Page 35

THIRTY-FIVE

cameron

As soon as I see Lenni waiting for me after practice, I know the news is bad.

“Hey,” I say, hurrying over to her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, but her face is drawn with stress. She doesn’t even attempt a smile.

Behind me, a couple guys make some smartass comments that I barely register. Lenni apparently does, though, because she glares at them over my shoulder. Okay, maybe she’s not stressed, maybe she’s pissed.

“Come on.” I steer her away from the players coming out of the building while my mind runs down the list of reasons she might be mad. When we’re alone, I turn to her. “What’s wrong?”

Her scowl doesn’t let up, but she bites her bottom lip like she’s trying to hold back.

“Talk to me, Lenni. Did something happen?”

“I saw the picture.”

Oh, shit. Please don’t let her be talking about what I think she’s talking about. “What picture?” I ask cautiously.

“Oh, please. You know what picture, Cam.”

I can’t believe she’s seen it. I can’t believe my team is so fucking stupid. Why did I let it get this far?

I’ve asked a few friends on the team if they know anything about the photo, hoping to hell Mason’s the only one involved, and this doesn’t become a team issue. I need facts, but I’m trying to keep it quiet because if no one else on the team is involved, I want to keep it that way. And I can’t mention it to Reeve because he’ll beat Mason’s ass, and anything that jeopardizes our season or Reeve’s career isn’t an option. I look down at Lenni, not knowing what to say.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and I realize she’d been holding onto hope that I knew nothing about it. When she opens them again, she doesn’t look at me.

“Lenni, I’m sorry—” I start to say but she snaps her head up.

“Did you take it?”

It takes me a sec to realize what she’s asking. “Take the picture?”

She nods impatiently.

“How can you think I’d be involved in that?”

“Because I just found out I don’t know you at all. You lied when you told me you knew nothing about that picture.”

“I wasn’t lying. When you asked, I didn’t know what you were talking about. I’d heard someone mention the picture weeks earlier, and I completely forgot about it.”

“Until when? This very second?”

I swallow hard. I’d convinced myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the truth is right here between us. I fucked up. “It hit me later, but I had no idea if we were really talking about the same thing. I didn’t know that picture ever went farther than one phone.”

“Whose phone? Yours or Reeve’s?”

I shake my head. “Why do you keep putting this on me? I had nothing to do with that picture.”

“Then your best friend did!” she shouts.

“What are you talking about? Is that what Mason told you?” My fingers curl into my palms, anger surging inside me.

“That’s what I saw, Cameron! I saw the picture. Blue sheets, ugly black bed. And if you’ll remember,” she says bitterly, “I know exactly what Reeve’s bed looks like. Who the hell else would take that picture but him?”

“No way,” I say through gritted teeth. “Not a fucking chance.”

“I saw it,” she says grimly.

Doesn’t matter. Maybe she’s right about the bed and maybe she’s wrong, but I know Reeve. “Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you. Maybe I should have told you as soon as I made the connection, but I just didn’t. It seemed like something that I heard about and that went nowhere. And Reeve has no involvement.”

“Even if he’s not involved, I can’t believe you didn’t think this was a big deal.” Her voice wavers, frantic. “You think it doesn’t matter that only a handful of guys have violated her privacy like that? Or that thanks to the internet, that photo is forever? That she stands zero chance of erasing it from existence and has to worry for the rest of her life where and when it’ll pop up?” Her voice cracks, tears welling in her eyes.

“Lenni,” I say softly. “Baby, don’t cry.” I reach for her, but she stands stiff and tense in my arms. “I’m sorry. I was stupid, but I wasn’t trying to lie to you.”

She turns her head away. “It’s not just that.”

“Then what?”

She stands frozen, staring at nothing.

“Lenni, what is it?”

Fear builds in me with every second that she doesn’t speak. Finally, she recites for me in a toneless voice what happened. How those piece-of-shit football players from high school didn’t just play a joke on her, how they videoed and humiliated her, how their punishment meant nothing. “I wondered every day of high school who might be watching the video at that exact moment,” she finishes. “Sometimes I still do.”

I struggle for words. I wait to feel anger or sadness, but the feeling instead is something new. It’s a deep, gutting loss at knowing this happened to her. That it’s over and I wasn’t there to stop it. That I missed my chance to save her.

“There’s one more thing.” Her eyes are trained on some faraway place beyond me. “The guy who passed around the video? I didn’t just know him—he was my friend. We grew up together, played at each other’s houses when we were little. By high school, we weren’t exactly best buds, but I thought I knew him. But our history didn’t mean a thing compared to his team.”

I stand there paralyzed by the feeling of uselessness. “I wish I knew what to say,” I tell her feebly. “I wish...shit, I wish I could have?—”

“It’s okay,” she says, saving me from my sputtering nonsense. “You don’t have to say anything. Whatever you’re wishing, I wish it too.”

She rests her forehead on my shoulder and this time she lets me hold her. I try not to think about the depth of pain she must have felt because I’ll probably lose my mind and that’s not what she needs. Later, when I’m alone, I can feel those feelings but not right now.

“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me,” I murmur against her skin. “I don’t ever want you to feel alone.”

She nods. I kiss her head and hold her tighter. For the first time, she feels small against my body. I’ve always loved how tall and strong Lenni is, how completely she shatters the “fragile woman” stereotype, but I realize now how vulnerable she is. Without warning, I feel choked by emotion, overwhelmed by the strength of everything I feel for her. It’s pure and it’s unlike anything I’ve felt before.

