The Wrong Side of Kai

by Estelle Maskame

  Ughhh.

  Nice one, Harrison. Abandoning me in the middle of nowhere. Now I feel really stupid for even agreeing to see him tonight.

  I bury my head in my hands and massage my fingers into my hair. I’m deep into the park and it’s at least a mile walk to the exit, which I’m not psyched to do on my own. It’s too secluded, whereas at least here in the parking lot, I have company. I steal a peek at the car again, wondering if I can ask them for help, but then the buzzing of my phone grabs my focus. I’ve never felt so relieved to see Chyna’s name flashing on my screen.

  And with no questions asked, she promises to be here within fifteen minutes.

  She turns up within ten, and when I climb into her car and am faced with her eyebrows raised expectantly, all I say is:

  “Fuck Harrison Boyd, man.”

  3

  “I heard someone smashed some super sentimental vase and her parents flipped,” Chyna muses on the drive to school, subconsciously moving her hands as she speaks. A bad habit of hers, one that nearly kills us every morning because her hands never seem to actually be on the steering wheel. “What if her parents get home from their trip and ban her from throwing another party? Imagine that. No more Madison Romy parties. A Westerville tragedy.” She places a hand on her chest, in a parody of mourning, and I reach over and grab the wheel, jerking the car to one side to avoid us knocking down a streetlight.

  “You know what would be an even bigger tragedy? Us dying when we we’re T-boned by a truck because you flew through a stop sign,” I deadpan. I have my own license, but I haven’t yet bought a decent car and I refuse to drive Dad’s old clunker to school. Mom once named it “The Green McRusty.” Because, you know, it’s verdant green and a total rust-bucket. The name has stuck ever since.

  “Oops,” Chyna says, blushing. She grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “Do you think Harrison will talk to you?”

  “Nope. Probably just shoot me death glares across the Biology lab.” I shrug and pick at my nails. One of my acrylics is barely hanging on. “I’m already over him, though.”

  I guess it’ll be awkward at first when I see him again, but the school is big enough that I can avoid him if necessary. Enough different hallways to take alternative routes. Only one class together today. Totally bearable.

  We pull into the school parking lot and straight into an empty spot, diagonally and mere inches from the car next to us. I don’t even point it out, just grab my backpack and squeeze out the car without dinging anyone’s paintwork. When we return at the end of the day, there’ll be a “Learn how to park, sucker!” note stuck under the wiper just like there always is.

  “I gotta run. I have a meeting with Mrs. Moore before class. She’s helping me finalize my college application,” Chyna says. “I’ll catch you later.” She retreats, binder tucked under her arm, and blows me a kiss. I catch it and tuck it into the pocket of my jeans, then she turns and dashes off across the courtyard.

  My first class is at the opposite end of the building, so I head for the south entrance. It’s a low sun, crisp air kind of morning. I love it. The winter, the cold. The summer was unbearable, but balance in Ohio is always restored when our extreme humidity is switched for bouts of snow. The first snowflakes have yet to fall, but soon our streets will be glistening white, coated in a thick, icy blanket, and the thought of it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Truly ironic.

  I walk with my head down, my eyes on my phone, refreshing my social media for what feels like the thousandth time this morning. Harrison hasn’t made any attempt to contact me after kicking me out of his truck last night, which means that we are finally done. I exhale in relief.

  I glance up from my screen only because I nearly collide into Ryan Malone, the appointed creep of our senior class, because, well, he is. In sophomore year he was suspended for repeatedly barging into the girls’ locker rooms “by accident.”

  “Hey, Vanessa,” he says, and I stop dead in my tracks because Ryan Malone has never once dared to open his mouth and say a single word to me before. I look over my shoulder at him and his chapped lips twist into a pervy smirk that immediately puts me on edge. Why the hell is he talking to me? “I just wanted to let you know that . . . That I think you look great. Really hot.” What? It’s definitely not an innocent compliment; his tone is sickening.

  “Gross, Malone. Fuck off.” Scrunching up my features in disgust, I pull my jacket around me, trying to cover up before he can get an eyeful. Absolute freak.

