30
Waking in the middle of the night to the white-blue glow put off by a phone screen, it took me a moment to figure out that I was still in my bed in my dorm. A quick glance at the clock on the microwave on top of the dorm fridge told me it was after two o’clock in the morning. We’d been asleep for nearly four hours. Theo was lying in the bed next to me, on the side of the bed by the wall. He was propped up in bed, his phone out, staring at it. Rolling over to face him in the near darkness, I cleared my throat of sleep.
“What are you doing?”
I asked sleepily.
When he didn’t answer, I reached over, laying an arm across his middle and squeezed him.
“Are you a zombie?”
I asked, feigning fear. “Did I wake up to an apocalypse?”
Theo chuckled nervously as he continued to stare down at his phone.
Having Theo ignore my questions a second time immediately made my gut start to twist. Him looking down at his phone in the middle of the night in a stupor could mean a variety of things. However, after the year we’d had at Midway, I assumed it meant one thing in particular. Something had happened on Peepers again. Ben had posted another video or the tide had turned and Theo and I were being flamed online once again.
I slid my hand up and wrapped my fingers around Theo’s wrist in the dark. When I tugged gently on his arm, Theo seemed to come out of a trance. His eyes shifted from the screen of his phone to look down at me lying next to him.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Theo took a deep breath, then sighed.
“Do you really want to know?”
Starting to sit up, I nodded.
“Yes,”
I said shakily. “What has you up in the middle of the night on your phone? Did something happen?”
Theo laid his phone in his lap, but didn’t lock it, so the blue glow of the screen kept our faces illuminated.
“Josh,”
he said softly, “I don’t know how to tell you this. I don’t even know if I want to tell you, to be honest. But you’re going to find out.”
I stared up at him, my guts twisting more.
“I know how shit like this feels,”
he continued, “and I want you to know that I’m here for you, okay? No matter what, I’m not going to go away. But—”
“For fuck’s sake.”
I sat up and glanced down at his phone screen before looking back up at him. Theo had put his phone on the home screen, so all I saw was little square apps. “Just tell me what’s got you acting all crazy.”
He chuckled nervously.
“Um,”
Theo said, “I’ll just show you. Okay?”
“Fine,”
I said, rushing him. “Just show me.”
Theo picked up his phone and began tapping the screen.
“Someone screen recorded this video,”
Theo began, “so it’s not the actual video, but…well, it’ll tell you exactly what happened.
Once Theo had found exactly what he was looking for, he handed me his phone. There was a paused video pulled up in the Peepers app on the screen. I took the phone from him and stared at the screen. Collin’s frozen face was staring out at me and someone had typed a title across his face that said “Exposed!”
in all capital white letters. Swallowing hard to keep the bile from rising in my throat, I tapped the screen to start the video.
Collin’s face began to move and he started speaking in what was obviously the middle of some speech he was giving to the viewers.
“—and so, he’s inviting Theo over right now to talk,”
Collin whispered urgently into the camera. I could tell from the wall behind him, he was in the bathroom down the hall from our room. “I’m going to sneak a phone in there. Once and for all, we’re going to prove that Theo Hendrix and Josh Montag are truly the pieces of shit Ben’s been telling you they are. All of you that have been defending them online are going to see what he’s been telling you all along is true!”
Clenching my throat, I watched as the phone moved and the scenery became jumbled and blurry as Collin began to move. I could catch glimpses of the bathroom, then the hallway, and finally, I heard the noise of our dorm door opening as he stepped inside.
“Sorry,”
Collin’s voice said quickly. “I forgot something. I’ll be quick!”
Then my voice on the phone replied, “Okay.”
The scene in the video was blurry as Collin approached his desk and then the view went still, and I saw myself sitting on my bed, staring down at my lap.
“Sorry,”
Collin said in the video. “I’m going. Good luck with Theo. Whenever you talk to him.”
The me in the video looked up at him. From the way the camera was positioned, it looked like Collin had hidden it behind one of his books in the stack on his desk.
“He’s on his way,”
video me said before Collin said, “Okay, I’ll get out of the way. I really am sorry. Again.”
Then Collin’s side showed in the video briefly and then I heard the sound of the door. A second later, Theo entered the room.
“Hi,”
Theo said in the video.
I tapped the screen and groaned. Then I tossed it to Theo. The phone landed in his lap, screen side up, casting our faces in blue as I stared at him. For some reason, Theo was grinning widely.
“What are you smiling about?”
I demanded, my stomach churning.
Theo shook his head in disbelief as he smiled. “You don’t get it. Your stupid ass roommate came in here, set up a phone to catch us talking to expose us, but all it did was catch me telling you about how Ben and I never dated and I never cheated on him. That’s why he rushed in here and rushed back out. If you watched it all the way through, you’d hear the whole conversation again, then him coming to get the phone, rushing out, then turning it off without saying anything.”
“Oh,”
I said, suddenly realizing that anyone who heard our conversation wouldn’t have heard anything bad—just personal. “Wait. Why the hell did he go ahead and post it? Also, oh my fucking God, what a fucking creep!”
I sat up straighter.
“He came in here and fucking recorded us—in my bedroom—without asking us!”
I exclaimed.
Theo grabbed my thigh and squeezed it.
“I know,”
he said. “I know. But calm down. There’s nothing we can do about that. Right now. But the thing is, the dumbass had it on live—so it was being sent out over Peepers in real time. People were watching it as it happened, and a lot of people screen-recorded it.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Apparently,”
Theo said slowly, grinning, “everyone is pissed at Ben and Collin. Pissed at Ben for lying and pissed at Collin for helping Ben do something this fucking creepy to expose us for something we never did. Ben has turned off all comments on his account and made it private. Collin deleted his already. People are out for blood.”
