“Babe, I’m so sorry about all that mad business with the video, yeah? It’ll all blow over before you know it.”
I manage to find my voice. “But that’s not the point, Luca. Why the fuck does it exist in the first place?”
“Look, I—”
Before he can finish, the sound of pantomime shrieking and grunting erupts in front of us. Two of Luca’s football buddies are on the floor in front of the sofa, one on his knees making high-pitched, farcical whimpering sounds, and the other making exaggerated thrusting gestures behind him.
“Leave it out,” Luca says, laughing as he kicks them both over. It’s clearly a joke to him, to all of them.
For a moment, my weaponized calm is almost shaken loose by Luca’s cavalierness. It would be so easy to scream at him, to beat at his chest, but it’s clear that Luca doesn’t care, and all I would do is embarrass myself. There’s nothing more despicable to a man than a hysterical woman.
“Can we please go somewhere quiet?” I whisper in his ear.
Arrogant as he is, it’s possible he thinks I want to fuck him, even after everything, and so he obliges. Together, we weave our way out of the packed basement, up through various rooms of dancing bodies, past the kitchen, and up more flights of stairs. I clock each room I canas we make our way through the house, finally arriving at a mercifully empty bedroom.
“This is Max’s,” Luca explains, flicking on the light to illuminate a room dingy enough to belong in his own student home. “No one will be coming in here.”
I almost laugh when he leans in to kiss me, but instead, I let him, gut churning. He gently pushes me toward the bed, and as he climbs on top of me, I push against his shoulders. His breath reeks of beer.
“The video,” I say. “Why did you do it?”
He laughs again, like I’ve told a corny joke. “Really, Nat, are we going to keep talking about it?” He kisses my neck. “You said you thought it’d be kinda hot, and it was. Have you seen how fucking hot you look in it?”
Jesus Christ. He’s looking at me again now, clearly trying to temperature check my expression. Trying to see if I’ll buy the lies he’s trying to sell me. If he can confuse me just enough to get away with this. For a split second, I have to pull myself back from the brink of believing him, and that terrifies me.
“Can I see it?” I ask.
“You don’t have it?”
“Not on my phone, no.”
He rolls onto his back and digs around in the pocket of his joggers. In a swift movement, his phone is in his hand. I watch as he unlocks it, my body tense. He navigates to the hateful video and hands the phone to me, expectant. With care to look relaxed, I reshuffle on the bed, ostensibly to get comfortable.
Halfway through my apparent settling, I’m off the bed and out the door. Luca’s reaction is quick. He grabs at me, managing a painful pinch of my arm, which ultimately slips out of his grasp, tripping him as he loses balance. I’m across the landing and into the bathroom I’dspotted on the way up within seconds, the door locked behind me. If it wasn’t for Luca’s stumble, I might not have made it.
Inside, my fingers tap at the bright, glassy screen. Luca’s fists are immediately on the door.
“Nat, what the fuck? Open up!”
I find his WhatsApp and open his chats. Immediately, I spot what I’m looking for. My intuition tells me it’s where I need to be. The football group chat. The bathroom door starts to tremble under the weight of Luca’s blows. In turn, a quiet fear sets my own limbs trembling, so quick, like a muscle memory of panic I didn’t know I had. Unsteady thumbs tap my name into the search bar. A flood of messages appear—some from Luca, some from his teammates:
Be there for 9. Earlier if not balls deep in Nat
Yeah, Nat’s so sexy for a black girl. I bet she fucks like a champion.
I bet Nat’s nudes are hot…Sharing is caring, bro
No way Nat lets you hit it raw. Proof.
And then the pictures and videos start coming through.
Nat’s hotter than your girls, sorry about it
Fuck me, man. You got any more pictures of Nat? That’s so hot.
Shit, the way Nat moves is crazyyyy
There’s only a handful of images and videos, but it’s enough to make it crystal clear exactly what’s been going on. As the drumbeat on the door grows louder, I take my own phone out of my pocket and snap images of the conversation on the screen. Evidence, if I need it. What a shit. What a horrible little shit.
