#4 Truth and Nothing But

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  “Listen, Sloan. I know I’ve been going in so many different directions, but I am not at all pleased with these stunts you’re pulling to get attention.”

  All I could do was cross my arms and huff. I wasn’t trying to get attention.

  My dad continued, “You don’t have to harm your reputation to try to get people to notice you. You’re a beautiful girl. I know it’s hard because your sisters are too. A lot of people are looking at our family, but you’ve got so much going on for yourself. I don’t need you to make up lies or—”

  “Okay, okay, Dad. Enough.” I said “Mr. Brown gave me the picture,” I said.

  “Brown?”

  “Yes, the day of the election. I didn’t know everything going on with you and that lady. Then I saw her in the limousine at the football game last week, and a couple of other times I’ve seen her whispering in your ear. I even saw her calling your phone one time. It seems really suspect to me, that’s all.”

  “I can’t explain all that to you.”

  “Why, Dad? If it’s nothing to tell, why can’t you talk to me?”

  “Because it’s not your place, Sloan. I know you’re growing up, but baby you ain’t grown. I’m just real sad and disappointed that I’ve got to see my daughter showing her body for all the world to see. I mean who is this guy you sent this thing to? You like him that much? You ready to have sex? You know the ramifications of putting yourself out there like that? Some guy might see this and want you—rape you or something. I mean it’s just senseless, Sloan.”

  “Dad, I didn’t do this.”

  “I know you didn’t make the guy send it out to other people.”

  “No, I didn’t even take it of myself and send it to him. Like you said, I have too much self-worth to do anything that stupid.”

  “Then how did he get it?”

  I just looked out the window. I didn’t have an answer. I had been pondering over that question for over the last three days, playing all of the events over and over in my head, and still I came up with no explanation. My phone had a lock on it; plus, it was locked in my locker. When I got back from the shower, it was protected where I put it, though I didn’t look at it to see my recent pictures.

  “If you said you didn’t do it, Sloan, then we need to figure out what happened.”

  “Just forget it, Dad. I’ve already done my time.”

  “I’ve got to go in and talk to the principal, anyway. Was it other stuff going on at the school that I need to address? Anybody bullying you? Pressuring you? Anything?”

  “It’s lots of stuff going on at the school, but don’t worry about it.”

  “If I wasn’t worried about it, Sloan, I wouldn’t ask. Obviously, I care.” My dad was trying to get information, but I was so past it all at that point.

  When we got to school, we had to go straight to the principal’s office. My time was up. I didn’t understand why I had to be summoned again, but the counselor was there. Everybody wanted to make sure I was okay and that I understood how I was hurting myself by sexting.

  It was like I was transparent. Everybody was looking at me like they could see through my clothes—I guess because of the images that were floating around out there. I guess they could. I was trying to find enough strength to keep my head up high. I was thankful I had four escorts.

  “We’re not going to let you walk through all these stares and sneers without backup.” Slade looked over at me and said.

  “Yeah, if they got something to say about my sister, they’re gonna have to deal with me.” Shelby added.

  Ansli and Yuri put both of their arms in mine. I didn’t want to smile, but I couldn’t help it when I saw Yuri making goofy faces. She always cracked me up. She leaned in and said, “I need you to forgive me.”

  “What, you believe me now?”

  “No, but it shouldn’t matter. We’re young. I shouldn’t be mad at you because of your choices. Okay—well, maybe I should be mad at you, but I shouldn’t stay mad at you.”

  “Yeah, keep y’all’s sister covered up! Because she certainly won’t do it herself!” one guy yelled.

  “All y’all gon’ strip down? I can take the picture!” somebody else yelled. I wanted to scream. I guess I was getting antsy, but my sisters kept me composed. I didn’t think I needed them. I thought I was fine with them hating me, but they got me through those moments. When I got to my class, I had to come face-to-face with Reese, the culprit who had turned my dream into a nightmare, and he had the nerve to ask if he could talk to me.

  “That would be a no!” Slade said to him. “Sis, go sit down. Don’t say nothing to this jerk.”

  “You all need to get on to class,” my AP World History teacher said to my sisters. Mr. Bonner leaned in and said, “I don’t know what you and Reese are into, but I’m not tolerating any foolishness in my class.”

  “I’m not even speaking to him, sir,” I said.

  “Oh, so it’s like that? I text you, and you don’t text me back—” Reese said as he came up behind me.

  “I don’t have my phone! I wonder why?” I said to him. “I don’t wanna hear anything you have to say.” If I was only annoyed with Reese trying to chum up to me, I was furious with Mr. Bonner because he was still giving the students answers. It was something to coach your students, but it was another thing to not make your students earn their grades. I had started out the month of November thankful for so much, but now half of it was gone, and it was hard to find one thing I was happy about. But then I leaned back in my chair and thought about my sisters. When I needed them most, they were there. That counted for something.

  The next day I had to go to journalism class. I walked straight to Ms. Spears and said, “Can I please talk to you for a second?”

  “Sure.” She got up from her desk, and we stepped into her office.

  “I know you know what’s happened to me. It’s breaking news, after all.”