Lenni looks up at me. “I probably should have told you sooner.”

I swallow hard, fighting to get a grip on myself. “Not if you weren’t ready.”

She takes my hand. “Let’s go home.”

I don’t speak until we’re inside her apartment.

“I see why this picture thing hurts you so much,” I say while she sorts slowly through a pile of mail on her kitchen counter. “I’m sorry I didn’t get it.”

“You didn’t know.”

“No, I’m a shithead. I should have done something. I wasn’t really thinking of Sasha’s feelings. I don’t know why, I just...didn’t think of it that way.”

“Sasha? That’s the girl?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lenni looks up. “So you know her?”

“She hooks up with a lot of football players. Including Reeve.” As soon as I say it, I realize I’m totally confirming her suspicions.

“Which explains why she’d be in his bed.”

“But doesn’t mean he took the picture.”

“What if he did?”

“He didn’t.”

She puts down the envelope in her hand. “What if he did?”

“Then he deserves to be punished for it,” I say carefully.

She gives me a satisfied look.

“Wait, Lenni. What are you after here?” She turns to leave the kitchen, but I reach for her.“I know you’re mad at Reeve, and I don’t blame you, but you’re on the wrong track this time.”

“I’m not mad at him, but if he’s guilty, he deserves to be outed. Don’t think I would protect him because he’s your best friend.”

“Protect him?” It dawns on me what she’s saying. “You’re writing a story about this?”

“Someone will; if the facts are confirmed and it’s traced back to the football team.”

Suddenly, this whole conversation looks different. It’s her story that Lenni is so concerned about. “And who are they asking to confirm the facts, you?”

“I’ll provide any information I have, and if I have good reason to think Reeve is involved, I’ll say so.”

“Lenni, no. You can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not a fact, it’s a suspicion. This is professional journalism, right? Not some gossip column? A story like that fucks with the entire team; it destroys careers.”

Lenni looks so unaffected that it chills me. I don’t even recognize her, this girl who would gladly drop Reeve’s name in the center of a scandal. And for what? Revenge doesn’t seem like her taste. Some symptom of the trauma she went through in high school?

“Whatever is published will be based on facts, just like any investigative piece would be,” she reminds me. “If your best friend isn’t involved, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Bullshit! You have no facts and you’re still about to drag his name through the mud. That’s not the kind of damage you can undo.”

“Why are you so worried about him? The guy has everything! He’s a spoiled celebrity who gets away with whatever he wants, all because he can throw a stupid ball.”

“So that makes it okay for you to pin this shit on him?”

“I’m only following the lead that was dropped in front of me.”

“You’re wrong about him.”

“Tell me how I’m wrong.”

“He doesn’t have everything, he has one thing. Football. He had a shitty life growing up: no siblings, a dad who took off before he could walk, and a mom who could barely hold it together for more than a couple weeks at a time. He grew up in the meth-head section of town that I bet you didn’t know existed; I didn’t until we’d been friends for two years.”

“Well, poor Reeve,” she says coldly. “So his life isn’t perfect. Just like all of us.”

“So you have every intention of implicating him in this bullshit.”

“If he’s guilty, sure. A rough childhood doesn’t cancel out a sexual crime.”

“What’s with you? Why are you so casual about taking down someone with no evidence? You’re not waiting to see if he’s guilty; you’ve already decided you want him to be.”

“The truth will come out,” she says flatly, like even she doesn’t believe the trite garbage she’s spewing.

“And by then it’ll be too late for Reeve’s reputation, you know that? Scouts won’t touch him if there’s even a hint of a scandal around him. And maybe that makes you glad, but if you’re bringing down Reeve, you’re bringing down the entire team. Including me.”

Her face is unreadable.

“Don’t do it, Lenni. Please.”

I watch the chill in her eyes thaw as she stares back at me. A sob bubbles up out of her without warning. “You told me you’d be the man I deserve. Remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

“What happened?”

“I’m trying. I want to be what you deserve.”

“Yeah, just not as much as you want your football dreams.”

“This isn’t about my fucking football dreams.”

“Then what is it about? Your teammates? Reeve?”

“It’s about you not trusting me. You never have!”

“No,” she says quickly. “It’s about the fact that I’ll always come second to your team, won’t I?”

I’m silenced. She couldn’t be more wrong. Butlet her take down my best friend? I won’t let it happen. Her eyes blaze as she waits for an answer. I should say something, but my brain is spinning with her accusations, her revelation about her past and my own confusion at finding myself smack in the middle of the shitstorm. She wants me to take her side, but for once, I can’t. So I say nothing.

“Leave,” she demands when the silence goes on too long. “I don’t want to see you.”

“Lenni,” I start.

“I mean it, Cameron. Leave my house and leave me alone.”

Good, I think. I don’t want to be around her any more than she wants to be around me right now.

But as I turn to go, she adds, “For good.”

I stop to gape at her. She’s lost her mind. “Just like that?” I feel a strange, cold smile come over my face and disappear just as quickly. How did we end up here? “Really? We’re over?”

“Really. We’re over.” She nods. “Go.”

I don’t know why I’m listening to her—this is bullshit—but I walk to the door. If she needs space to figure out she’s gone completely off the rails this time, she can have it. Before I go, I turn to look at her. “You can bring down the entire football team if you want, but it’s not going to touch the guys who hurt you, Lenni.” My voice is low and angry. “It won’t fix you.”