“What?” my brother said.
“It was the day of the game against Falls Church. Oh my God…” She started crying. “He drugged me. He drugged me that night. That’s why I couldn’t remember falling asleep. That was why I didn’t get up on time and was late to practice!”
My face flushed with rage.
“Are you sure?” I asked, trying to control the anger and the sense of powerlessness coming over me.
“Look at the video,” she said, her voice cracking. “See the wall? It’s the same color as the walls at the motel. I didn’t realize it until you told me all this stuff. How didn’t I realize…? I erased the video immediately. I was so ashamed…”
“Why would Julian do something like this?” my brother asked.
“Because he’s in love with her,” I said, imagining myself beating him to a pulp.
“Julian’s gay,” Taylor objected, looking confused.
“He’s not in love with me,” Kami said. “We’re supposed to be friends.” She stood up, as if moving around could somehow help prove that this nightmare wasn’t actually real.
“Julian’s no gayer than you or me, Taylor,” I said, walking over to my brother’s desk and opening his laptop. I sat back on the bed and searched for the page Perez had sent me. “Look what Perez found,” I said, showing it to them.
Kam examined it and shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” shesaid, sitting back down on the bed beside me. “Look! There’s a comment from a couple days ago that says ‘They’ll all burn in hell’and it’s from @omv_ovamat; that’s the same username that was leaving comments on my Instagram.”
“What the hell does @omv_ovamat mean?” I asked, disgusted.
“No idea,” Kam replied. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the way he lied to me, deceived me…”
“At least we finally know who was behind it all,” Taylor said, but it didn’t seem to help much.
“Listen,” she said, standing, “I need to be alone, I need… I need to go.” I could see the panic, the sorrow flooding her brown eyes. I stood too. But why? What was I going to do? Hug her? Tell her everything was OK? I couldn’t. I couldn’t because she wasn’t my girlfriend, she was my brother’s girlfriend.
“I’ll walk you home,” Taylor said, standing.
I looked at the computer again and then closed it.
In the doorway, Kam turned back. “Thanks, Thiago. For everything. For going to New York, for looking into this even though it wasn’t your problem. Honestly, thank you.”
I nodded.I did it because I love you, I wanted to tell her, but one look at my brother was all I needed to tell me how angry he was that I had figured things out about Julian instead of him. They walked out, and I went to my room.
What am I going to do about you, Jules?I asked myself.Take care of you for good and ruin my life in the process?
I didn’t sleep a wink that night.
Worst of all, there would be many sleepless nights to follow. There are times when I go back to that moment and I tell myself I should have followed my instincts, because getting him out of the way would have been the best choice.
Because if I had, it would have saved a lot of lives.
