#Selfie

by Cambria Hebert

  We were together now, right?

  If so, why did I wake up alone? Why was he here now?

  Had only one night with me already sent him packing? Geez, talk about an ego boost.

  Not.

  I lifted my hand to knock, but before I could, the door opened and I was yanked inside.

  “Braeden!” I whisper-yelled. “What the hell is going on?”

  He grabbed my face in his hands and searched my eyes. Even in this strange and slightly worrisome moment, I got a little lost in his eyes, and some of the doubt I was feeling just seconds ago vanished.

  “Shit’s about to hit the fan, Blondie,” he rumbled. “Remember something for me?”

  “What?”

  He kissed me. It was a deep, thorough kiss. My heart beat faster and my insides loosened. But then it was over.

  I gasped and pressed my lips together, staring at him for some kind of explanation.

  “Remember that. And remember I’m only doing this because I want to protect you.”

  “Braeden, I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “Hellooo,” a familiar voice yelled from across the room. “Trying to sleep over here!”

  I jumped, startled. We weren’t alone in here?

  From the door, the handle jiggled as someone let themselves in. Braeden wrapped his arm around my waist and half carried me farther into the room, away from the opening door.

  Missy stepped in, her grey eyes searching frantically around the room. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was windblown like she’d been running.

  “I see you got my message,” Braeden said. The unkind, almost underlying anger in his tone had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

  Missy looked between the two of us and then made a face at B. “I should have known it was you.”

  “Funny,” Braeden drawled, and I glanced between them as they practically stared each other down, “you were the last person I would have suspected, Boss.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. It couldn’t be…

  “What. The. Hell?” Janelle, Missy’s roommate, sat up in bed and flung off her covers.

  Missy glanced behind Braeden. “Sorry, Janelle. Do you mind if we have a couple minutes to talk? I’ll buy you breakfast.”

  “I could use some coffee,” she said begrudgingly and got up.

  Missy handed her a ten-dollar bill and she left. She didn’t even comb her hair.

  Ew.

  “Don’t want anyone else to find out your dirty little secret?” Braeden goaded.

  Missy shrugged one of her shoulders.

  I stared between the both of them. They seemed locked in some kind of staring death match. Missy had never looked at him like that, but something had changed. Something major.

  My phone went off. I usually would have just ignored it, especially after all the rumors that were circulating about me.

  But something inside me had my hand reaching for my phone before I even thought of it.

  Then I realized I didn’t have my phone. I had no pockets in these pants, and I left it sitting upstairs. It was Braeden’s phone I heard go off.

  “Let me see your phone, Braeden.” I stared at Missy when I talked. She slid her eyes to me, and I thought I saw some sort of emotion pass behind them. Regret… then anger.

  He handed me his phone, and I lit up the screen. The school notifications were all pulled up. I felt the blood drain from my face as I read the one that went out late last night.

  Another selfie. Another man everyone knew I’d gone to bed with. There it was in color, Braeden looking at the camera and me staring at him. I remembered that moment so clearly. I was staring at him, thinking about how gorgeous he was and how amazed I was by the way he made me feel.

  It had been a secret moment. One that only he and I shared.

  Until now. Now everyone knew. And now Braeden was just another man who slept with #Slut Ivy. I glanced up at Missy. The anger I thought I saw in her eyes was now totally explained.

  How hurt she must be.

  “Missy—” I began.

  “Keep reading, Ivy. Read them all up until a few minutes ago,” Braeden instructed, cutting off the apology forming on my tongue.

  I did.

  I realized the reason I was alone when I woke up.

  I realized the reason we were standing in this room and he’d been in here without Missy until just a few minutes ago.

  He hacked the BuzzBoss.

  The BuzzBoss just called out her hacker.

  Braeden called her Boss when she walked in.

  I felt lightheaded.

  I looked at Missy, hoping she would tell me everything I was thinking was so wrong.

  She didn’t.

  Missy was the BuzzBoss?

  “It’s you?” I whispered. “You’re the one…”

  The phone fell out of my hand and hit the carpet with a soft thud. Disbelief and the echo of betrayal were so strong I actually swayed on my feet.

  Braeden was there. He wrapped an arm around my waist and anchored me into his side.

  I wanted to speak. To hear her admit the words… to ask her why.

  Why? Why would she do this to me? To all of us?

  My tongue felt thick, and I couldn’t speak. Yet, once again, Braeden was there and he did the talking for me.

  “How could you do it, Miss? How could you set the entire campus against Ivy like that?”

  “How could you sleep with her?” she fired back. “Oh, wait. It’s because she’s a—”

  He pulled away from me as the sound of a feral growl echoed through the small room. A low gasp cut off Missy’s words. “Don’t even say it,” Braeden intoned. “If you so much as look at Ivy cross-eyed ever again, I will out you so far and wide your grandchildren will feel it.”

  “So you aren’t going to tell anyone?” she asked, hopeful.

  I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around this. It’s like everything around me was moving a thousand miles a minute, but every cell inside me processed it at a quarter of the speed.

