Chapter Twenty-Two Kami
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kami
I couldn’t sleep all night.
Julian was Momo.
Julian was the bad guy.
Julian was the one who’d made that video and uploaded it to the internet.
Julian had pushed my friends away.
Why?
Why?
Why?
I couldn’t stop asking myself. I couldn’t understand why he had lied. Tricked me. Used me. Manipulated me.
Why did people like that exist?
But the worst was that I couldn’t get my head around how deep Julian’s manipulation had gone. He was a psychopath. He was the worst kind of psychopath, and at the time I still didn’t realize just how dangerous he was.
I thought of Kate. She was living under the same roof as someone completely deranged. The same guy who had written all those horrible messages under the pseudonym @omv_ovamat.
I thought of my brother… That bastard had been tormenting my poor little brother. He’d scared Cam enough to make him sneak into my room and steal my photos. He’d probably asked him to do other things: tell him where I went, who I was with…
Jesus!
What would I do when I saw him?
What would I do when he popped up with that fake smile stretching from ear to ear and I had to tell him that I knew everything? That I knew who he was, what his real name was. What he was doing, how he had lied to me.
I was scared. When things like this happen, you never know what it could lead you or others to do.
I was scared, and I felt rejected. Rejected by my friends.
I had tried to be real, to be sincere, and where had it gotten me?
All my ideals and beliefs seemed to be collapsing in around me just because one psychotic weirdo had decided to manipulate me and everyone close to me.
I thought of Thiago. Of everything he had done for me, everything he’d done to get to the bottom of what was going on.
I thought of how he looked at me, how he tried to protect me, and those messages he’d written warning me about Julian.
I thought of how I’d ignored him because I’d thought he was just jealous.
Things were bad, and I was even more scared of how they might turn out.
I thought of Danny. He was a dickhead, but he didn’t deserve what had happened to him. He’d been beaten up, shunned, called a rapist. That was my fault. I had never doubted he was behind all this; he was the only person who made sense.
Now I understood the importance of evidence.
You’re innocent until proven guilty, right? And yet the entire school, including me, had judged him for a crime he didn’t commit.
I couldn’t fix it.
But I needed to try.
I needed to say I was sorry.
I needed to let him know that he, too, was a victim of Julian.
Julian had piled on with everyone else, landing Danny in the hospital, supposedly to defend me!
How could a person be so horrible?
I called Danny and waited for him to pick up. It was around seven in the morning. Soon I’d be seeing everyone at school. I was scared of that, and I was scared of what Danny would say, but he needed to know what Julian had done.
“Yeah,” he said groggily.
“Danny, it’s me.” I knew I was probably the last person in the world he’d want to hear from.
“What do you want?” he asked bitterly.
“There’s something you should know…”
***
Thiago and Taylor drove me to school that day.
“As soon as we get there, I’m going to the principal,” Thiago said. “I’ll tell him everything I know. If we’re lucky, they’ll expel him on the spot. After that, you can go straight to the police, Kam. That fucker’s going to pay for what he’s done, for all his manipulation and lies.”
I was nervous. I didn’t want to see Julian; how could I talk to someone so two-faced?
“Don’t say anything to anyone else yet,” Thiago went on. “Things are already bad enough, and…”
Shit.
“Thiago, Danny knows,” I interrupted him. Taylor and Thiago looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“You told Danny?” Thiago shouted.
“I needed to apologize. People were calling him a rapist!”
“Dammit, Kamila! Danny Walker’s not going to wait for this to be solved peacefully!”
Thiago was right, we realized that as soon as we pulled into the lot.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
Danny was leaning on his SUV. Waiting. His friends were with him.
So they knew too, just as we did. Word got around fast in Carsville.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the entire school knew.
We didn’t even have time to get out of the car.
Julian was nearing the entrance when Danny and his friends surrounded him.
“Shit,” Thiago said.
“Don’t get involved,” his brother told him.
We were frozen in place. Were we wrong to stay back? Maybe. Probably. But sometimes people are more animal than human…and this was one of those times.
“So, you like lying to people, manipulating people?” Danny said. “You think it was funny to turn the whole school against me?” Everyone’s eyes were on him.
Julian looked around, not understanding what was happening.
