Chapter 31 Caulder #2
“Wait,” she says. The video pans over it all: the tables decorated with bouquets of flowers, a balloon arch over the DJ, a 360 photobooth in the corner. Lucas going out on the dance floor, filming through the shimmering lights as different bodies rush in front of his lens.
A pretty girl with bright red lipstick takes his hand and spins in front of him, her silver dress sparkling as she twirls.
Her smile is wide and catching, but I wonder if she’s smiling for Lucas or for the camera.
Other people do this, too, as Lucas progresses through the crowd.
They see the light of his phone, the telltale sign of filming, and shimmy in front of him, beaming or posing or shouting their school’s name.
A sea of faces joyfully caught in his footage, though I notice he speeds through these interactions.
Of course he does. Lucas never wanted canned poses. He wanted real.
He finds it, too, in the corners of the ballroom.
A girl hiding tears behind manicured hands captures his attention for several moments; then she rises and disappears into a bathroom.
A pair on the dance floor, bodies inching closer and closer, until a chaperone parts them.
A boy sipping from a golden flask that he slips into his pants pocket.
Lucas walks away from the party, down a set of carpeted stairs, and—
Oh no. Oh god no. She’s got to stop.
“We don’t need this,” I say. “Here, let me—”
But Avery must have realized what’s on this video. She pulls the phone closer to her as understanding dawns.
Because this isn’t enough for Lucas. These are small moments, not the big, dramatic ones I know he’s always chasing.
The DJ’s roaring playlist is diluted to a dull thumping sound in the background as Lucas continues through a dark hallway, until there, at the end, are two figures. Their hands roaming over each other.
Lucas edges closer. He’s turned off his flash, but I can still see the figures clearly.
A tall, broad-shouldered boy wearing a black sweater that clings to his arms. His hands are tangled in a girl’s brown hair.
He has her face tilted up to his, and he’s kissing her hungrily, devouring her, and she’s kissing him back.
She arches up to him, her red skirt riding higher on her leg.
She gasps, and the sound fills me with horror, and… Yeah, okay. It’s really fucking hot.
“I guess that’s one way to answer,” the boy says, sounding like a complete asshole.
“Shut up,” the girl says, and he listens. He kisses her back, hungry again.
“Oh my god,” Avery says, staring at the video of me and her kissing.
Shit. I told Lucas to delete this. The second he came to me and told me what he’d caught, I told him it better not ever see the light of day. And he promised me—swore on his channel—that he had.
“Avery, I had no idea,” I say. “I mean, that’s not true. Lucas told me. But I told him to delete it. I thought he did.”
Her eyes are wide. She’s shell-shocked, Lucas’s phone teetering precariously in her fingertips.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We agreed it never happened, right? It never happened. It was a mistake.”
I want to tell her that we didn’t agree to that. She went to her room after an incredible fucking kiss and then told me the next morning that it never happened, to forget it, that it was a mistake. She didn’t give me a choice.
“I’ll just delete it,” she says, and she can’t be serious, can she? Not after tonight. She has to realize that—
But as she goes to delete, she swipes to the next video. And it’s her in a hallway again, but I’m not there this time.
Mr. Jay is.
Thankfully, they’re not doing what Avery and I were doing. They’re arguing. It’s the same argument I heard in person—I must be around the corner—and it’s just as awful replayed on video.
“It’s about charm and charisma. Two things you’ll never have,” he’s telling her. He looks wild, eyes jumping back and forth, pacing the hall, then returning to stab his finger in her face.
I hate that the Avery on the screen is crying. I hate that she looks shattered. I hate that he is doing this to her. I could kill him for it, until I remember he’s already dead.
“You said you believed in me,” she says, lip quivering. “You said I had potential.”
“Clearly, I was wrong,” he says. “All you are is excuses.”
He turns to walk away. This is when I left also.
This is when I thought the conversation was over, when I realized Avery could turn around at any moment and walk down the hall and see me.
But Lucas followed her—his camera tracks her in the video, zooms in so he stays far enough away.
It watches as she steps up behind Jay and hits him on the shoulder, causing him to whirl around.
“I defended you!” she snarls. “There was a guy tonight. He said his older brother went to school with you at USC. He told me to be careful around you.”
For the first time in the video, Mr. Jay looks unmoored. His expression twists, and when he speaks, it’s with slow, measured words.
“Be careful, Avery,” he says. “Spreading rumors is a dangerous thing.”
“He said you went after young girls,” she says, breathing hard. “He said you’re a creep. He said they wouldn’t want someone like you hanging around high schoolers.”
Now he holds up his hands as he walks toward her, and she backs away. “Avery, you can’t just make stuff up about someone. I’m a human being. I have a reputation.”
“A reputation that’s clearly bullshit,” she says. “What else are you hiding? What else have you done?”
“Avery,” he says. “Let’s think this through.”
“You’re despicable,” she snaps. “I wish you’d never come to this school. I wish you were dead.”
The video cuts out, leaving me and Avery in silence. I look at her, at the darkness in her eyes.
At the phone that contains the video showing that, twenty-four hours before he was murdered, she said she wanted Mr. Jay dead.