  “That ain’t my call. I’m gonna leave that up to the best friends you knifed in the back,” Braeden replied, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Best friends don’t sleep with each other’s men,” she hissed.

  “I was never yours,” he spat.

  “Didn’t seem like that the other night when your tongue was jammed down my throat.”

  “Shut the hell up,” he yelled.

  It snapped me out of the sludge clogging my brain.

  “Wait?” I said, and they both turned heated eyes to me.

  “You’re the BuzzBoss?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? I think all the hairspray you use has fried your brain,” Missy said unkindly.

  “I don’t use too much hairspray,” I muttered and fingered my hair. It wasn’t crunchy or stiff. It was soft.

  How rude.

  “Babe,” Braeden whispered and brought me back to the topic at hand.

  Missy snorted.

  It pissed me off. I propped my fists on my hips and pinned her with a stare. “You mean to tell me you did all of this because I slept with Braeden?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

  I averted my gaze. “It was a one-time thing. Before you told me you wanted him back.”

  I felt B’s eyes narrow on my face, and I gave him a sad look.

  “I stayed away from him for weeks. I felt so bad. You don’t even understand. When it happened again…”

  Missy laughed, harsh. “Oh, yes, you felt soo bad. So bad that you did it again.”

  I lifted my chin. “I’m not making excuses for myself. Yeah. We were together again. I was going to tell you. I planned on talking it out.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember that conversation.” She glanced down at her nails like she was checking them for chipped polish. I knew she was trying to act all nonchalant.

  But I wasn’t buying it. All the notifications, the pictures she
posted, the rumors she started—she did all of that because of what I did and because it hurt her.

  “Because we never had it,” I snapped. “You posted that sick picture of me and Zach.”

  “The Boss has never received so much traffic. It almost crashed the school’s website.” She was proud of what she did.

  “Were you ever my friend?” I tilted my head and stared at her. “Because I can’t believe if you ever liked me at all, you’d do something so insanely hurtful.”

  She dropped her hand and glanced away, guilty.

  I pressed on. “Do you have any idea the kind of cruel comments and snide jokes I’ve had to endure? The rumors? The humiliation? How did you even find out?”

  Missy glared at me. “One more thing you never told me.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “I was so mortified. I got so drunk that night, Miss. I don’t even remember the shit that happened.”

  Braeden shifted like my words bothered him. I worried maybe hearing about my sexcapades with another guy would send him packing, but he didn’t move away. He moved closer, angling his body slightly in front of mine like he suddenly felt he needed to shield me.

  The truth in my words seemed to get through at least a little, and Missy looked at me.

  “I slept with him. I let him into our room. Because of me, he hacked Rimmel’s laptop. Not only did I degrade myself by having sex with him, but I gave him unfettered access to hurt Rimmel. I didn’t tell anyone. Only Rimmel, because it pertained to her court case against Zach. I was so afraid of what people would think. I mean, if I thought so low of myself, then what would everyone else think?”

  Her posture slumped a little.

  Braeden was so tense I swear I heard his muscles vibrating.

  “Guess I found out though, didn’t I?” I said. “You made sure everyone knew, and I became the campus slut. Riddled with undiagnosed diseases—so not true, by the way—and an easy lay.”

  Missy looked up sharply.

  Braeden’s voice was hard as stone when he said, “I stopped four guys from gang raping her in the woods last night.”

  Missy’s face paled.

  Is that what it took to get a reaction out of her? A little bit of regret?

  “They wanted to know if her tits looked the same as in the picture you plastered all over campus. She might have slept with Zach, but you turned her into a woman every guy thought he had the right to abuse.”

  He turned his head like the sight of Missy made him ill. The muscle in the side of his jaw ticked. I laid a hand in the center of his shoulder blades.

  “Men who abuse women are the fucking scum of this earth. Women who help them? Who know about it and use it for their own benefit?” He glanced back at her, a very hard, almost knowing edge to his tone.

  Missy flinched under his impenetrable gaze.

  “Those bitches are a waste of space.”

  My hand tightened in his shirt. That was really harsh. As mad as I was, I didn’t want to stand here and insult Missy. I knew too well what insults felt like.

  I stepped around him to look at the girl who I once considered my best friend. “I lied to you, and it was wrong. But it’s the honest truth when I tell you I never meant for anything to happen between me and Braeden. I didn’t do it maliciously. I wanted to tell you before you found out.” I paused. “How did you find out?”

  Braeden answered, “She took the selfie of us off my phone. I stupidly left my phone on the table at Screamerz and went to piss. You went through my phone, didn’t you, Missy?”

  “I saw the way you looked at her. The way you watched her dancing with Trent. I know that expression on your face. The one of interest. It made me curious.” She shrugged. “I really didn’t expect to find what I did.”

  “So why not say anything? Why not confront us?” I asked.

  “Because I wanted to see how long you’d lie to me. I wanted to see how long you’d string along Trent.” She laughed, a hollow sound. “Two men that were both originally for me. You just couldn’t stand it, could you, Ivy? You couldn’t stand to be second best.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Braeden snarled.

