I got to my locker, expecting to see some graffiti on it or something. There was nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief as I opened it. As soon as I did, thousands of little pieces of paper flew out, spreading around all over the floor. They were at my feet, surrounding me, and it took me a second to realize that it was the pictures. Somebody had printed out the photographs, in color, in black-and-white, and in sepia. The sepia one felt especially insulting.
I swore under my breath, trying to ignore my now shaking hands, as I got to my knees and began to pick them up. I heard snickers around me, other students going back and forth, none of them stopping to help.
My friend Britney—my only friend, though we weren’t that close—rushed to my side as she helped pick them up.
“Jess,” she said. “I didn’t know if you’d be coming to school today.”
I looked at her as I crumbled up one of the photos. “Why would you think I wouldn’t?”
“Because of this,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I think it’s so unfair that someone manipulated your image like this. You deserve better.”
That was the first time since I had been in school that day that I felt the tears were actually coming. I tried to stop myself from crying by tilting my head back, but I couldn’t help but sniffle a little bit before I looked at her again. “It is me, Brit,” I said. “They didn’t doctor anything.”
She blinked, clearly taken aback. “Wait. Are you saying you let someone take those pictures of you?”
I nodded, trying to ignore the growing lump in my throat. “Yes,” I said. “But I didn’t think he was going to do this with them.”
She winced, clearly shocked. I liked Britney, she was a sweet girl who focused mostly on her studies, but unlike my own situation, her parents were very involved. It made us clash sometimes, but I had gone to church a couple of times when she had invited me.
I didn’t expect her to react the way she had, with what felt like abject horror.
“What did you think he was going to do with them?”
I blinked. “I don’t know,” I said. “To be honest, it never occurred to me to ask.”
She shook her head, tutting as we both stood up, and handed me a bunch of the pictures, which were basically little balls of paper in her hand. She put her hand on my shoulder. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jessie,” she said. “But you need to be more careful.”
My gaze darted between her face and her shoulder. “Ugh,” I said. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“I’ll see you in chemistry?”
“Yeah,” I said. “See you then.”
When she walked away, I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes away and grabbed my books. I wanted to walk toward my classroom and forget all about what had just happened, about how judgmental freakin’ Britney was being, about the pictures being spread everywhere, and about the fact that Jody must have spread them.
I didn’t want to think about that at all.
I kept my head down, still feeling the head of people’s words around me when I heard a thin voice call out to me from behind.
“Jess.”
I didn’t stop. I ignored it as I walked away from Jody. I didn’t want to speak to him. I really didn’t.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Wait, Jess,” he said.
I looked up at him, my eyes still full of tears. “I don’t think I will,” I said as his cologne hit me. He always smelled good, and I had always liked it, but right then, I couldn’t help but find it a little offensive. More than a little offensive. Why did he have to look and smell so good as he was basically in the process of destroying my life?
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to deal with him at all. I turned around and began to walk away, but he easily caught up to me.
“I—can I just talk to you?”
“You are talking to me,” I said, not slowing down for one second. He matched my pace.
“No, I meant, in private.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I ever want to be in private with you again.”
I heard him groan. “Stop,” he said. “I mean it.”
“What are you going to do?”
Before I could go much further, I felt him pull me back by the hair of my ponytail. I felt like throwing up as I turned around to face him, my eyes narrowing. “Don’t touch me,” I said. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
He held his hands up by his sides as he let go of me. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Just like you don’t mean to do half of the things you do, right?”
He shook his head. “That’s not fair.”
I raised my eyebrows as I felt my cheeks redden. I felt like I was going to throw up. “No,” I said. “You know what isn’t fair? What you did.”
He looked around and began to walk away. I walked after him, feeling furious, feeling like I was going to punch him. He walked through a door and I walked in after him, ready to shout at him.
“I just wanted to apologize,” he said. “I—it wasn’t on purpose. I was upset, okay? I was looking at your pictures and I got a text from the group chat and I accidentally sent it to them. I didn’t mean to send it to everyone else. It was… it was an accident, okay?”
I shook my head, looking right
