Chapter Twelve #2
I looked around and saw that most people seemed to be staring at their phones and then looking at Harrison.
It was unusually quiet in the diner, though there was a low buzz of conversation, as if people were whispering.
I frowned. What was going on? I glanced over and saw Aubrey looking at me with a sort of creepy smile, and a chill washed over me.
“Excuse me,” a pretty woman tapped on my shoulder. “Are you Sadie?”
I studied the girl’s face, wondering if maybe we’d had a class together. I didn’t recognize her. “Yes.”
She nodded, a grim look on her face. “Can you come over here with me for a minute? I know you don’t know me, but this is important.”
There was something in her voice that made me follow her.
“Look, I’m going to show you this because I wished someone would have helped me out a couple of years ago. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“What’s this about?” I asked the girl.
“I would want someone to tell me if I was in the same situation.”
“What situation?” I was beginning to feel nauseated, and my heart was beating too fast.
A group of girls walked past me giggling. “Sorry, Sadie,” one of them said in a sing-song voice while the rest collapsed with laughter.
I frowned. “No problem,” I said, even though I had no clue what she was talking about. I turned my attention back to the stranger.
“Do you know Aubrey Seeks?”
The pit in my stomach turned into a sinkhole. “Yes.”
She nodded. “Look at this.” She turned her phone around. It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. At first, I thought she was some weirdo who showed porn to random strangers in restaurants. But then I recognized the people in the video.
My reaction was visceral. I felt like a knife had been stabbed right through my heart.
“Oh my God.” I covered my mouth as I watched a video of Aubrey going down on Harrison. My heart plunged into my stomach, and I thought I was going to be sick. I pushed the phone away.
“There’s more,” she said apologetically. “I just don’t want him to lie to you and tell you it only happened once.”
I nodded, unable to say anything. My heart was pounding so hard I wondered if I might have a heart attack.
I swiped to the next video. Aubrey was in his lap, riding him, and he was lifting her up and down his cock.
I swiped to the next video, feeling more and more horrified.
Aubrey was in his bed on all fours while he held her hips and drove into her from behind.
I pushed the phone away in disgust when the next video showed him performing anal on Aubrey, his head thrown back in ecstasy. “How many more?” I whispered.
The girl put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Just a couple. As far as I can tell, there are six videos that stretch over a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks was bad enough, but what if it had really been the whole summer? Did it start as soon as I left? God, I was such a fool. What if it had been going on even longer? Had he been sleeping with her all year?
A sudden wave of dizziness passed over me, and I thought I might faint.
I leaned against the wall in the diner, trying to suck in air.
It felt too… crowded, too close, like I was breathing in everyone else’s air.
I knew I had to get outside soon, but I wasn’t sure I could make it without fainting at that moment.
A couple of more people passed me, both of them saying, “Sorry, Sadie,” and laughing. I stared at them in confusion, not comprehending what was happening.
My thoughts were on Harrison and Aubrey.
Had they laughed at me together after I’d bought the story that they’d gone out to eat with a group from class the day I left town? Had they mocked my text messages and voicemails?
The girl looked incredibly sympathetic. “Look, Aubrey wanted to break me and my ex-boyfriend Ben up a couple of years back. So, she did. It wasn’t even difficult for her,” she said bitterly.
“But just remember… it takes two people to make a choice like this. My ex tried to blame her completely like she put a spell on him or something. Just don’t let him tell you he wasn’t responsible, too.
” She gestured at Harrison, then took back her phone. I was happy to return it.
“Wait.” I grabbed her arm before she could leave. “How did you find this video?”
She winced. “It’s all over social media. Aubrey posted it to all of her accounts. She tagged you and Harrison in each video.” She looked grimly around the restaurant. “You need to get out of here while you still can. I don’t think many people realize that you’re Sadie yet.”
“What do you mean?”
She held the phone back up and showed me that I’d been tagged in every single video and each video said #SorrySadie in the captions. “Um… if you listen to the first video with sound, you can hear Harrison saying, “Sorry, Sadie” after he cheats the first time.”
That’s why people were saying that to me. I put a hand on my stomach. My brain felt detached, numb. I couldn’t even process just how horrible this betrayal was.
“Sorry, Sadie,” a guy said as he pushed past me, laughing. He looked back at me, though, and seemed to have a brief moment of regret when he saw my face. Then his friends joined him and they were suddenly all looking at me and laughing. “We’re available, honey,” a couple of them called out.
My God. I wasn’t just going to be a laughingstock between Aubrey and Harrison, or even the whole campus. From what I could see, the hashtag and videos were already going viral. I needed to get somewhere safe and delete all my social media since she’d tagged me.
I didn’t even realize I was standing back by our table until the girl patted me on the shoulder and said, “I’m really sorry. I hope you find someone who actually deserves you.” Then she walked off and disappeared in the crowd.
“What the hell?” Harrison looked pissed. “Why would she say that?”
I just stood there in a daze, the people in the diner moving around me had become a blur.
I’d worried about Aubrey and Harrison being friends.
But I’d decided to trust him. I’d had suspicions, of course, especially lying in my bed at night after he wasn’t texting me.
But I thought they might have kissed or become very close friends.
I didn’t realize he was capable of… the level of cheating in those videos.
It was so much worse than I could have ever anticipated.
Without a word to my friends or Harrison, I pushed my way out of the diner.
I got as far away as I could before becoming violently ill in the bushes.
I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
It wouldn’t be long before everyone recognized me from my pictures on social media.
I just wanted to get away from all of this.
It didn’t even feel real. It was like a waking nightmare.
I started jogging. It was three or four miles to my sorority house, but that was no big deal.
As part of training for the cheerleading squad, we had to log a certain number of miles a week.
I was glad I’d worn tennis shoes. And the physical activity would help clear my head.
It would also help with the anger starting to wash over me.
How could he have done this? It was one thing to cheat on me.
But to take part in something this horrible? It was as if he’d wanted to destroy me.
What had I ever done to him except love him? Had this been his way of getting me back for not staying at Carruthers this summer?
The skies opened suddenly, and the rain fell in sheets. I didn’t care. In fact, it felt right, like I was being cleansed of something ugly, something horrible.
I couldn’t believe that Harrison, the boy I’d loved, the boy I’d devoted years of my life to, the man I’d planned to marry one day…
had hurt me in such a horrible, public way.
But I was afraid if I thought about it too much, I’d end up just lying in a field along the side of the road and crying myself silly.
So, I pushed the thoughts down and just jogged.
In the rain. Towards a sorority house that Aubrey also lived in.