  I touched his side to let him know it was okay.

  “I never felt like second best,” I replied honestly. “I felt like third best.”

  Braeden jerked, and Missy’s eyes shot to me. “What?” she asked.

  I smiled. “Are you kidding? You’re so gorgeous you could be a Victoria Secret’s model. And Rimmel, well, she’s so quirky and unconventionally beautiful that she draws eyes whether she wants to admit it or not. I’m the plain one. The one who had to try the hardest to look the part. I never fit in with you two. I tried so hard.”

  I felt Braeden’s eyes on me. He’d completely turned his back on Missy and was staring at me.

  “Baby, is that true?”

  I nodded. “It’s no big deal. I was fine with it.” Then I decided to just lay it all out there. “Okay, maybe not fine with it. It’s the reason I clung so hard to Rimmel when Romeo first started showing interest in her. Not because I wanted Romeo, but because I didn’t want to be left behind.”

  “Ivy,” Braeden whispered, his voice heavy. “No one’s ever gonna leave you behind.”

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I didn’t realize how weighed down those feelings made me. Now that I spoke the truth, I felt lighter than before. Why did so much have to happen to get me to finally let some of it go?

  “Listen to me,” he demanded and tilted up my head so he could stare into my eyes. “You are not second best. Or third best. You aren’t plain. You’re fucking perfect. You’re number one’s Mom.”

  I laughed. “What does that mean?”

  He smiled. “It means when people look up number one in the dictionary, there’s a picture of you with a caption that says: this girl set the standard for number one.”

  I giggled and glanced away.

  He pulled me back. “Look at me.”

  When Braeden talked, I listened.

  It was something I was gonna have to work on.

  “You’re the kind of girl that people leave others behind for. If your so-called friend can’t see that, then she’s not worthy. You sure as hell got my attention.”

  There was a sharp sound behind us, the loud slamming of a door.

  It slammed so hard, the walls rattled.

  I jerked back, and Braeden reacted instinctually, spinning around and tucking me behind him.

  Missy was gone.

  She stormed out of the room and practically ripped the door off in the process.

  Braeden and I were left standing here alone. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I’m thinking she didn’t like the things I said to you?”

  I’d waited my entire life for someone to say those things to me—and for me to let myself believe them—but I never wanted my gain to be someone else’s pain.

  “I should go find her.” I wiped at my eyes.

  “Hells no.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you forgetting what that damn she-devil did to you? To Rimmel and Romeo?”

  I deflated like a balloon stabbed with a pair of scissors. No. I didn’t forget. I’d probably wear the scars of this betrayal for a very long time. Yet some habits were hard to break, and it was ingrained in me to not want my friends to hurt.

  Though, the truth was after this morning, it was painfully clear Missy wasn’t really my friend.

  I wasn’t sure she ever was.

  Chapter

  Forty-One

  Braeden

  How do you deal when you find out your girl was assaulted, then basically bullied by her best friend?

  You go out for pancakes.

  Let me be clear. This was not my idea. I wanted to skip. Hell, we were already late. But the second we stepped out of Missy’s room, my phone blew up. Apparently, Rimmel had been texting and calling Ivy to no avail.

  She thought we were dead.

  Or at the very least on the side
of the road. She told me she wasn’t ready to attend her brother’s funeral and she never would be.

  Ivy heard her shrieking into my ear and relieved me of the phone. I certainly didn’t put up a fight to give it to her.

  Next thing I knew, we were on our way for pancakes.

  “Really, Blondie?” I asked when I opened up the passenger door of my truck for her. She didn’t need help, but I helped her up anyway. By palming her ass and giving her a boost.

  I liked touching her ass.

  It was my happy place.

  “I think Rim would understand if we bailed,” I finished once I was in the driver’s seat. “You’ve had a rough morning. Hell, a rough couple weeks.”

  “We have to tell them,” she replied. I could hear the anxiety and sadness in her voice. It pissed me off. I didn’t want to see her hurt like this. She cleared her throat. “The sooner the better. We might as well do it over coffee and sugar. I definitely need something covered in syrup. I think I might be in shock.”

  I turned sideways in the seat and faced her.

  “I feel like I don’t know her at all…” she whispered. “It’s like the person I thought I knew, the one I was best friends with for years, was just a façade.”

  “I’m sorry I just sprang it on you like that this morning.” I reached for her hand and entwined our fingers. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was afraid if I just told you, you might not believe me.”

  “It’s definitely unbelievable,” she murmured, staring at our linked hands. “But I know you wouldn’t say something like that unless it were true.”

  I lifted our hands and kissed hers.

  “I know why she did what she did to me, even if it was totally off the deep end.” She stared out the window to collect her thoughts. “But I don’t understand all the notifications. All the drama she fueled between Romeo and Rimmel. I mean, she leaked that whole thing about the plagiarism. Rim almost got kicked out of school.”

  “She’s done some really shitty things to a lot of people the past couple years,” I agreed.

  “Rimmel never did anything to her. I just don’t understand why she does this. Any of it.”