I’m so embarrassed.
My sight blurs and I try to catch my breath, but I keep chokingon air. I sniff, rushing forward, bursting into Crombie, high on adrenaline.
I’m gonna kill Scotty.
I jump onto the stage and tear through the curtain to where the girl from Tuesday is sitting next to Scotty’s slumped figure, rubbing his back. His blue letterman jacket is draped over the back of his chair.
I try calming my breathing before I speak.
“Scotty,” I say. No response.
The girl looks at me with an annoyed expression plastered onto her semi-plastic face. Her nose, which I now notice is a little slanted—I assume from a botched surgery—scrunches up at me.
“Scotty,” she whispers, and he looks up and then looks away.
“My career is probably over,” Scotty says.
My chest is still heaving.
“All the successful people these days have sex tapes. This is a step in your favor,” says the girl. I want to hit her.
Scotty nods. “True.”
I want to hit him.
“Scotty,” I say again.
“Can’t you see this is hard for him?” the girl tells me.
I want to laugh. “Hard for him? He’s the one who made the video, and he was theonlyone who had that video.”
“You’re barely in the video, and Scotty said he deleted it. Besides, do you know how easy it is to hack into anyone’s cloud?” she huffs.
“What?” I say, because I’m so confused. What the fuck is she going on about? I don’t care if I’m barely in it. The fact that I am, and everyone saw it—
I scrunch that thought up like it’s written on a mental sheet ofpaper. If this gets back home, if Ma sees this, she’s going to be so disappointed in me; she’ll see me differently. And Dre—he said…
“Well, I mean… I guess everyoneknowsit was you because we heard your voice and Scotty says your name; you guys are pretty vocal—”
“I know it’s you doing this, Scotty,” I say, face burning. “I know it’s you sending the messages, leaking stuff.”
Scotty stares at me, blond hair messy and covering his eyes as a smile slowly appears on his lips. The girl next to him watches us hungrily.
“You thinkI’mAces?” he asks, feigning offense.
He’s the only person I can think of with the motive to hurt me and maybe even Chiamaka. We both dumped him.
“It makes sense. You and I aren’t friends anymore, and you’re the only one who could have sent out that video…”
His smile falters a little. I must be imagining it, because surely someone as self-centered as Scotty couldn’t care less about what I think of him.
“That’s right, we aren’t friends, or anything close to that—so why would I waste my time? Why bother with someone no one here cares about? Chiamaka, maybe. People actuallywantto read about her, but why would I bother withyou? What would I get out of that?” he asks.
There’s a tiny pang as his words hit me.
Scotty looks down at his lap, pulling his phone out of his pocket and scrolling like I’m not here anymore.
I used to be able to tell when Scotty was lying. When we were dating, I’d always get this twisting feeling in my gut, something telling me he wasn’t being a hundred percent honest. When he’d admit tocheating on me, what would hurt me most was the fact that I’d known deep down he wasn’t being truthful. He’d confess, I’d cry, we’d kiss and make up. Until the day I broke the cycle and finally stopped letting myself be treated like that. Now, though, I can’t tell. There’s no twisting in my gut, nothing to tell me whether he means it. Whether he had anything to do with this.