“Did it make you feel like a man to punch and kick me in this parking lot, to break my arm?” Danny motioned to his friends, and they grabbed Julian by the arms so he couldn’t fight back.
“Let me go! What the fuck are you talking about? Why are you all defending him? He’s a fucking rapist!”
Danny’s fist struck Julian’s face, and blood splattered the ground. A crowd closed in on them, and we had to get out of the car and move closer to see what was happening.
Was I happy he was getting what he deserved?
Yes.
Did that make me a bad person?
Maybe.
But he had deceived me in every possible way. Julian Murphy had violated my trust, sexually assaulted me, he’d made me a laughingstock, an outcast.
And he needed to pay.
People moved aside to let us through. When Julian saw me, his expression changed.
“Kam, tell them to leave me alone!” he shouted with fear in his eyes.
Julian, scared?
That was something new.
I didn’t say a word.
I just stood there.
Watching.
And that made me as guilty as anyone for what happened and what was to come.
That’s something I’ll never forgive myself for.
“Julian Murphy lied to all of us! He’s the one who spray-painted the lockers! He’s the one who put that video of Kami on Instagram! He’s the rapist!” Danny shouted.
“I didn’t rape anyone!” Julian shouted, staring at me.
Again, Danny hit him in the face, using his good arm. “You liked that? Taking off Kami’s clothes and recording her without her permission?”
I felt my hands and legs starting to shake. Taylor, whose arm had been around my shoulder, stepped forward, and his brother instinctively embraced me.
“I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch,” Taylor said, stepping closer to Julian.
Julian’s head was down. The crowd seemed nervous. Thiago was as tense as a bowstring. Taylor punched Julian.
Danny cheered. “Who else wants to give this liar and manipulator what he deserves?”
Everyone was shouting and cursing.
“You know what I’m going to do?” Danny said. “Exactly what you did to Kami, you piece of shit.”
“I need to get out of here,” I told Thiago, but he just hugged me tighter, he didn’t move.
“Take off his clothes,” Danny told his friends.
Taylor didn’t participate. He just stood there watching as Danny’s friends did what he said, laughing the whole time.
Julian wriggled and screamed, “Leave me alone!”
“Come on, take out your phones! Record him! Put it all over the internet! After all, that’s what you did, isn’t it, Julian?”
Danny kicked Julian in the stomach, and he doubled over in pain. Taylor seemed to be supervising the whole thing. I wanted to get out of there; I didn’t want to be a part of this. Even if he deserved it, what they were doing wasn’t right. I believed in justice, and abiding by the law…
“Stop it!” Julian cried, but it was pointless. People were laughing. They stripped him naked as he crouched down, scared of getting hit again. Everyone snapped photos and took videos of him on their phones.
It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t right at all.
I was asking myself what would happen next when the principal and a bunch of teachers showed up. The last thing I saw before Thiago spun me around and whisked me away was Danny spitting in Julian’s face.
People dispersed in all directions. I noticed Kate was there, frozen, unable to believe what was happening.
“Come on, get in the car!” Thiago said, jumping into the driver’s seat.
“What about Taylor?” I asked as he started the engine. I couldn’t see him through the throng of students.
“Don’t worry about him. He probably ran off with the rest of them.” Thiago turned onto a quiet street. “We’re going to wait here for a little bit. I can’t have anyone thinking I was involved,” he said, resting his forehead on the steering wheel with a long sigh.
“Are you afraid of getting in trouble with the principal?” I asked as my heartbeat slowed to normal.
“I’m more afraid of losing control and doing something I’d regret if I see that piece of shit again.”
He eventually lifted his head and looked over, and in the silence, I felt my fear vanish.
“You didn’t deserve this, Kam,” he said, stroking my cheek.
I closed my eyes. He went on: “And I won’t stop until I know you’re safe at that damn school.”
“Thiago, you don’t have to keep worrying about me. You’ve done more than enough.”
“Nothing’s too much when it comes to you, Kam.”
I blinked and tried to keep from crying.
“I love you,” Thiago said. And for a moment, I was speechless.
“I have so many things I want to tell you,” I managed to say as he carefully wiped away my tears.
“Tell me in secret, and I promise whatever you say will stay with me forever.”
I looked into his beautiful green eyes, and I had to say it.
I couldn’t keep holding it in forever.
“I love you too, Thiago. I always have.”