* * *

Now he was sitting here with that look on his face like I disgusted him. “Brandon I promise you, I don’t remember anything about that night. Why won’t you believe me? How could you think that I would…”

“Stop, just stop. I saw the pictures, they came from your phone.” True, all true, and I had no answers now just as I had none the last time we spoke.

He’d stayed away for two days before coming back home. And even then I’d had to be the one to go to him. He’d stood in his doorway as if barring me from coming inside and refused to look at me.

“Brandon, please talk to me, what’s going on?”

“I saw.” That’s all he said before slamming out the door and heading for his car. I ran after him, pleading with him. I needed answers as much as he did.

He pulled his arm away from me when I tried to stop him and when I went to get into his car the way I always did when he drove me to school, he’d locked the door. That’s when I knew I’d really fucked up.

The look he’d given me then was one of pure hate. I recoiled and almost fell on my ass from the force of it.

I drove myself to school, I don’t know how. But by the time I got there I knew that everyone knew, everyone had seen. It was the most awful feeling in the world.

I’d gone in search of Jill who was the last person I remember seeing that night, but she’d acted cold, distant.

“How could you? All these years you walked around with your nose in the air like you were better than the rest of us, and all along you were nothing but a slut.”

“What? Why are you saying these things? You know I would never do anything like that. Something must’ve happened to me. I would never…”

“Just save it okay. The innocent little girl act is played out. Everyone knows what you really are now.”

Her words cut like a knife. Not just the venom behind them, but the fact that she’d said everyone knew. That could only mean…

I saw it on the face of the kids I passed in the hall. I heard it behind every snicker as I passed by. It was the worst day of my life.

I don’t know how I kept going back there day after day, but I had to. It was the only time I could see Brandon. But he wouldn’t even talk to me.

It killed me when I saw my so-called friends comforting him. The way they would look at me over his head with a sly smirk as they rubbed his arm or back.

The fact that he didn’t seem interested didn’t ease the pain. They were allowed to get close when he wouldn’t even look at me.

“Brandon!” My throat was on fire again but I had to make him hear me. This might be the last chance I get. He still wouldn’t look at me, like I wasn’t even there.

“I didn’t do this. I don’t know what happened that night but I know that I would never betray you...”

“Does your parents know?” He cut me off and finally looked back at me.

“No, please…” I started hyperventilating and he looked panic.

“Baby, stop it, calm down.” Baby, he’d called me baby. Even in my state hearing him call me that was like balm to my soul.

Just then the door opened and my parents walked in. “Everything okay?” They looked from him to me, and back as they approached the bed.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I think I’ll leave you guys alone. I’ll come back in the morning.” He moved as if to leave the room.

I don’t know what happened, but hearing him say those words, watching him walk away for what could be the last time, broke something inside me and I lost it.

It took those three: two nurses, and a doctor, to calm me down and get me back into bed. I hadn’t even realized I’d thrown myself from the hospital bed.

I was clinging onto him with what little strength I had left, sure that if he walked out that door I’d never see him again. I looked into his eyes hoping he could read the desperation in mine.

I was dying inside, there was nothing left. “Please…” The words don’t leave me got stuck in my throat.

“What’s going on? You two have a fight? Brandon?” Daddy looked at him like he was ready to tear his head off.

“No, we’re not fighting.” I only calmed down when he came back to my bedside. The doctor said I needed to rest, that they should leave and I had enough strength left to croak out the word no, before I fell into darkness.

* * *

The cops were there the next time I woke up. I came awake to hushed tones and whispers. I looked around the room fitfully, more aware this time than the last.

My heart settled its rhythm once I found Brandon sitting on the chair next to my bed while my parents and the officers sat at the table near the window.

The room was different and for a split second I thought they’d taken me home, but one look around told me I wasn’t.

Brandon wasn’t aware that I’d come awake and I stole those few moments to look at him. Would he ever love me again? Would that face be there when I wake up for the next sixty years?

He was looking at the others with a strange look on his face, one of his thoughtful squints. It was only then that I picked up on some of what was being said and my heart sank farther.

“I find it very strange that up until this point your daughter has never done anything like this. Even her conversations with her boyfriend are rather tame compared to some we’ve seen. And how did the images originate from her phone? Who was the one handling it?”

“Our tech guy says it wasn’t one of those selfie things, the angle’s all wrong. So somebody else was in that room other than the boy.” The other officer spoke up.

“What’re you saying?” I heard daddy shift on his seat when he asked that.

“We don’t know for sure, but it looks like she was set up. Did your daughter say anything to you about that night?”

“Until my kid tried to kill herself we had no idea any of this was going on.” I closed my eyes quickly when daddy turned to look at me on the bed, feigning sleep.

“Brandon, you wanna say something? Did you know about this? Is this why you haven’t been coming around lately?” Before he could answer the anger in daddy’s voice the first cop spoke again.

“It’s made the rounds at school. Apparently she was being harassed. None of the teachers or the principal got wind of it, but pretty much the whole student body knew or saw the images.”

“What do we do now?” My heart was racing so fast and so hard I was sure they could hear it from across the room. I wasn’t aware that I was crying until I felt his fingers on my cheek, wiping them away.

My eyes opened on his. There was such turmoil in his look I hurt for him. What did it mean? Did he finally believe me?

It didn’t even matter that my parents had found out my dark secret, as long as he was there to hold my hand.

“Now, we get to the bottom of it. There’s a lot at play here. First whoever did it can be charged with distributing child porn.”

“She’s almost eighteen.”

“Almost don’t count in a court of law. The law says that she’s still a minor for the next month and a half and since the offence took place while she was still seventeen it stands. We’ll do some more digging. We’ve already lined up interviews with everyone who was at the party. We’ll keep you posted.”

I heard chairs moving and slitted my eyes open to see mom and dad get to their feet to shake hands with the two men before daddy followed them from the room.

Mom came over and stood next to the chair where Brandon was sitting. “How is she doing?”

“She’s asleep.”

“Did you know about all this?”

“Yes!” He didn’t even hesitate.”

“Where were you, what happened?” Oh mom, don’t blame him. It was not his fault.”

“I got there late. One of the guys was running behind and I had to wait for him. By the time we got there she was nowhere around and none of her friends knew where she was. I searched for her and called her phone but there was no answer.”

“But didn’t Jill take her to the party? What did she say happened?”

“She said Kristi disappeared as soon as they got there and she hadn’t seen her since.”

“None of this makes any sense.”

“I thought she’d gone back home, but, she wasn’t there.” I’m guessing he knew because he’d climbed up my window. “The next day I got the pictures…I.”

“And you didn’t stop to think that that wasn’t her? That she’s not the kind of girl to do something like this? Look at her Brandon, what the hell did you people do to my daughter?”

“I didn’t…but I didn’t stop the others and I didn’t protect her when it was happening.”

“So you left her to face it alone. I hope your pride was worth it.”

I bit my inner lip to keep from crying out. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought myself, but I still couldn’t bear to hear her say those words to him.

Just then daddy came back into the room. “Come on Janine let’s get some coffee downstairs. Brandon we’ll bring you back something to eat you haven’t eaten all day.”

I heard footsteps across the carpet and then they were gone.

“You can open your eyes now, they’re gone.”