  I leave Malone behind, my strides wide and too fast because I don’t want to be anywhere near him, and I only slow down again when I’m inside the building and making for my locker. There’s a few minutes until first period, so everyone is milling around in the hallways, a constant buzz of voices as everyone talks about the killer weekend they just had. My guess is that Madison Romy’s party is the hot topic. Half the senior class was there, and those Westerville Central football players turning up and kicking off a brawl definitely makes for some serious gossip.

  But I notice something is off. As I squeeze my way through bodies, I can feel it. The pressure of a thousand eyes on me. I keep my head down, trying my best to ignore it, pretending I’m imagining it.

  But no, I’m seriously not.

  I slow down, lifting my gaze to look around. Even so, it’s not immediately obvious. People are moving around, pushing past me, groups of friends leaning against lockers lost in their own conversations. But I still catch the quick glances. The subtle sniggers. The one group of junior guys that busts out into laughter as they all turn to look at me. What the hell?

  I give myself a quick once over just in case I’ve been walking around with my bra on show or the zipper of my jeans open – at least that would explain Malone’s weird remark – but nope, nothing. Did news spread that Harrison and I are done? That he kicked me out of his truck and left me behind at Heritage Park? Sure, it’s gossip, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not like we were actually dating, and I didn’t think people cared that much about Harrison and me.

  I keep my head down and continue along the hallway to my locker. My heart is beating faster than usual as I fumble with my combination. I taped a mirror to the back of my locker door in freshman year, and it’s always been a lifesaver. I scan my appearance once more, but my hair is fine, my makeup is fine, my clothes are definitely fine, everything is fine. So why the hell is everyone looking at me so weird? And now that I think about it, why have I walked the entire length of this hallway without anyone talking to me?

  “Looked like you had fun at Maddie’s party,” a deep voice says from behind.

  I spin around so fast my elbow clunks against the metal lockers and I find myself face to face with Anthony. Noah is by his side, a few other guys from the team huddled in close behind them, pretty much trapping me against the lockers. It’s suffocating, but I’m not surprised. They’re Harrison’s friends. They’re going to taunt me the same way they did when I first cooled things down with Noah. That’s what guys do – it’s that dumb pack mentality they have.

  “Um, yeah, I did actually,” I say, and they all snicker, their laughter ringing hollow in my ears. My eyebrows furrow as I watch them exchange knowing looks, rolling their eyes and generally behaving like the dicks they are. I’m not sure what’s so funny.

  “How come you never once gave me a striptease?” Noah asks, leaning in close as he juts out his lower lip like a kid feeling left out. He places a hand on my hip, and the smile he gives me is gross. “I would have been cool with that, you know.” Anthony and the guys cackle, their laughter howling down the hallway so loudly that it echoes.

  I grit my teeth and shove Noah’s hand off me. Fucking Harrison telling all his friends about our business. It’s not like I don’t know guys talk about this stuff. Hell, I do the same with Chyna, but still. The thought of half the football team knowing what gets me off makes my stomach churn.

  Slamming my locker shut, I push my way around Anthony’s bulky frame an
d walk away from them, my pace quick. My heart is thumping too hard in my chest. I’m freaked out.

  “Oh, come back, Vanessa!” Noah calls after me. I know most of the people in this hallway are listening at this point, and my cheeks are scorching red with heat. “Anthony wants his turn on the Murphy-Go-Round! He’s heard it’s a great ride.”

  Assholes. I hate what they’re insinuating. Sure, I like to fool around, but what’s so wrong with that – besides inevitably dumping any guy who ends up asking for more from me? It’s fun. I can take my pick of the hot guys. I like the excitement. The guys act as if I have a list with a hundred different names on it, when the reality is there’s only a few. I’m pretty sure Noah has hooked up with too many girls in this school to count, including me, so to hell with him and his double standards. Those standards aren’t mine, but I’ve learned to accept that they’re just the way things are. I make sure the remarks I get every once in a while don’t bother me anymore.

  But they bother me today.

  As I push my way down the hall, I hear that stupid word: Slut.

