11. Sabrina
11
SAbrINA
I woke up Monday morning wishing I could sleep in a little longer. It was too early to get up after helping my parents fix up more things around the house all weekend. Plus studying and dealing with things for my community pool fundraiser, then prepping for the internship interview.
My body was sore and tired. This was what burn-out felt like.
As I lay in bed at the sound of my phone going off, I knew it would be an exhausting start to the week.
I could count on lots of assignments. Tons of reading. And the bus was out this week for maintenance, so with my parents using the only car we had, I’d be walking more than usual.
Is it even worth it?
I hated to question myself like this when the times got tough. Law school was challenging, but I wondered from time to time whether putting myself through it at the university was smart. I could always transfer to a different school and lower my expectations. I could bow out of this internship application and just focus on graduating with a law degree.
No. It’s got to be worth it.
I sighed as I reached for my phone.
Seeing the texts from Elise startled me. And as I sat up and skimmed through the damage, I knew my initial worries about this week being tough were a joke.
Facing the backlash from supposedly posing for Nick would be harder to handle. Some artsy person had shared photos of a painting that jerk had done of me . In such a provocative and naughty pose, leaning back like I was encouraging him to go down on me.
I was a virgin, but not a prude. Still, seeing myself like this was a new low, even from him. He’d pushed it too far by suggesting I’d been in a wet T-shirt contest. Now this?
“You fucking asshole,” I whispered as I scrolled on my phone. Elise had alerted me that the videos were going viral. She lurked on social media more than I did, and I appreciated her giving me a warning about the new attack on my character.
But one thing remained unchanged. I didn’t have time for this.
With more anger than I wanted to have this early in the morning, I got up to shower and head to the kitchen for a quick breakfast.
“Sabrina?” My mom raised her brows when she spotted me. She stood at the stove, finishing eggs for us. Dad frowned from his seat at the table.
“You saw?” I guessed, preferring to be upfront than beat around the bush. They weren’t avid users of social media either, but they had their interests they liked to follow. Dad was on his phone often to follow pages about home reconstruction, and he’d saved lots of money by watching videos of how to DIY repairs around here. Since I’d been tagged in those posts, they had to have seen.
“How could you?” Mom asked, wincing.
They’d never raised me to be prudish. Both of them taught me to respect and love myself. But they’d also never given me the impression that being so exposed like that was a good idea—not if I wanted to have a good job.
“I didn’t,” I said as I sat.
I would weather this storm. As I sighed and looked at the home repairs that were halfway done, I knew that I could face this personal storm, too. “I have no interest in posing for any artist. Certainly not like that.”
“Then is this”—Dad picked up his phone to frown at the screen as he read—“ Daniela Critique slandering you?” He scowled. “Is this one of those AI things? Someone’s using your face and superimposing it on…” He shook his head and set his phone down, not finishing.
“No. I think that, um, guy really painted it.” I cleared my throat, willing the humiliation to stay locked in. “The video Elise sent me shows his hand as he painted.”
“Who is this artist?” Mom propped her hand on her hip. “This isn’t right. It’s… it’s slander. It’s wrong and it’s cruel to suggest you’d be so… so crass and unclassy like that!”
Dad lifted his hand from the table, shooting her a slightly scolding look. “Melody. Sabrina should be proud of who she is and never be ashamed of her body?—”
“But Dad,” I interrupted. “That’s not me. I never posed like that. I don’t…” I shook my head.
“Then how would this artist be able to make it look like you?” Mom asked, still on the hunt for blood. She wouldn’t accept this form of bullying. Her incredulous tone proved that she was unaware that I was bullied at all, and that was my goal. I tried so hard to never let them know that I was targeted, often because of them. It would break my heart if they had to worry about my being bullied. I could turn the other cheek, let it in one ear and out the other. I was made of sterner stuff than to cower at some bullies making me miserable.
“Do you know him?” Dad asked. “One of the photos has been shared over a million times.”
Nick, you are a fucking asshole. I cleared my throat, holding my head high. “No. I don’t know him.” It didn’t feel like a lie. I was aware of who Nick Grant was. And that he’d chosen me to be the target of his bullying. Beyond that, I had no clue who he was, what he wanted from me, and what his game was.
“Just know it’s not me,” I repeated. “I’m sorry if people at work see it, but you can tell them I did not pose for any artist. Not like that. Or at all.” A hysterical bark of laughter bubbled up from my throat and escaped before I could stop it. “When could I? All I do is study and work with you two here. When the hell would I have had the time to pose like… that? Or at all?”
They sympathized with me as I struggled to get a few bites of breakfast down. I had to eat. I needed the energy for the longer walk that awaited me. But my appetite was gone. The hurt, the shame, the anger, it all coalesced in my stomach throughout breakfast, churning with anxiety.
Mom and Dad didn’t understand why someone would try to harm my reputation like this, oblivious to the bullying I suffered. Instead of telling them about how others treated me on campus, I downplayed it as a cruel joke, something that was likely to happen to anyone.
Deep inside, though, my anger burned hotter and hotter all morning.
By the time I reached campus and got to class, I was fuming. But no one could tell. I refused to show it. Even when Tiffany and Rachel laughed at me. When other students smiled and clearly reacted to seeing me in the room after the very public scandal of my being painted in a provocative way.
I took my seat, sighing at the relief of not being on my feet after that long walk.
“You okay?” Maxim leaned in to whisper. He frowned with concern, and I felt touched that he’d be sensitive toward my plight. Even he had seen it. I bet it was truly viral now.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” Not.