  “I’d love to hear your story. I don’t believe everything I hear,” she said, which was actually pretty comforting. I think she was the first person who had said that to me throughout this whole ordeal.

  “It doesn’t matter. I just came to tell you that I wanted to turn in my resignation. I don’t deserve to be on your paper. I can turn in my notes for the article that I was working on. You can tell it’s a clear conflict of interest now to finish it with the scandal between me and the guy that I was researching.”

  Ms. Spears shook her head. “Well, I don’t know you, Sloan, but I think I know you well enough to know when something that drastic happens, there’s more to the story.”

  “I don’t want to do anything to damage the reputation of the paper. And with me being attached, you’ll be taking a lot of heat.”

  “Okay, so why aren’t you telling me your version of the story?”

  “Because I’ve been trying for so long to tell people that what they see isn’t real. I mean, yes, it’s my body, sent from my phone to this guy, but I didn’t send it to him. It’s frustrating.”

  “To me it doesn’t look like you took a selfie.”

  “Huh? Excuse me?” I said really confused.

  “Now, we were all told to delete the picture, but because I wanted to talk to you about this, I have it. I’m not going to look at it with you, but notice how your arm that is not on your head is down. You don’t see your hand, so it could be a selfie, but the position wouldn’t give the same angle on the camera. I have a strong gut feeling someone else took this.”

  Quickly, I looked at the picture, and she was right. How had I not seen that before? I always thought that it was weird that in the picture my eyes were closed, and I looked like I was dreaming. I remember doing that, but I hadn’t taken this picture, and that was the first bit of proof. “But how could they have taken it with my camera?”

  “I was hoping you would be able to fill in that part.”

  “No, because one, I have a lock on it, and two, it was locked in my locker.” Only my sisters know the combination to my ph
one. Yuri has gym with me, but she would never do this.”

  “Are you sure?” my teacher asked me.

  “I’m 105 percent sure.”

  “I don’t think you can ever rule out anybody, but I certainly wouldn’t want to think that your sister did this either. But it does look like there’s more to the story here, and a good journalist would find out what it is. I’m not happy this happened to you, but I think some good can come of it.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m absolutely humiliated!”

  “Right, but you’ll have a different empathy than you didn’t have before when you’re researching cases. Now you’re on the other end of the scandal. That’s something no one can teach you.”

  “Empathy?”

  “Yes, it’s like you have on glasses now. Glasses of journalist humanity. This is going to make you so much better. You’ve always been a smart, savvy writer, but when you throw heart into the mix and dig to get the truth out of every story, shedding new light on what you’re reporting and making the reader feel what you feel, you’re doing great reporting. That’s where you’re headed—that’s where you can go. I believe in you, Sloan. I always have, but there’s been something missing. And it was that tough exterior that nobody could tell you anything. Now you’ve been beat up a little bit, so much so that you were willing to quit something you’re good at. But now you’ll be excellent because this happened, and when you find out the truth, you’ll get your reputation back.”

  “You seem confident. I didn’t know you cared like that.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m hard on you because you could be great. I’m not supposed to sit here and let my best student give me poor efforts. No.”

  “Where do I start? It’s not like I have any friends who have evidence that can show me who put their hands on my stuff. I don’t even have my phone.”

  “When you concentrate on the fact that you know you didn’t take this picture, you’ll find your way to the truth.”

  I gave her the biggest hug. For the first time in a long time, I had something I’d been missing, and that was hope. She’d given me back my life. All I had to do was dig. So what I was in a hole? Now was time to crawl out of it. I was a victim, but now it was time for me to be my own hero.

  It was Thanksgiving time, and the Sharp family had lots to celebrate. My dad was mayor-elect. Shelby’s fashions were getting great reviews. Ansli’s photography business was extremely profitable. Slade had a hit song, and my mom was working hard on her food poisoning case. Nobody really expected Yuri and me to do too much yet because we were the babies of the family, but my sweet sixteen was coming up at the end of December. I couldn’t be too happy when I still hadn’t found out any information about who took the picture. I was happy, however, to see my maternal grandparents and my mother’s younger sister, Sadie.

  While we were sitting down for dinner, I saw Dad check his cell phone, and then he got up and was gone for five minutes. I wondered if he was talking to Miss X, who was supposed to be nothing. But when he got up for a second time later on when we were about to start eating dessert, I got up, followed him, and stood on the outside of his door. I heard him say, “You know I can’t talk to you about this right now.” Why was he getting so hostile? Why couldn’t the person respect that he was with his family? Probably because it was someone with whom he had an unhealthy relationship. The person didn’t understand boundaries and didn’t know where his or her place was. As much as I wanted my family to be whole, I knew it was still really broken.

  “What you doin’ eavesdropping?” Aunt Sadie said to me.

  I was so startled. “I’m not. I was getting something.”

  “You better get away from that door. Come on up here. Let’s talk. Your sisters will be up in just a second.”

  After our big dinner, I was thankful that my parents had enough means to hire a catering company because they were the ones who cleaned up. All my sisters came upstairs to talk to Aunt Sadie. She was working on her doctorate at Duke, but she also danced as a Carolina Panthers cheerleader. She was smart and sassy. Anytime we told her our problems, before she was gone, she’d solve them.

