In Waves | ✔️

27 | a devil's deal

The walls are pressing in, a relentless pressure crushing me. Trapped and speechless, I'm suffocating right here in the hallway.

Carter shakes his head, his wolfish smile still managing to grow. "I thought you were so inexperienced, so innocent, and here you are giving it up to Miller. And in school, too. Yeah I saw you taking him into that storeroom earlier. Man, just... shameless, huh?"

The walls stop and slowly slide back to their place, releasing me on the brink of blackout. "We were just talking in there, Carter. But of course you would assume the worst."

"Oh yeah? So..." He pulls his phone out of his front pocket, moving next to me. "This is your version of talking?"

When the screen is facing me, when I'm met with the last thing I expected would exist outside of my warm memory, the walls slam in so fast they crush me like a helpless little insect.

He's showing me a video taken through a window, curtains framing the scene of me and Nate in the pool. I'm winding my arms around his neck and then we're kissing deeply, touching, rocking, moving through the water. Consumed in each other.

"This is my favorite part," Carter says, dragging his finger along to skip forward.

We're out of the pool, gathering our shoes and phones, and then I get on my tiptoes and whisper in his ear, taking his hand to lead him to the pool house.

"Right there. See how desperate you were? Just couldn't wait to get him in there and give him the ride of his life, could you?"

You need to talk. T A L K. You're going to start crying if you don't.

"How did you—how did you get this?"

"It's an original. Shot it myself," he boasts. "Harris talked some sense into me when I sobered up, and I felt bad for hitting on you. I actually felt bad. So I wanted to talk to you but you weren't around, and then... well, and then I saw you dirtying up the water with Miller. Right place, right time."

I bite my tongue hard, shocking myself out of this stupor. "Carter, I know what it looks like but I didn't sleep with Nate, okay? I haven't. Not once. That night was the only time anything happened with us, and it's over."

"Yeah, sure, I totally believe you," he sighs.

I can't win this. I can't reason with him. And why should I be able to? There's nothing about that video that would suggest me and Nate went into the pool house and didn't have sex. Absolutely nothing.

Rachel walks out the classroom, her face souring when she takes in the sight of us. "Let's go, Lia."

"I'll meet you by your car. Just give me a few minutes."

She shoots me a questioning look, and I give her an assuring nod in return. She slowly backs away, glaring at Carter as she goes. It's hard to believe there was a time where Rachel let him kiss her. Like so many of the girls who fall for his games, Rachel was no exception.

They made out in a spin the bottle game in eighth grade and she was head over heels. It took him six days to burn through her before he had his tongue down Kristy Landry's throat. Rachel was inconsolable at the time, but now she's just embarrassed by the fact that she cried over a pig like him.

"You haven't shown that to Matt," I say, watching his dark gaze on the video. "Why?"

"Matt's my boy. You think I wanna be the one to tell him his new girlfriend's a slut?"

I feel myself recoiling from that word, ready to retreat into a cocoon. "So what, then? Why haven't you done anything with it?"

The awful smirk that overcomes him chills me to my core. "I can delete this video, Lia. Go back to pretending like you're all innocent, and Matt can be kept in the dark. That's what you want, right? Well I want something, too."

I shake my head. "I'm not taking you up on your offer, if that's what you're hinting at."

"Why should you? Turns out you don't need my help in the experience department anyway. And to be honest, I don't really want a taste of Miller's leftovers."

"So what do you want?"

His eyes drag down my body so blatantly it feels as if his fingers are all over me, peeling off my clothing piece by piece. "Your underwear. Panties, specifically. The ones you're wearing."

A dry laugh erupts from me. "You're delusional."

"I said I didn't want to tell Matt, but that doesn't mean I won't." He toys with his phone, dangling it in my face. "It's up to you, Lia. Fuck things up with him... or make a little donation to yours truly. There's a bathroom right over there. Your call."

My call. He says it like this is a reasonable choice. Like I should be grateful he's giving me such a killer deal. My dignity in exchange for his silence.

As I slide off my underwear with shaking hands in the bathroom stall, I tell myself that it's worth it. That being with Matt is worth it, because it is. And after this, that night will finally be in the past. I furl the soft material in my fist. They're the daisy-patterned ones I bought in spades because I liked them so much, and now I'll have to burn the others because this is all I'll associate them with.

It's just material. I'm blocking out whatever Carter's going to do with it. It's just material.

He holds out his palm with satisfaction when I walk over to him.

"How stupid do you think I am?" I snap. "I'm deleting it myself, and I'm checking all your backups and drives."

Carter rolls his eyes, but he gives me the phone. I scourer through it but can't find another copy anywhere. Although I glimpse a stream of saved nude photos that girls have sent him, and I hate that I recognize some of the faces before I hastily exit. Why does anyone give him the time of day?

When I'm one hundred percent sure there's nowhere left I can look, I give the phone back. Then, I consider fleeing to Rachel's car and leaving him empty-handed. But I know Carter, and I know even without the video, he'd still tell Matt about what he saw in that pool if I don't follow through with this. And he'd be convincing.

My very new relationship isn't established enough to survive that. At the end of the day, Jay Carter is Matt's closest and oldest friend. I wouldn't stand a chance against him.

So I grit my teeth and slip the material into his waiting hand, and I think I feel my soul physically crack from the transaction. Like the devil just pocketed my self-worth and stuffed it among loose change and sticks of gum. And to make this moment worse, because of course it's going to be worse, Matt appears around the corner.

He eyes us, lingering on Carter. "You okay, Lia?"

Carter's hand is resting in his pocket, and the thought of his fingers curled around my underwear makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I fake a smile for Matt. "Yeah. We were just clearing the air."

"Yep. Air cleared." The muscles in Carter's arm tense, his hand tightening in his pocket. "We're all good now, Matty."

The genuine look of contentment that crosses Matt makes my lungs squeeze. He's relieved. Best friend and girlfriend at peace. No suspicions at all. I'm going to make up for this, even if he doesn't know it.

From this moment forward I'm going to be the best goddamn girlfriend he's ever had. 

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a/n: on a scale of 1 to a gazillion, how creepy is carter?

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