The Homecoming Benefactor

11 | the release

I had walked home from Lambda Xi after the pictures were taken of me, never coming across Bryce again to say goodbye to him. The house was over a mile away from Hayes Hall, and it was around midnight, so the smarter thing to do would have been asking someone to drive me home. I could not bring myself to do that because I was too embarrassed.

Friday morning, I called out of work, lying about a supposed illness I had caught. No one knew about what happened yet. I had received a few texts asking me how the date went, but I couldn't bring myself to respond. Around 10:00 AM, I got a text from Hazel, and it was not of that nature, so I checked it.

Hazel: Check the Gossiper, ASAP.

Me: Okay, is it bad?

Hazel: That would be an understatement.

My stomach sunk as I opened the app. The top post on the feed was a picture of me, standing in Bryce's bedroom unclothed, with the caption, "someone come tie up this hog!" Various other posts with images of my naked body were below it, some photoshopped to appear like something else. I always assumed the app had content filters to prevent things like this from happening.

Bryce called my phone, but I sent him straight to voicemail. I didn't want to listen to the excuse he would come up with about why he allowed this to happen. He betrayed me, and I couldn't bring myself to even listen to his voice. Somehow, I wanted him to know he was the reason I cried myself to sleep, which I did one more time after declining his call.

So much for closure.

•••

My first venture out of my dorm was at 4:56 PM, and it was to go grab some pizza from Big Red. I did not change out of my pajama pants, and I threw on a plain black hoodie, pulling the hood over my head in hopes of hiding my face. The color had been taken out of my life, and what I wore reflected that. People would never look at me the same way.

A few minutes into my walk, it began to downpour outside, but I didn't want to elongate my time in public by returning inside for an umbrella. It wasn't even supposed to rain that day. As the ground became covered in water, my slippers and socks became soppy. This made them quite difficult to walk in. I trudged my way to the union like a weatherman in a hurricane, fighting with the wind. I really wanted pizza.

Splash! "Shit!"

My wet slippers were so difficult, in fact, that I had tripped and fallen into a puddle face-first, only a few feet away from the entrance to the student union where Big Red's was. A few onlookers watched and laughed, but there was fortunately not a large crowd. I was already enough of a spectacle with those pictures being on the Gossiper.

Once I got inside, I remembered that there was a reporting process for pictures to be taken off of the Gossiper. I filed a report and wrote that I didn't consent to the pictures being posted. While I didn't know how well that site was moderated, I could at least say I tried. There was now documentation that I didn't want the pictures there.

"How can I help you?" When I got to Big Red's, there was no line, which felt like the biggest blessing in the world at that time.

"I'll get a personal pan pepperoni pizza, please," I ordered. "With some cheesy garlic bread and a large sweet tea."

When I went to go grab a straw for my drink, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Araceli, who wasn't the worst person I could have ran into, but someone I hadn't talked to yet considering I was hiding from everyone. Timmy was with her, and he looked just as concerned as she did.

"Francie!" She pulled me into a hug, rocking back and forth a few times before releasing. "I've been so worried about you. Are you okay?"

I brushed some of the mud off of her shirt. "I'm sorry about the mud, I kind of busted my ass outside a few minutes ago. I don't think I broke anything, though." I tried to laugh when I spoke to seem more okay than I truly was.

"I'm not asking about that," Araceli deadpanned, lowering her voice. "Of course, I'm glad you don't need to go to the hospital... but I think we both know what I asked about."

"Let's do this somewhere more private than the union," I replied before turning to grab my food.

We got in Timmy's truck, which was parked in a timed spot outside of the union, and drove it back to the parking garage closest to Hayes Hall. Araceli lived four doors down from me and across the hall. Since her roommate had transferred to some school in California, her room was always empty, and it was the perfect spot to talk about things no one else needed to hear.

Araceli closed the door behind her after Timmy and I walked in. "Now can I ask what happened?"

"I can start by saying that I don't know who took those pictures," I responded, sitting down on a hot pink ottoman; almost everything in Araceli's room was hot pink. "It wasn't Bryce, he was gone. They all had on dark clothes, and the lights were off, so I couldn't tell who it was. It's not like I even know many members of the frat."

"The good thing is that the pictures were taken down," Timmy added, adjusting his glasses. "And the Gossiper has a feature programmed in it to prevent screenshots, so the chance of it being circulated is not very high. Of course, people can still get their hands it in other ways, but that cuts off most of the circulation."

If anything involved phones or computers, Timmy knew something about it. I was hoping he would have some insight into the situation.

"I didn't have sex with Bryce," I clarified. "We probably were about to, but then..."

I stopped before saying something that I wasn't ready to say. I didn't know how to explain the visions to anyone yet, not even my best friend. Putting that out there could have ripped a hole in the fabric of our friend group permanently.

"Then what?" Araceli furrowed her eyebrows, taking a bite out of her pizza.

"We're your friends, no matter what," Timmy insisted. "I know it's hard talking about this stuff, but we wanna help."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "When I started making out with Bryce, I thought about Nick."

Araceli widened her eyes and spit out her drink. "Damn it, I don't even know if that rug can go in the washing machine. But what did you say?"

Timmy looked equally confused, freezing halfway through dipping a piece of cheesy bread into the cup of marinara sauce. I had never expressed this sentiment to anyone because I never had any reason to believe I liked Nick that way. Before last night, I had on-and-off desires for Bryce, and I was with Graham before Bryce came around. I never had time to process the dynamic I had with Nick.

"Bryce and I actually had this really nice date at the Brazilian steakhouse. Everything was perfect, and I remembered why I liked him in the first place," I reminisced, twirling a piece of my hair. "We talked about everything. As soon as we got back to the house, we took our clothes off, and started making out, but when I closed my eyes... I saw Nick. There had been a time or two before where I had these small intrusive thoughts when Nick was actually around, but nothing like this."

"Did you tell Bryce? Is that why he got those pictures of you posted online?" Araceli got defensive.

"No, Bryce has no idea," I replied, shaking my head. "I didn't even get to say goodbye. I actually didn't feel like I needed to, but even if that wasn't the case, he was somewhere I didn't know how to get to."

Timmy finished up a slice of pizza before his call to action. "Well, once we're done eating, we've got to get you into some clean clothes and have you invite Nick to your dorm. He won't believe it."

So, that's exactly what we did. I called Nick right after that, telling him to come to my dorm at 7:00, and then left Araceli's dorm to go shower and change. I put on a much nicer pair of monogrammed silk pajamas that looked like they came from a department store catalog. As I was lighting a candle, I heard a knock at the door.

• AUTHOR'S NOTE •

Francie is going to get her man! This doesn't mean we're at the end of the story, though. We still have some happier chapters (and some drama) to get through; we're only about halfway done. Make sure to vote and leave comments if you like the book!