Page 13 of Swallow Your Sorries

I rush to the door and lock it before bolting for his phone. It’s just like my new one, but in hunter green and thankfully still unlocked.

I check the conversation between us where he texted himself, but the thread’s gone.

Fuck!

I exit his messages and skip over to the gallery.

Please don’t have a passcode. Please don’t—

No code!

I’m in.

My fingers are stiff and numb as I clumsily rush through his media files. There aren’t many, a few pictures with some teenage boys who look just as devastatingly handsome as he is. They’re on the lacrosse pitch, at some fancy parties, and on a yacht with some equally pretty girls.

I don’t know why my heart sinks at their pearly white smiles and super glossy hair. Maybe it’s because I’ve always wanted to be like those girls and be friends with those girls. But girls like this didn’t live in my government housing neighbourhood, nor did they attend my under-funded public junior high. They went to Beaulieu Academy and spent their free time in Saint Barts.

I shake my head and get back to my mission. The locker room isn’t that far away. I scroll and scroll, but I still can’t find the footage.Had he deleted it?

I go back to his folders, my heart pounding louder against my eardrums with each one I open and close. Glancing through the classroom window, I freeze as someone darts past, but it’s only a gangly girl from the intermediate class.

Come on.

Come on.

I click the last unnamed folder and it’s as if the heavens have opened up and rained sunshine upon me because there it is, in all its two-hundred and forty-pixel quality glory. I hit share before realising that sending it to my old number is useless until I can switch it over to a new SIM card. Not that I’d bother. I have less than ten contacts anyway, besides I need access to itnow.

I press the e-mail icon instead and attach the video, typing in the first letter B to my email address, [email protected]. If the number isn’t obvious enough, I was seven when I made it and obsessed with Barbie and James Bond, which I probably shouldn’t have been watching. Not that Jarett gave a fuck.

I’ve been meaning to create a new address since forever, but it always slips my mind until I need to use it. You’d think the subsequent shame and cringeyness as I scribble it on official forms would finally stop my procrastination, but eight years later and I’m still Barbiegirl007.

I’m about to add the A when footsteps from the hallway startle me and I freeze again, my thumb sliding across the screen. A glance out the window shows the top of the caretaker’s grey hair and I relax, gazing back at the email. But my relief is short-lived as my stomach plunges through my asshole and onto the floor.

I’d sent the email to someone else on his list. Someone who’d popped down from theBI’d [email protected].

Beaussip?That sounded almost as cringe as my email. Maybe it’s someone’s old address from primary school. Someone who didn’t even use it anymore…

What did it matter? If the email is in use, the person would just think it’s porn spam. He could just tell them that he’s been hacked if they ask. No big deal.

Yeah, it’s no big deal that Madame and my father’s sex tape is now in another set of virtual hands.

It’s fine.The video’s a little fuzzy and you can’t see their faces clearly, right?I ask myself as the video plays and Madame stares almost directly into the camera. I squint at the screen and tilt my head, trying to make her as blurry as possible.There. See? It’s fine.

Then why does fear crawl across my spine like an icy tarantula? Madame’s a prominent figure in the dance community, but would people outside of ballet recognize her?

With trembling fingers, I send the video to the right email this time, before grabbing my bag and checking that the hallway is clear.

“Shouldn’t you be making your way home, Eloisa? Don’t the buses stop at 7?”

I nearly jump out of my skin as Madame calls to me from an open doorway across the hall. A few older girls I don’t recognize giggle like a gaggle of geese behind their hands at the wordbus.They must be from the advanced class.

I don’t have time for their classist shit right now. I’d accomplished my mission with the email. Now it’s time to confront Mum and finally get us away from Jarett.

I’m about to storm off without a word when Madame’s phone screen shines with a notification, one that’s pinging all around the room as the girls dig into their designer, warm-up tracksuit pockets. I can see the little email icon across a few dozen screens…

Why’s everyone getting an email at the same time?

Maybe it’s from the dance academy.

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