Before I Forget

A Quiet Conversation, Everything Important Left Unsaid

Please forgive me for all the grammar mistakes and stuff. I'm on the road from Finland to Italy this week and I'm updating on my phone. I still wanted to update, because this fic is on my mind constantly! :D I hope you like this chapter, if so, Please write a comment and don't forget to vote!
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The messages started coming that night.

Sky was already in bed, in her pink My Little Pony jammies, feeling all soft and warm and happy for the first time in months. She was thinking about Eli and the kiss.

His lips on hers. The taste of salt and iron.
The throaty sound he had made when she'd broken the kiss.

The way her core had turned into a molten pot of hot lava, her heart into a fucking hummingbird with fast, fluttery wings that filled her ribcage with their frantic beat.

Sky opened her eyes as the soft blip of her phone interrupted her pleasant dreaming, and reached to take her phone from the nightstand.

Someone had tagged her on Instagram - an account she didn't know. Furrowing her brows Sky clicked at the notification, and there it was, clear and bright on the screen of her iPhone - a photograph of herself kissing Eli in front of the school.

The text below said: "shit-lip is getting his shit eaten" followed by a bunch of laughing and poop emojis.

A sudden horror crushed Sky's ribs with the force of a bulldozer.

Oh no, no, no, no, no! Shit!

There had been kids in the yard, but Sky hadn't realized someone had taken a photo. She hadn't been paying attention.

And that was the worst mistake one can make in high school, where dangers lurked everywhere like poisonous spiders in a jungle.

Of course, Sky knew that all too fucking well, but she'd been so distracted by Eli's hotness that she hadn't even stopped to think–

And now it was all over the internet.

The most beautiful moment of her life turned into a joke. The precious moment when she'd kissed the boy she liked. But nothing of that was in that stupid photo - it didn't capture the butterflies in her stomach, nor the uneven beat of her heart, not Eli's scent that had surrounded them, or the way he had groaned after the kiss as if he couldn't believe it had really happened.

Now all that was gone, and there was just this photo of a short redheaded girl kissing a boy, whose cheeks were as red as her hair, and the picture made it all look so awkward, so fucking stupid.

Sky felt like she couldn't breathe.

It was like taking a bullet again but not to the shoulder this time, but straight through her sternum.

Messages were now flooding her insta and her snapchat, cruel anonymous messages calling her whore, slut, loser, shit-eater, and worse.

Sky gripped the phone in her fingers, unable to stop looking. She felt physically sick, her supper was climbing up her throat - mashed potatoes and fried chicken, and Dad's special homemade lemonade - now it was all threatening to come up and she tasted the bile at the back of her throat. She clenched her teeth and swallowed down the bitter saliva.

Then a Whatsapp message arrived, one from Sam, and Sky read it her heart in her throat.

Sam: what happened?
Is that photo real?

Sky hesitated but then decided to go for honesty. It wasn't like she had something to be ashamed of, and she sure as Hell couldn't hide the truth even if she wanted to.