I couldn’t help it. I grinned—even though my stomach was still in knots.
“Everyone is dueting that video and others like it, talking about how Ben is a snake and Collin should be chased out of town and stuff,”
Theo said. “And I had to turn off my notifications because the amount of people leaving comments of support is crazy. I’m sure your phone is probably full of notifications, too.”
I glanced over at the bedside table, finally noticing that it was vibrating nonstop on the hard surface. Reaching out, I was going to check my phone, but a knock at the door made both Theo and I jump. We exchanged a look, and I slowly slid out of bed, my bare feet connecting with the icy floor of the dorm room. Tentatively, I tiptoed over to the door and cracked it open. Light from the hallway poured through, and I was greeted with the faces of at least ten students crowded around my doorway.
“Josh!”
A girl in the front exclaimed. “We wanted to come tell you how sorry—”
All of the other students around her started to join in, one message indecipherable from the next. I listened for a moment, squinting against the light of the hall, before raising a hand.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning, guys,”
I said, stopping them. “It’s nice that you all came to say…stuff…but I want to go back to bed. We’ll talk later. Okay?”
All of them were nodding their heads, agreeing verbally and talking over each other to again tell me how sorry they were for us. I waved them all off in as friendly a manner as possible.
“Goodnight!”
I announced, then shut the door.
Turning to face Theo, still on the bed, I shook my head in disbelief. I could hear the mob in the hallway discussing things amongst themselves. It was two o’clock in the morning on a school day, so I wasn’t sure what any of them were up for anyway. Maybe they were all late-night study buddies. Or maybe when one person saw the drama on Peepers, they all began a prayer chain. I had no clue. Regardless, it sounded like more people in the dorm hallway were exiting their rooms and joining the chaos. Another knock came to the door, but I simply shouted for everyone to let us sleep.
Theo grinned at me from his spot on the bed. Not knowing what else to do, I tiptoed back over to the bed and slipped back in next to him. We didn’t lay back down, but instead, sat together, our backs propped against the headboard, the covers pulled over us. Theo wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and mine went around his middle.
And we sat there, saying nothing, listening to the sounds of the mob in the hallway that was gathering and organizing to kill Collin and Ben. Even if we had wanted to go back to sleep, we never would have been able. Turning off our phones would have blocked out the buzzing sounds from all of the notifications, but the noise in the hallway only got louder. Apparently, our entire floor—and maybe students from other floors—were going to have meetings about the drama for the rest of the night.
Finally, as the sun started to come up, and the dark of the room melted away, the noise in the hall began to return to something that was normal. The sounds of students breaking up and rushing around to get ready for classes began. Theo and I continued to hold each other, wondering what it was that we were supposed to do. Going down to the bathrooms to get ready was probably not the best idea. We’d only get cornered by more people with questions and comments—which is the last thing you want to happen in a communal bathroom.
“Skip classes today?”
Theo asked quietly.
“Might be best,”
I responded quietly and squeezed him again. “Just today, though.”
He nodded, his chin rubbing against the top of my head.
So, Theo and I continued to lay there in bed until the sun was shining brightly through the windows, filling the room. Yawning, I held Theo as the sounds in the hall swelled, then slowly began to die off. When the sounds all but disappeared, I glanced over at the clock on the microwave again. It was a few minutes after eight o’clock. The first classes of the morning had begun.
Finally, I slid my arms from around Theo and turned to slide out of bed. He yawned and stretched as I stood up. Now that there were less people around to cause problems, I wanted to get a long shower, change into clean clothes, and figure things out. Theo and I would need to have some breakfast and talk out some kind of strategy for what we were going to do about Peepers, the video, and what everything meant.
Before I could say anything to Theo or grab my bathroom supplies, another knock came at the door.
“Ignore it,”
Theo said from the bed.
I chuckled and headed to my closet.
When another, more demanding, knock came, I looked over at Theo. He shrugged. Sighing, I shuffled over to the door and swung it wide. Dusty, our resident advisor, was standing at the doorway, looking as befuddled as usual.
Cocking an eyebrow at him, I said, “Yeah?”
“I figured you’d be in here,”
Dusty said, grinning impishly. “Student Affairs wants a meeting with you.”
He looked over my shoulder at Theo on the bed, a look of surprise on his face for a moment.
“And you,”
he said, getting himself together. “At ten o’clock.”
My stomach sank and I glanced over my shoulder at Theo to see his face falling. Knowing there was no point in ignoring the request for a meeting with Student Affairs, I turned back to Dusty.
“Are we in trouble?”
I asked. “Because we didn’t do—”
He shrugged and cut me off. “They just asked me to tell you two to be there at ten o’clock for a meeting. They didn’t sound happy, though.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Dusty.”
He gave me an encouraging look, though it didn’t help, and walked away. So, I closed the door and turned to lean back against it. Theo was sitting on the edge of the bed now, looking completely defeated.
“Well,”
I said, “after all of this, Collin and Ben have their final revenge. We ignored their bullshit, tried to take the high road. They lied and did creepy shit. And we’re still getting screwed. Midway’s going to boot us out of here to avoid a scandal.”
Theo closed his eyes tightly, as though in pain. We both waited in silence for the other to come up with something to help the situation. After a minute, it was obvious that neither of us knew what to do. So, I broke the silence first.
“Showers?”
Theo turned his head to look at me and nodded.
“Showers. I like to be clean before my execution,”
Theo said. “I guess this isn’t the first university I’ve had to leave.”
I didn’t want to laugh, but what else could I do?
“Stay right there,”
Theo said. “If you try to move again, I’ll tie you down. And not in the way you like.”