Page 89 of Leah

Creeping to me like some ninety-year-old woman, she slowly, with shaking hands, rested the magazine down.

What I saw would go down in history as the worst, most atrocious day of my life.

Twenty-Six

Leah

CARTER MATHESON SEX TAPE!!

For the thousandth time, I stared down at the caption, printed in bold offensive letters, across the magazine cover. Beneath the title was an image of Carter in bed with… me. Parts of our bodies were blurred out with these ridiculous looking stars. But it was painfully obvious it was us, though the actual image wasn’t in the best condition.

“She’s torturing herself right now, Rome,” hissed Melanie, outside the bathroom door. “You have to do something about this video!”

Huh.

I didn’t know they were talking again.

And was that… was that cellulite on my thighs?

No, no, they must have added that in.

Fuckers.

“Well, if you can’t stop the video from circulating, then maybe you can find out who’s responsible for putting it outthere! This is illegal!” She listened to his response before growling out, “What kind of person anonymously posts up a celebrity sex tape without wanting to get paid? That’s bullshit. You tell Carter to give her a call and sort this mess out.”

I wondered just then what Carter was thinking.

Would he call?

Would I answer?

She knocked on the bathroom door after getting off the phone with him.

“Leah,” she said sweetly, “please, open this door.”

I was in the tub, soaking among raspberry scented bubbles. The magazine itself was positioned on the toilet, facing me. I stared at it for minutes on end, hardly listening to Melanie’s pleas.

“Seriously, babe, I know it’s bad, but you can’t go through this alone.”

I sniffed and rubbed my eyes. Not crying. Just… you know, the soap got in my eyes, so… yeah.

“I have to open this door, you know,” she continued. “You’ve been quiet too long, and I don’t want to find out you’ve killed yourself.”

I wouldn’t kill myself over something like this, but I wanted to dig a hole to the centre of the earth and hide out there for a few years.

A minute later, the door clicked open and she strode in, holding a knife she’d used to jiggle the lock. She set it down and stood there, hands on her hips, looking at me buried under layers of half a bottle’s worth of bubble bath.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, absently gathering a stack of bubbles together. “I mean, the whole of North America has probably seen my bare ass, but, you know, that’s life, right?”

“It’s a very nice bare ass,” she replied on a high voice, trying to make me feel better.

“Yeah, it is,” I acknowledged, trying to believe in her bullshit.

“I mean, you look like you did squats with that ass.”

“I didn’t.”

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