fault. Somehow, someone got that video off my phone.