I gasped and covered my mouth. The image was of Gabe and me in New York. That night we went out after having dinner with my parents.
In the photo, Gabe stood behind me, his hands on my thighs, bunching my dress up nearly to the waist. My arms were around his neck, pulling his head down low. Our lips almost touched. Gabriel faced away from the camera, semi blocking my face. It was somewhat of a compromising position, not easily explained as simply dancing with a random guy on the dance floor.
However, due to the positions of our faces, it was hard to make out who it was in the photo. Perhaps, a stranger looking in wouldn’t be able to tell it was me.
When I scrolled down, what little hope I had was dashed at the sight of another picture. This one was just as sensual. Gabe’s hands were all over me as I stared up at him, laughing with my arms around his neck. Our faces weren’t hidden this time, however.
My thumb scrolled lower but stopped at the caption.
It looks like Lena Clarkson has moved on. She was spotted out in New York with her new lover, MMA fighter Gabriel Townsend.
I realized this was a screenshot from No Shade, one of the largest celebrity gossip pages on Instagram.
Stupidly, my desire to dig deeper overwhelmed me, and I ended up navigating out of my email and logging into Instagram. I pulled up No Shade’s page and instantly saw the post with the same pictures Demetria sent me.
Like a fool begging to be burned, I clicked on the post and scanned the comments section.
I paced the room as I read.
“What? Lena dating white boys now?” -smoothtalker001
“Damn, they practically f*cking on the dance floor. So trashy.” -originalone86
“He better hope she doesn’t burn all his sh*t too.” -beautyqueen906
“Oh, he must like crazy black chicks.” -ariesmonster69
I pressed the button to exit the app and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. The words of strangers shouldn’t get to me, but they did. The assumptions made by thousands of people about my personal life felt like a punch to my stomach. The way they’d devalued my relationship with Gabe.
I started to toss my phone to the floor, but it buzzed again, and that time it was a call from Demetria.
“Yeah?” I mumbled into the phone.
“Did you get my emails?”
With a sigh, I said, “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Lena. It must’ve been someone in the club that recognized you.”
“Yeah.”
I thought I’d been smart with my trip to New York. I hadn’t put my reservations under my name, didn’t tell many people I was going, and got a private room when we went to dinner with my parents. The nightclub we went to wasn’t in the heart of some of the city’s busiest districts. It was obscure, not exactly a place celebs flocked to.
I thought I was safe.
“Maybe …” Demetria started but didn’t finish.
“Maybe what?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “I was just thinking, you know, like those girls you were with that night at Nate’s?”
I stiffened. I hadn’t seen any of those women since someone released that video to the world. But I could guess at what Demetria was getting at.
“I mean, one of them had to be the one to upload the video or sell it. What if this time around it was Gabe?”
“Demetria,” I said sternly.
“Please don’t get upset with me. I was throwing out the idea. You know how this business is. People from all angles are coming at you to get what they want.”
