“No argument here.”
“Declan wasn’t even at that party.”
“I know. He told me that.”
“Did he ever tell you why?”
I cross my arms over my chest, almost like I’m trying to sayI don’t care,but I do, and Zeke knows that.
“No,” I mumble. “He just said he was never big on parties. I assumed it was because of his dad.”
“Tanner was talking to some other senior players, you know, trying to be the big man. Bragging about sleeping with you and how he recorded it without your permission.”
I wince, the thought of that night flooding my brain. My eyes travel down to my hands to avoid Zeke’s gaze.
“I guess the guys thought it was funny. I don’t know, I mean, pigs, fucking pigs, is what I have to say about Tanner and those dickwads, but--”
“But what?”
“After Tanner said he thought it’d be funny to play the video at….” His voice trails off. He was there that night. He knows. I guess I never really thought about the fact that all of Declan’s friends had seen me naked. Most of the juniors and seniors on campus have. “One of the guys, Derek or Johnny, or whatever his name was, gave Tanner the idea to make the whole thing large scale.”
“Why?” I wonder, but I know he doesn’t have the answer.
“I don’t know. But I don’t know if you remember the posters that were--”
“That’s how I found out,” I interrupt him. “Some guys commented about my tits or something, and when I went to find Tanner, I heard laughing, and I was on the TV.”
“Naked.”
“Yes, Zeke, thank you for the reminder.” I laugh, and he smirks. “They were all over the house when I was leaving. I grabbed as many as possible but was in such a fog that… I don’t even know how I got home.”
The thought of Tanner and all his friends disgusts me. I wish I was the same girl that I am now. The one who’s strong, because if I was, I might’ve had the guts to tell everyone that Tanner had a small dick and didn’t know how to use it. Sure, I hadn’t experienced another before him, but now I know, and I could’ve embarrassed him as he did me.
“Are you okay?” Zeke grabs my hands, and I nod.
“I’m okay.” It’s not a lie. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know if okay is the right way to describe the emotion, but I’m sticking with that. “What does this have to do with Declan?”
“Hmm?”
“You said there was a reason Declan wasn’t at the party. You never got to that.”
“Oh,” he scratches his head. “Declan heard Tanner and the guys talking. The pictures in the house weren’t the only ones.”
“What do you mean?”
“That night, Declan walked all over campus and through Tanner’s neighborhood to rip down every poster they created. He felt responsible in some way because Tanner chose you because of him, but he didn’t know what Tanner was planning on doing.”
“But he told Tanner to choose me?” I scoff. “What did he think Tanner was choosing me for?”
“It wasn’t like that. Tanner saw Declan looking at you in the student union during the first week of school. Declan never told Tanner to choose you, but Tanner saw his interest and stole it.”
I laugh again.Interest?In me?
“And that night, Declan risked everything for you. He went to the Dean and reported Tanner and the other seniors. He risked getting kicked off the team or blacklisted. He risked never becoming captain like his dad wanted because of what Tanner did.”
“He went to the Dean?”
I always wondered how they found out about everything. When the Dean pulled me into her office that Monday after the party, she told me about an anonymous source at the party telling her what happened. And after she told me to brush it under the rug for the greater good of the hockey team, I never would’ve imagined that one of the members reported it.