  I don’t catch who says it. Some girl, but I don’t even try to pinpoint who the voice belongs to. My mind is in a whirl. Something’s going on. Something bad. I can feel it in the air. An odd sense of me versus the world, like everyone in this goddamn school is against me. I feel powerless, exposed; my skin is as thin as tissue. What’s worse is, it’s usually the exact opposite. I don’t know where this feeling has come from, but suddenly I want to curl into a ball, making myself as small as I can be, and hide.

  I have my fair share of people who aren’t exactly my best friends, but it’s never felt as pronounced as it does right now. Most people like me, and I like most people. That’s why I have a big circle of people I can hang out with and be part of. Or at least I thought I did. Right now, the usual distinct line between friend and enemy is a total blur. The circle is closed. Everyone feels like an enemy.

  I round the corner and nearly collide with Chyna. My chest sinks with relief at the sight of her. Walking through these hallways alone right now is too much to handle, and I’m pretty sure it’s because Harrison has been running his mouth. Maybe Chyna will know what he’s been telling people about me.

  “Oh, thank God. I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she says, the words rolling off her tongue at lightning speed. Her eyes are wide, panicked. “I’ve just tried calling you like a million times!” She grabs my arm and pulls me into the girls’ bathroom at the same moment the bell for first period rings out. The few girls who are in the bathroom make a swift exit, but Chyna and I don’t budge from our spot in front of the sinks.

  “Shouldn’t you be at your meeting?” I ask once we’re alone. I can hear the rumble of commotion out in the hallways as everyone rushes to their classes. At this point, I’ve already accepted the fact that I’ll be late for Bio.

  Chyna doesn’t answer. Instead, she grabs my shoulders and stares straight into my eyes, her expression almost wild with concern.

  What the hell’s going on?

  “Do you want to skip classes? I’ll ditch with you. Let’s get out of Westerville. We’ll head into Columbus and . . .” She pauses to shake her head. “Or let’s hit up Cleveland. Anywhere that’s not here. Sound good?”

  “Chyna, slow down,” I say. I’m confused. Is she upset about something? Why is she so desperate to leave? “Why do you want to skip class?”

  Chyna’s face floods with horror. “Oh my God.” She drops her hands from my shoulders and her body seems to deflate. Her voice is almost a whisper as she says, “You haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Seen what?” My heart rockets back and forth in my chest while my words feel like sandpaper in my throat. An immense feeling of dread slices through me as pieces of this morning’s puzzle start to slot together. “Chyna? What haven’t I seen yet?”

  “Shit,” Chyna groans, collapsing back against a sink. She presses her hands to her face so that she doesn’t have to look at me. “I thought you’d be the first person it got sent to . . . I’m sorry. I really don’t want to show you this, but . . .” She straightens up from the sink and pulls out her phone, scrolling for a few seconds before she hands it over to me. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I’ll slash Harrison’s truck tires for you.”

  I stare at Chyna for a moment, her phone in my hands. I have no idea what I’m about to see, but a wave of sickness is building in the pit of my stomach and my hands are trembling. My heart feels as though it’s been squeezed to a pulp.

  It’s a video.

  I swallow and tap the screen, pressing play, and all the air is sucked straight out of my lungs.

  It’s a video of me.

  A video of me at Maddie Romy’s party on Saturday. It feels as though I’ve been sucker-punched right in the gut.

  In the video, I’m upstairs in that bedroom, sitting on Harrison Boyd’s lap. I smile at the camera, straight into the lens like a total sucker.

  I feel the color drain from my face as the scene unfolds in front of me. I’m staring at Vanessa Murphy as though she’s some stranger. She climbs off Harrison’s lap and gets to her feet. She dances to the low background music, her hands in her hair, as she slowly peels off her clothes. The video loses focus as she slinks her way back to Harrison.

  “You don’t want to watch the rest,” Chyna says, snatching her phone back. I’m relieved. She’s right: I don’t want to watch the rest. I already know what happened that night. “Trust me,” she adds. “It doesn’t last much longer, and you can’t really see much, but—”

  My mind goes dark with fury. “He fucking leaked a video of me stripping?” I nearly tear the damn sink off the wall, and I slam my hand down against the smudged and cracked mirror above it. Just how long was Harrison recording for? My body ignites with so much rage that I’m convinced I’m about to burst into flames right here in this bathroom. Heat radiates from my core like an erupting volcano.