“So fine,” another student teased loudly, making a crude gesture at his dick. “You’re so fine, Sabrina. So fine that I’m going to?—”
“Enough,” Professor Angus said. She stared at me, though, almost as if she were furious with me. “Miss Rosario, before we proceed with our class, is there anything you’d like to say?”
I shook my head.
“Not even an apology?”
I furrowed my brow, walking a thin line between this calm I forced myself to project and the simmering frustration I harbored about this situation. “An apology to whom?” I challenged carefully but firmly.
“An apology to the department. The faculty. The university. Your classmates.” She crossed her arms and rested her hip on the desk at the front. “Your little publicity stunt tagged all of us. While you may decide to welcome debauchery into your life on your own time, your association to this program should not mean that we are all dragged through the mud with you.”
“Through the mud?” I raised my brows. “How was that painting a problem? Hmm? What is so wrong about a woman owning up to her sexuality, unafraid to embrace it?” I never let my feminism show too much because there was still clear sexism in the field of law. Right now, though, I couldn’t stop.
I stood, setting my hands on the desk as I stared her down. “ I owe no apology because I’ve done nothing. I never posed or sat for any artwork. I never voluntarily approved or welcomed my likeness to be used in any such artwork.”
Professor Angus tipped her chin up, giving me this chance to speak up. And I damn well would take it. This didn’t fit in my strategy of turning the other cheek or ignoring the bullying, but I was on a roll.
“Had I chosen to participate in any such artistic experience, I would stand by the freedom to express myself however I see fit, just like any other woman in this country should. The freedom of speech, of expression. The freedom from being censored by those who might not be mature enough to understand that just because a woman dares to show herself doesn’t mean she’s morally gray.”
“Yeah!” A classmate, someone in the front row, clapped. “You tell ’em.”
Professor Angus smiled slightly.
I wasn’t done, though. For a couple more minutes, I turned this scandal into a chance to share my thoughts about the topic. Of the patriarchy ruling over women’s rights. Of the careful balance of censorship in art. Of the bravery many women face in so many situations all over the world, each and every day.
It wasn’t often that I had the opportunity to speak unscripted like this. But I took it. Standing tall, I shot down the idea that I should be ashamed. Even though I’d never posed for any artwork, I stood up and rallied against the stigmatism that anything sexual had to be inherently bad or biased in artwork.
The irony killed me. I was defending Nick’s artwork when I was the target of his cruel stunt. But as I spoke up in class like this, championing women’s rights and the freedom from patriarchal censorship, I had to wonder why he’d done it. I grew more curious about what was in it for him to want to try to hurt me like this. I’d never done anything to him. Sure, I’d slapped him when he pushed me too far at the food bank by calling me a slut, but that was nothing more than putting him in his place.
Finally running out of breath from the nonstop ramble in the vein of self-defense, I sat down and tried to rein in my emotions. It was a rush to speak up like that. It was rejuvenating. This spike in adrenaline woke me up, and I was damned proud that I’d said my piece like that.
Professor Angus watched me for a moment after I sat. Then she smiled slowly as she nodded. “Very impressive, Sabrina.”
I exhaled a long breath and acknowledged her praise with a nod of my own. “Thank you.”
“And that ”—she pointed at me—“is the passion we should exude in our pursuit of interpreting the law.” As she rounded the desk to begin her lecture, she glanced back up at me. “It’s also how any of you can hope to achieve a strong letter of recommendation for the summer internship.”
Oh, my God! I bit my cheek to keep from grinning. High on her praise, I relished the satisfaction of sticking up for myself. Elise would be so proud. I was proud. I was so damn proud of myself for turning a bad experience into a learning moment, into something good.
“What she say?” Maxim whispered as Professor Angus launched into her lecture.
I gave in to a smile now and slid my notebook over a little more so he could copy my notes.
The high I felt from Professor Angus’s praise didn’t last forever, though. As soon as class was over, I hurried to find Elise out on the campus square. Unfortunately, Tiffany and Rachel blocked me at the door to reach the sunshine outdoors.
“You are such a pathetic slut,” Rachel sneered.
I didn’t react, keeping my lips shut and merely glancing at them.
“Yeah. A trashy slut,” Tiffany added, glancing around in case anyone would overhear her badmouthing me. “Mark my words, whore.” She narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what bullshit you said back there. Everyone on campus will make sure you never live this down.”
They stalked away with the last word, and as I watched them get smaller in the distance, I tried not to let their cruel words hit me harder.
Everything online lived forever. No one would forget this incident. All I could hope for was for the excitement about it to die down and fade soon. Once that Daniela handle posted something else by another artist, the hype about Nick’s painting would fade. Just like it had when Nick suggested I’d been in a wet T-shirt contest, this would become old news.
It had to.
Yet, as I felt the familiar burn of his stare on my back, I turned to see him hanging around in the hallway and watching me.
Always following me.
Is it worth it?
I had no clue how to decipher his interest in making my life hell. I didn’t want to let him have an ounce of power over me, making me feel so vulnerable and exposed like this.
If I remained here in this program and stayed in the fight, would he ever back off?
What do you want from me, Nick?
What are you trying to do to me?
Did he pull that painting stunt to get back at me for slapping him?
I hung my head as I turned around to go outside. Pushing the door open, I waited for the sunshine to warm me up and soothe my frayed nerves. It’d been a roller coaster of emotions since the moment I got up.
I couldn’t begin to guess what Nick wanted from me. All I could cling to was the fledgling determination to not let him get to me—ever.