Chapter Nine

Julia

THIS ISN'T GOING AWAY. MOVING isn't going to make it disappear. I know that. I've always known that. I just thought I had more time before I'd have to face it.

Lex's office might as well be a broom closet. It's a windowless room with a tiny desk and a filing cabinet. I sit in the visitor's chair, staring up at the schedules and memos pinned to the corkboard on the wall. Shame rolls up and down my body, from my head right down my spine and up again. It's thick and cold and makes me feel so damn small.

Lex walks in after a few minutes. But instead of going behind her desk, she kneels down beside my chair until I have no choice but to look into her insanely intense eyes.

"What happened?" she asks. 

My throat is a bottleneck, unable to handle the demand of the words wanting to burst out of me. I don't make a single sound, despite opening my mouth.

"Was that you? In the video?" Her tone is careful, soft, even.

I swallow, not wanting to talk to her of all people about it, but not seeing any other choice. "Yeah."

"And one of those guys was the one in the video?"

"No. It was my ex-boyfriend in the video." I know what she's wondering, so I head her off, my sights fixed on my hands as I pick at my fingernails, like a child avoiding eye contact. "I didn't know he recorded us."

"Was the sex consensual?"

I nod.

"Let me guess, he sent the recording around to friends?"

"Worse. He uploaded it to a revenge site. It's all about guys burning their exes. Embarrassing them."

"That can't be legal. Have you tried getting it taken down?"

I take a breath. "Yeah, I've tried with no luck. I thought I could handle it on my own but then my parents found out...someone sent them the link."

"Jesus..." Lex runs a finger over her eyebrow, clearly not sure how to proceed. 

My eyes burn again at the thought of the way my parents confronted me. Disgusted, accusatory, and demanding I come clean about my part in it. They didn't believe that I didn't know he was recording us. 

You sure seemed like you were enjoying yourself, my father said, a sickened expression on his face.

 I nearly threw up right there. 

Congratulations, he told me, you've just thrown out your entire future and any chance of ever being respected.

"You need to get a lawyer, Julia."

I nod. I've known this all along.

Lex places a hand on the side of my face, lifting my chin to meet her eyes. "Hey, fuck them. You hear me? You did nothing wrong. You sitting here and feeling ashamed? It's bullshit. You intended to have sex in private and someone you trusted violated that privacy. Men love sex, but then love to shame women who also love sex. Don't buy into that. There was nothing degrading about what you did. You know who should feel disgusting? The petty, low, people feeding on the scandal of someone's private moments being exposed for revenge. But you? You have absolutely no reason to glance down, you hear me? You hold your head up, girl."

I smile a weak smile, because her words weave tendrils of steel through my spine that make it possible for me to sit myself up in the chair. She's wise in a way people our age are usually not. And I wonder what life's put her through to sharpen her to that level.

"I need to get back to work," I say, regardless of the awful feeling crawling all over my skin. "We're slammed."

"I had someone cover for you."

Lex gets up and heads over to a box, opening it and retrieving a brand new bottle of tequila. 

"Sometimes bottles break during shipment." 

"Huh?"

Her meaning is lost on me, until I see her pour some into a coffee mug.

 "Here. Hard liquor isn't my thing, but I've heard times like these call for it."

I hesitate to take the mug from her outstretched hand. After all, she's technically my supervisor and I'm sitting in her office during work hours. She smiles then takes a sip, before swallowing and coughing a few times. 

"It's disgusting. You should have some."

I laugh then take the mug and allow the burn of alcohol to run down my chest. It doesn't make me feel better, exactly, but it doesn't make me feel worse, either. The gesture is really what warms me, the fact that Lex is showing me a side of her I've never seen before.

"You stay in here until you're ready to go home," she says. Then she gets up and starts toward the door, but stops to turn to me. "Oh...and those guys? I kicked them out, but not before a glass of beer spilled all over that one guy's phone. It was a freak accident." 

A low laugh rips through me.

"Thank you," I say, though the words feel cheap and insufficient.

"No worries." 

She closes the door behind her and only then does it occur to me that the person she got to cover my shift is herself. Gratitude floods me in a deep way, washing away a lot of the other stuff I've been feeling. It fills me with a new perspective, the way only gratitude can. And with that, comes a surge of courage.

Tonight's been a wake up call. It's time to do what I've been dreading. I need to talk to my uncle about this. He offered me help while I lived with him, his legal services free of charge. But I was too embarrassed to even look him in the eye long enough to really discuss it. I thought I'd find another way, after classes were over and I had more time to think. 

But I don't have time on this issue. My embarrassment to face the situation has been my greatest enemy. I have to confront what happened or it's going to follow me around for the rest of my life.

Grabbing my cellphone, I start a call to my uncle. After several long seconds of ringing, it goes to voicemail. "You've reached Antonio Romano, please leave your message after the beep."

Two or three full seconds pass before I gather the courage to start talking. 

"Uncle Antonio, it's me. Julia. I hope you're doing well. Thanks again for helping me move in. You left your tool bag behind. Anyway--" I close my fingers over the hem of my shirt to steady them. "I'm calling because you were right about what you said a few weeks ago. I need help with the Andrew situation. I don't know how to make it go away. I just..." I throw my head back and blink at the ceiling. "I need to talk to you, but I need to know that this will stay between us because I don't want--"

A long beep cuts me off. The message has reached its limit. I hang up and let my hand fall to my lap. I take a long, deep breath, the weight on my chest shifting a fraction. Confronting discomfort is giving me strength, in a world where perfect strangers can render me powerless.