  How could Harrison do this to me? Is he seriously that pissed about me ending things that he’s set on ruining my life? I know how these things go. They do ruin your life. When Kristen Rogers’s nude selfies were leaked around school a few months ago, it was all anyone talked about for days. Me included. Because if it’s not you in the firing line then these kinds of things are easy entertainment . . . People might gossip about my sex life, but I’ve never been that unfortunate girl who’s texted private photos to the wrong guy. I used to roll my eyes at how stupid those girls were, but now . . . now I’m one of them, and it’s definitely not funny. It’s horrifying.

  It’s clear now why everyone was acting so weird out in the hallway. It’s because they all know. They’ve all seen it; I can guarantee that. Stuff like this spreads like wildfire. And all around Westerville, and probably all over Ohio too. Maybe even further, but I make my brain shut down at that.

  “Chynaaaa,” I wail, throwing my hands back into my hair. I blow out fast breaths of air, trying to calm myself down from the sheer dread coursing through me. There’s nothing she can say to fix any of this. The video is out there. I need to find a way to hold my head up high as I walk out of this bathroom while knowing that every damn student in this school has now seen my naked body.

  But that’s nowhere near the worst part.

  The worst part is that Harrison has absolutely no right to share such an intimate video, and yet he has shared it. All around school. To my closest friends. To people who barely even know me. To everyone. Whatever trust we had between us has been shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t want a relationship with him, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t care about him. But he clearly doesn’t care about me, and if he could do something like this, then he must have never ever cared about me at all, not even from the beginning. Because if he had a single shred of respect for me, then he would never share what we both knew were private moments.

  It’s the worst betrayal possible.

  My palms are clammy as I run them over my jeans, blinking down at a dirty patch on t
he floor. My breaths are labored and rapid, my heart is palpitating and suddenly I feel lightheaded, the entire room blurring around me. Am I actually going into cardiac arrest?

  Chyna puts a hand on my shoulder to steady me. “He’s such an asshole,” she says, putting her phone away. She gives me a small, sympathetic smile. “But for the record, I think you look hot as hell in the video.”

  It’s beyond inappropriate, but I love her for it. This is why we’re best friends. No judgment. Ever.

  My mouth mirrors hers, though inside I feel like I’m crumbling. It takes all of my energy not to faint on the bathroom floor. “If there’s anything worse than having your sex tape leaked, surely it’s having a bad sex tape leaked. So hey, it could be worse, right?” I say, trying my hardest to display a cool exterior, but inside I am rocked by the shock. I don’t believe my own words – this is as bad as it gets.

  My eyes are damp with tears that threaten to fall, but I’m fighting to hold myself together. I’m flooded with so many different emotions, but the only one I can focus on is fury. I’m going to hunt Harrison down, I think, realizing I know exactly where he is. “He’s in my Bio class,” I blurt, and before Chyna can speak, I’m bursting through the bathroom door and into the empty hallways.

  That feeling of betrayal is pulsing through me, fueling my steps.

  It’s always alright for the guy, I think as I race down the hall. Sure, Harrison is in the video too, but no one cares about him. No, they’re all judging me. Judging me for hooking up with him at that party. Judging me for being easy. Not like they didn’t already think that, anyway. But now they have proof. They have something to use against me. Something they can use to break Vanessa Murphy, which I’m sure is what a lot of people have been waiting for all these years. I’m perfectly aware that the girls in this school, even the ones I’m friends with, secretly judge me for the attention I get from guys. I’ve never dwelled on it too much, but I guess it’s because of their own insecurities, their jealousies and fears. Who knows? I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’m not playing those games. And the guys . . . well, some of them don’t like the fact that I would never look twice in their direction, while others don’t like the fact that I’ve ended the flings I’ve had with them. I’ve always got what I want, and that’s rubbed people up the wrong way. Now it’s payback – for them at least. Now they can gang up against me, glad it’s time for things to not go my way.