I’ve never even heard her laugh sound anything but fake before, but it’s real now, so I’m curious about what has her so entertained. I hear moaning and she laughs harder, wiping her eyes.
Someone moans, “Yes,” and then a guy says, “You like that, baby?”
I push the phone out of her hand and it falls to the ground, the screen shattering. Heidi starts yelling at me, shoving me back, but I barely hear her. I move around her and bend down, my focus lasered on the video playing on her phone.
I pick it up and start running and she doesn’t stop me. Her laugh echoes down the hall and I can still hear her when I’m out the door. When the video is over, I play it from the beginning, and when it ends the second time, I throw up in the parking lot.
Luci finds me out there and I ask her to take me home. She doesn’t ask questions. When I have her pull into my driveway, she doesn’t hesitate.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “What’s going on, Gabi?”
I feel cold inside.
Dead.
Hollowed out.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I say it so softly, she leans closer to hear me and I turn to her then, barely seeing her. “Thank you for bringing me home. I appreciate it.”
“You’re scaring me,” she says. “I’m coming in, okay?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just not feeling well. Thank you.”
I get out of the car and run into my house, slamming the door and running up the stairs to my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. Only then do I collapse on my bed and let out the grief of the horror that is my life.
The video is of Luke and me having sex in his bedroom, and it’s on one of the most popular porn sites in the world.
The first time I saw Luke was at the annual Christmas party thrown by my parents. I’d never been allowed to go anywhere near the party, and this time was no exception. Usually, I got dropped off at a bookstore or occasionally went to a friend’s house, but this time, I’d told my parents I was too tired to go anywhere.
I snuck down midway through the party, when the noise level had reached an impossible decibel to think about anything else. I was in my sweats and a skimpy tank, certain I wouldn’t be seen, but on my way down the stairs, I saw a guy walk in the front door. He was late for the party and antsy. I thought he was nervous.
He looked up and saw me creeping down the stairs and smiled. He was the hottest guy I’d ever seen up to that point and a little younger than the other guests I’d seen walking up the driveway earlier.
I smiled back and pointed toward the noise down the hall. “The party’s in there.”
“Why aren’t you in there?”
I smirked, flattered that he thought I was old enough to be there. I sat down on the steps and felt the heat of his stare on my legs, my chest, my face. His teeth were so white when he smiled, and when he moved closer to me, my heart started pounding.
“This looks like where the real party should be,” he said.
And with that, my crush was sealed.
He stayed with me on the stairs for a couple of hours. It was the highlight of my entire life up to that point, having someone’s attention on me for so long. I thought I’d found my soulmate. We talked about everything from the people at the party to life in Vegas and how we both liked penguins. He didn’t leave my side. Until the party started to die down and people began to trickle out. Looking back at that night, I’ve wondered if he purposely left before anyone knew he was there. If he meant to hide out next to me, or if he enjoyed himself so much that he didn’t care who saw us together.
The fact that we began to meet in secret not long after that should’ve been answer enough—I was his dirty little secret.
But, he was never fully mine.
He took my innocence and stomped on it.
After.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I grab a small suitcase from my mom’s closet and haul it back to my room. Since a lot of my nice underwear is in the suitcase she packed for me already at Raf’s house, there isn’t much to pick from, so all that’s left goes in. I throw clothes in as fast as I can, a new toothbrush, and an old mascara and lip gloss. I don’t even fill it all the way before zipping it up. I’ll regret leaving my laptop, but it’s not a big deal. The objective is to stay light and get out of here quickly.
I’m down the stairs and at the back door when I see a note on the kitchen table. I pause next to it, heart thumping with the words torn out from a magazine and pasted on a white sheet of paper.
I know who it’s from, but it would be impossible to prove.
Any promises I made are off now.
I’d recognize it as one of my father’s threats any day. I’m just not sure why now. Stefen and my mom? Me hooking up with Raf? I don’t know. But I feel uneasy as I back out of the room.
I reach the back door and jump out of my skin when I run into Raf. I scream and he holds his hand over my mouth.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, the fury in his eyes scaring me almost as much as him startling me.
“Let me go.”
He doesn’t listen, his grip on my arm tightening instead. “I can’t. You can’t be here, Gabi. It isn’t safe.” He picks up my suitcase and then in the next second, he hauls me over his shoulder.
“I threw up not even half an hour ago. Put me
