Elijah #7
A pained look crossed her face, but she reluctantly reached into her pocket and drew out her phone.
There was no analog clock in the apartment, but I could still feel the ticking of the seconds as she unlocked her screen and scrolled for less than a minute, but each second felt like eternity.
She stopped messing with her phone, gave another soft noise and handed the phone to me with a look of apology.
The video had music playing, but there were no voices, just the written message at the bottom of the screen, ‘Cresson Points’ Pretty Boy Brother Duo should probably take themselves down to Alabama.
’ It was a crude comment that would undoubtedly make the user very few friends from the south, but the video the words were stamped onto really had my attention.
“Fuck,” was all I could manage because there we were, the video looping a few times to show the two of us sneaking out of the showers at the gym.
A filter covered our groins, but the filter might as well have been a glaring sign that said we were naked.
..naked with our hands on each other in very much not a brotherly fashion.
The camera was good enough to make out the fact that there were fresh marks on Milo’s neck, show the flush in our cheeks, and fuck me, you could even see the swelling of our lips from how hard we had been kissing one another.
After it had looped a few times, it began to show pictures from our accounts, which were just..
.normal videos and photos of the two of us.
There were the ‘thirst traps’ we’d done, which were mild compared to other people, but with the context of the looping video, even the respectful distance we put between each other as we posed to show off at Milo’s insistence looked suggestive.
As did the video of Milo going skinny dipping, the ones where we were showing off the food we got together for a perfectly normal night, us together at the beach, huddled up close to both be in the frame, but now made to look like two lovers enjoying a day out.
“I don’t know who this is,” Milo said as he gripped Eva’s phone so tightly that I didn’t blame her for carefully extracting it from his grip before he broke the screen. “Who is this user?”
“He’s...a small-time anti-influencer influencer,” Eva said with a wince as she checked her phone before tucking it away.
“At least most people think it’s a he. His whole thing is hunting down influencers in real life and finding them doing shit that makes them look bad to their audience.
He’s had a few hits that were drowned out quickly, but this one.
..well, his follower count has shot through the roof, and you guys are pretty much his rise to fame right now. ”
“That was at the gym,” Milo said faintly, his eyes wide but seeing nothing as he stared at the wall. “I bet...I bet it was that guy. The one we flipped off.”
I thought about that for a moment, trying to think who he was talking about, until a spark flashed in the storm of confusion and a face bubbled up from the depths.
Right, the jackass that hadn’t known how to take no for an answer.
There had been only one time where Milo and I had done something like that in public, and yeah, it had been the day that jackass and his friend had been there.
“We can’t know for sure,” I said, even though someone else had obviously been in that locker room without us being any the wiser.
I had been so confident that we would hear someone coming and have plenty of warning.
Clearly, that was not the case, and now everything was out in the open. ..to everyone and their grandmother.
“Does it matter?” Milo demanded in a slightly hysterical tone, turning to start pacing. “Anyone with an internet connection will be able to see this. Christ, did you see the views? How many comments there were? People have probably been stitching it left and right. We’re so fucked right now.”
“Now wait,” I began desperately because I could see Milo working himself up into one of his freak-outs, and it would probably be the freak-out to define all freak-outs. If I didn’t get ahead of him...I didn’t actually know what he’d do. “There’s nothing that’s promised right now.”
“Are you shitting me?” he practically wheezed, gesturing to the phone in Eva’s hand, the poor woman looking how I imagined Pandora must have looked when she opened that box for the first time and realized what shit she had accidentally unleashed on the world.
“Anyone who wants to know about this either knows or will know, and anyone who doesn’t even care to know can find out by accident because it’s blowing up!
We’re the circus freaks of the modern age right now.
Everything, our jobs and income, our friendships, our family , all of it, dead in the goddamn water, and I just?—”
“Milo,” I pleaded because I could see his face was splotchy from the color rising in his cheeks that had otherwise drained of color, and sweat was starting to bead on his forehead.
He reached up to grip his face, which made me wince. “It’s?—”
I didn’t realize why he stopped until he pulled out his phone, and I saw it was lit up with a call.
My stomach twisted when I saw Raf’s face and name on the call screen, and I could practically hear Milo’s heart trying to scream its way out of his chest. Before I could even think of what to say, to make that even remotely better, I winced when I heard my phone ring.
Pulling it out, I saw Moira’s name and face on my screen.
..and Moira almost never called me. The last time had been to tell me Kayden was in the hospital, injured on the job.
“Fuck,” Milo said in a voice that was full of rage and equal amounts of despair. “No, no, no.”
“Milo,” I breathed, trying to control my panic before muting Moira's call. Once it ended, I silenced my phone so I didn’t have to flinch whenever the thing went off. “We just need to take a moment and not lose?—”
“Too late!” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m already losing my mind! It’s so lost that it’s probably three states over, and if it’s smart, it’s going to keep going. I just...I’m sorry, Eli, but I fucking can’t .”
I opened my mouth to repeat his name, but he had already whirled around and was practically sprinting down the hallway. My heart sank when I heard thumps from his room, most likely his closet if I were a betting man.
“What is he doing?” Eva asked in a soft voice.
“Packing,” I answered in a faint voice.
“To go where ?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“And you’re not going to stop him?”
What could I say to that? About as much as I could do, knowing Milo was getting ready to flee to who knew where.
My head was packed with screaming masses of panicked and despairing thoughts.
What could I say to Milo that would get him to break out of his meltdown when I couldn’t find one issue with what he was saying?
We were supposed to have time to deal with it, to be able to sit down and sort through things and figure out what was going to happen next.
Instead, that choice had been made for us, and I could only mutely watch him come down the hall with a large bag thrown over his shoulder, his face twisted into a mix of terror and trying to keep himself from screaming his feelings.
He barely looked at Eva as he passed, but only looked at me when he reached the door and began pulling on his shoes.
He stared at me for several heartbeats, and I could see him struggling to find something, anything at all to say.
I wasn’t surprised or upset when all he managed was a whispered “I’m sorry” before he thumped out of the apartment.
It wasn’t like I had anything I could say either.