  “So you know I know what’s going on with you, right?”

  “The world knows what’s going on with me. Please tell me no one sent you the picture.”

  “Yeah, I got it. I thought your head had been photoshopped on it at first. No way would my niece do something like that. So what’s the story behind all this?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “If you didn’t take the picture and send it to the guy and the guy’s been trying to tell you he didn’t send it to other people, then you gotta think about who had the most to gain out of y’all’s demise.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” I said to her.

  “If some other guy liked you, it seems odd that he would make you look that bad. So it’s gotta be some girl who liked him.” When she said that, the name Trevy just kept ringing loud in my ear.

  “But I don’t even know how she could pull off something like this.”

  “So there is a girl who liked him?”

  “Yeah, real strong, real tough, real hard. All of that.”

  “Then it’s her. Someway, somehow she did it or had somebody else do it. She wanted to bring you and this guy down. You should talk to him.”

  “He probably knows the whole story. He was trying to tell me something.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “I didn’t want to hear it.”

  “Uh! Girl!”

  “I thought he sent my picture out to the world!”

  “Yeah, but anyway that was definitely what she wanted; for y’all to be as far apart from each other. I’m telling you it’s her. I might not be able to tell you how. You want to be a news reporter. Figure out the details.”

  “You know my teacher just told me the same thing the other day.”

  “And what have you done about it?”

  “I’ve been trying to think through it. I have a pass code on my phone and my phone was locked up and I knew Yuri didn’t do it. So, I just can’t figure it out.”

  “Well, talk to the guy. This isn’t the end of life. I know you’re not going to be able to erase this picture, and it can pop up anywhere. But as cute as you are, girl, being known as a sex symbol—let’s just say that there could be worse things.”

  “Ooh, Aunt Sadie!”

  “I’m just keeping it real!”

  I went to Yuri’s room and asked her if I could use her iPad. When she said yes, I went back to my room, shut the door, and tried to FaceTime Reese. He didn’t answer, so I went downstairs and had dessert. My mom pulled me into an embrace and said, “Whatever crazy thing your aunt said to you, forget it.” We both smiled. We’d come a long way, and the last thing I wanted was for my father to hurt her. I had to find out what was going on between him and Miss X, but I did have my own business to tend to, so I quickly ate a slice of sweet potato pie, washed some dishes, and went upstairs to call Reese again.

  He picked up and said, “Yeah?”

  “Hey.”

  “What do you want? I just picked up to tell you to quit calling me.”

  “I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to.”

  “Yeah, you for sure are. Honestly, as if I didn’t feel bad enough about everything that happened, the fact that you didn’t even believe me or give me a chance to explain sucks. So you know, I’m over it now. Nothing else to say.”

  “Well, wait. I wanna ask questions. I wanna know what happened. You’ve been wanting to talk to me, so certainly you know more than I do.”

  “Because you wouldn’t give me the time of day and formed your own conclusions, condemning me with the rest of the world, don’t even come to me. I don’t have the answers you seek.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SWEETHEART

  “Please talk to me,” I said to Reese when I called him back.

  “It’s Thanksgivin
g and all, Sloan. I’m with my family today. I don’t have nothing else to say.”

  “If you cared for me at all, you would—” I said before Reese cut me off.

  “Wait, let me just stop you right there,” he said. “I cared for you a lot. But I mean, there’s only so much a guy can take.”

  “How do you think I felt these last days? My picture was sent everywhere from your phone. I thought you were the one who did it.”

  “I get that the evidence pointed to me, but when you said you didn’t send the shot to me, I believed you. Why was it so hard for you to do the same for me?” Reese asked as he looked down and paused for a second. “Don’t get me wrong, if I would have seen it, I would’ve been flattered. I would have known it was for my eyes only. I ain’t sayin’ I would have erased it, but I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to see the goods. I actually deleted it from several phones. I was so angry.”

  I could imagine Reese snatching people’s phones and deleting it. He was the protective type. How could I have been so judgmental?

  Peering directly into the camera, he said, “I thought I was clear. I’ve liked you all year. I act tough, but I had to get up the nerve to talk to you. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “So can you help me get to the bottom of all this, then? I’m the laughingstock, Reese.”

  “My reputation is trashed too. They’re thinking about pressing criminal charges, and it hurt me bad that you thought I hurt you.”

  “I was wrong, and I’m trying to prove it. I’ve been doing a little digging on my own, and I’ve got some theories. Nothing I can prove just yet, but I can’t get your old girl to crack.”

  “You think it’s Trevy, don’t you?”

  “You do too?”

  “She would’ve had the most to gain. Also, I know she wasn’t real happy when she found out I liked you. Everybody thought I sent those pictures to everybody else, but she was awfully sympathetic, like she knew for sure I didn’t do it.”

  “It wasn’t fair that I had doubts,” I told him.

  “That’s just the thing. I wanted you to hear me out. But let’s figure this out. I’ve been trying to get Trevy to crack, and she’s smart. She’s not telling me nothing.”