Page 48 of Unhinged Love

“She’s got great tits,” somebody says, which makes me look at the TV. Somebody switched off the porn while I was asleep—now it’s an action movie where things are exploding and shrapnel is flying. What tits are they talking about?

“It’s always the quiet ones,” somebody else decides, laughing. “The way she always walks around, all covered up, you would never know she’s got that body underneath.”

“I wonder if she thought about starting an OnlyFans page.”

“Shit, I might actually pay for that. But don’t tell anybody.”

I’m still foggy, slow, but I think I’m starting to understand, at least a little. It sounds like they’re talking about Elliana, but why would they be? Who else do I know who always walks around covered up, though? They must be talking about her.

“Oh, there he is.” One of the guys from the football team jerks his chin at me when he notices me looking around. “You’ll have to thank your stepsister for giving me something to beat off to tonight. Don’t tell me you haven’t already done it.” He laughs, making the guys around him laugh, too.

“What the hell are you talking about?” And that’s when I finally see his phone in his hand. Everybody’s holding their phones, laughing, talking about what’s on their screens.

My hand is trembling when I reach over to grab my phone. This is impossible. I’m dreaming this, right? There’s no fucking way.

But there is. I don’t want to believe what I see, but I can’t deny it as I scroll through the texts that came in while I was basically unconscious. All of them are replies to the text I sent, only I didn’t send it. I couldn’t have.

I wouldn’t have actually sent out those photos of Elliana to everybody. I threatened it. I seriously thought about it, but I wouldn’t have done it. And considering I wasn’t awake, I definitely didn’t. But somebody did.

“Where is Briggs?” I bark, standing up, looking around.

“He left a little while ago,” somebody calls out. “I didn’t know you were such a great photographer!”

“Get fucked,” I snarl. Again, I look down at my phone, wishing somebody would tell me this is a joke. A text from Maya tells me it definitely isn’t.You are dead for this. How could you?I want to tell her it wasn’t me, but who was it?

“Who did this? Who fucking sent these pictures out?” I could kill somebody. I’ve never been so close to committing violence in my life. I only thought I was before now. All these smirking, laughing assholes—totally clueless, not giving a shit about anybody but themselves and the next thing that will distract them from life for a little while.

“Tiana!” One of the guys calls out, almost singing her name. “Somebody wants to talk to you!”

I should have fucking known the second I saw the text. Who else would do something that wretched? I don’t know how she got away with it without somebody stopping her—Briggs left, Kellan was busy hosting everybody. If anyone else noticed, they probably figured it was all a joke anyway and didn’t bother trying to stop her.

“Where the fuck is she?” I’m as close to murder as I can be without actually ending her miserable life as I march through the house, knowing she’s not smart enough to leave after pulling some shit like this.

When I find her in the kitchen, I don’t stop marching until I have her backed against the glass doors leading outside. “You are lucky I don’t put you through this fucking door,” I growl, leaning in. Something in my face makes her eyes bulge and hermouth fall open. “How dare you? You went into my phone. You sent those fucking pictures out to everybody? What is wrong with you?”

“Maybe you need to ask yourself that question,” she sneers, but her voice is shaking. She’s only pretending she isn’t scared. She should be scared.

“Stay away from me, and I mean forever,” I whisper. “Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t come near me. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist—and believe me,” I add, “you want it that way. Because otherwise?”

Slamming my fist against the door, close to her head, seems to get the point across. She looks horrified, stricken, and she deserves to. She deserves much worse.

But right now, there’s someone else on my mind, someone much more important. Someone I rush home to while trying like hell to get her on the phone. “It’s me again,” I announce when I get Elliana’s voicemail for the third time. “Just answer the phone, okay? Or call me back, something. I’ll be home soon. We need to talk.”

Am I naïve to think there’s a chance she doesn’t know yet? Who am I kidding? If Maya saw the photos, I have no doubt she called Elliana right away to make sure she was all right. When I think of her being all alone in her room, the way she usually is, trying to deal with all the feelings this must bring up in her… I slam the heel of my hand against the wheel, cursing myself for taking those pictures and for keeping them in my phone to begin with.

She won’t care that I’m sorry, not that I blame her, but I have to try to get the message across. I’m out of the truck almost before I have the chance to put it in park, running up the front steps of my house with my heart pounding and blood rushing in my ears.

“Elliana?” I call out once I’m inside. The house is silent, the lights off except for in the kitchen. I run in there to look around—there’s a half-eaten sandwich on the counter, telling me she was having dinner when the world fell apart. Because of me, at the end of the day. Tiana sent those pictures out, but I’m the reason they existed.

My feet pound the floor, then the stairs, Elliana’s voice ringing out in my memory. Telling me about how she was bullied. How she could have died the night they threw her in the pool. All that defiance she hit me with in the cafeteria, reminding me she had already been through so much and that I couldn’t do any worse.

There is no way she won’t take this as my response.

The sound of her heartbroken sobs crushes me, but comforts me at the same time. She’s alive in her room, at least, with the door locked against me. I mean, everyone’s got to have a breaking point. She’s strong, but she’s not invincible.

Knowing she’s alive, if devastated, is still better than the alternative. “Elliana, I didn’t send those pictures out. It was Tiana. You’ve got to believe me. I fell asleep at Kellan’s after I told her off, and she was pissed, so she went into my phone to fuck with me.”

No response. “You know that’s the kind of thing she would do, right? I’m not making this up. Other people saw her do it. It wasn’t me.”

---