Chapter 33
TIM
Nanna and I sit at the table, playing a game of rummy, chatting about a story on the news about a baby who was discovered in a well.
We talk more now that I can be myself. I’m not constantly hiding things from her. Nanna deals the next hand, and I take the opportunity to text Mark again. I check the time and see that he’s been out of class for about twenty minutes, so I’m getting a little worried about him.
It’s probably nothing. Like my worrying about Nanna.
It’s likely he just got a call from his mom.
I hear a click as the door opens.
I push to my feet and hurry to greet him.
“You’re home early,” I say, my voice unable to disguise my enthusiasm.
I notice his face is unusually pale. He looks like he’s about to be sick.
“Mark? What’s wrong?”
He stares at me blankly as I approach him. In a daze.
“Mark, we need to get you a glass of water or—”
“We need to talk.”
His words cut through the air like a knife.
A knot twists in my gut. Talk? What the fuck is going on?
Nanna even has a worried look on her face. I excuse us and take him out the back door so we can have some privacy.
When he turns back to me, I approach him. I want to be here for him through whatever he’s dealing with.
He backs away and raises his hands before him.
“No,” he says clearly. Not loud. Not angry. Just like he wants me to stay the fuck away from him.
“You need to tell me what happened.”
“You haven’t heard?” he asks, as though the world has been suffering through the apocalypse, and I’m the only one who hasn’t noticed.
He laughs, but it’s not like he’s amused. It’s the way a crazy person would laugh. His eyes are wild, his expression twitching about. “Who did you show that video of us fucking to?”
“What?”
“At the Governor’s Mansion. The night in the basement. There had to be someone. Unless you decided you wanted to share our video of us fucking in my mother’s house with the world.”
“That’s not possible. I deleted them.”
“Maybe you did, but who the fuck did you share them with first?” he shouts, his face bright red, tears running down his face.
I can’t tell which is worse—his rage or his hurt.
“Give me your phone,” he says.
As I retrieve it, he snatches it from my hands.
He pulls up a video and hands it to me.
I’m balls deep inside him, giving it to him as he begs for it as much as he always does.
My face is red. I’m horrified. On one hand, I’m freaked out that my body is exposed like that. That somehow it ended up online for everyone to look at. But this is all my fault. Somehow, someone got that video off my phone.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Fuck?” he asks. “That’s all you fucking have to say?”
“Mark, I don’t know how that video got out. I swear on my life. I never shared it with anyone. It was on my phone, and I swear to you I deleted them like the rest. I’ll get it taken down. I’m gonna make this right.”
“Make it right?” he asks, his words filled with contempt.
It pains me to see him like this, and hurts even more knowing he blames me as much as I blame myself.
“There’s no way to fucking make this right, Tim! It’s already out there. Greg just sent me the link—”
“Greg?”
I’m trying to think of how he could be responsible for this, but I can’t imagine a way. I deleted it the night we filmed it.
Regardless, someone got a hold of it.
“Can you imagine what Mom’s going to say when she sees it?” he asks. “When she hears about it? Oh, God.”
I start moving toward him, but stop myself. I want to console him. To make him know I’m going to make this better for him. To protect him.
Of course, how can he believe me after what just happened?
“Mark, please—”
“I’m going,” he mutters. “I have to tell my fucking parents before that monster Kendra does.”
His face trembles as he cries.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. I think you’ve done enough to wreck my fucking life.”
“Don’t go. You don’t understand how much I care about you. I would never have done anything to put you at risk.”
“But you did. You hurt me so fucking much. Because I really did trust you. I guess that’s where I was stupid.
Because obviously you lied to me about deleting those videos.
And obviously you were off sharing them with someone who I guess now you know you can’t trust. Just like I can’t fucking trust you. Good-fucking-bye, Tim.”
He storms off.
I would never have done anything to hurt you, Mark. How doesn’t he understand that?
But I did.
I don’t even know how I did, and that’s what makes it even worse.
It reminds me of the night when that guy hit him.
It’s not him. It’s that I’m such a fucking mess of bad decisions. A magnet for trouble.
I don’t have time to fucking dwell on what a sad son of a bitch I am, though.
I have to fix this…as much as I can, at least, starting with getting this goddamn video pulled.
I head back inside. Nanna asks me what’s wrong, but I just tell her that I have an emergency to take care of.
I head into my room and pull up my laptop.
I feel sick to my stomach, not just over what happened, but knowing that whoever is responsible took advantage of both of us.
Victimized us like this. I flag the video on the site and contact their customer support via the email on their site.
I’m sure Mark’s trying the same things. And soon, his parents will know, and they’ll likely be able to get it pulled in a matter of moments.
Although, the last thing he wants to do is be the one to tell them about this shit.
Fuck. I finally had something that was wonderful. That fucking made my life so amazing, and then everything had to go to shit.
Of course that’s how it fucking works.