“I have to show you something,” Lianne whispered. She waved me toward a seriously grand computer setup — the girl had several monitors lit at once.
As I stood behind her, the computer screen in the middle loaded a web page called Brodacious. I’d seen this website once before. It was a catalog of fraternity boasts and pranks. Bickley had forwarded a link last year when some frat managed to hang a fifteen-foot banner off the top of Harkness Chapel illustrating the relative size difference between a Harkness guy’s dick and a Princeton guy’s.
Classy, right?
This time what I saw on the screen was much worse. It was a photo of Bella sprawled on a floor somewhere. Her face was mostly obscured by one arm thrown over her eyes. But anyone who knew her could identify her. She’d been wearing the same clothes as in the picture when I’d carried her up the stairs, but I’d know her distinctive curls anywhere.
“PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. STEER CLEAR OF THE HOCKEY MASCOT,” the text screamed. “DIRTY PUSSY ALERT.”
Jesucristo.
Fourteen
Bella
I knew the exact moment when Rafe saw that fucking picture, because I heard the strangled sound he let out. The noise he made crept under my bathroom door, stole across the room and curled around me on the bed. It squeezed my soul into a tight little knot in the center of my chest.
I burned with shame.
For almost twenty-four hours I’d been lying here imagining what would happen when my friends saw that photo. Everyone I’d ever been close to was destined to see it, if they hadn’t already. Pepe. Graham. Rikker. Trevi.
The hockey girlfriends who already hated me.
Coach Canning, who thought I was a nuisance.
Nobody was ever going look at me the same way again. I had fucked up too badly this time to recover.
From Lianne’s room Rafe’s voice demanded, “Who the fuck did this?”
“I don’t know, but the web host is a saas-based content management company. The editor used off-campus internet connections.”
Hell. No wonder she’d gotten miffed about sex noises from my room. It was easy to hear every word. Our bathroom was an echo chamber, apparently.
“I’m going to… FUCK! What language are you speaking?” Rafe demanded.
I could even hear Lianne’s sigh. “Nerd language. I was able to learn quite a bit about the website itself but not about who owns it. I think it’s Beta Rho, though, because Brodacious is a play on their name.”
Lianne was pretty clever for a girl who never left her room.
“Did Bella see this?” he asked her.
“I showed it to her yesterday afternoon.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. But she hasn’t come out since.”
Shit. I braced for impact, turning toward the wall and curling into a protective ball. Aside from closing my eyes, there was no way I could hide from Rafe. I’d left the door to the bathroom unlocked, and now I could hear it opening. The next thing I heard were his feet crossing the floor toward me.
The mattress dipped under his weight. Then a warm hand covered my elbow. “Bella,” he whispered.
I rolled my face into the pillow, imagining what he saw. It was stuffy in my room, and the place reeked of acetone. Cotton balls littered the floor. The skin on my arms looked chafed and red, and faint outlines of the marker remained.
“Bella, you’re scaring me.”
“So,” I said, the word muffled by the pillow.
“Get up, okay?”
“No.” I knew he was being nice, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. For every Rafe, there were ten Whittakers. And I didn’t want to face any of them.
“Lianne showed me the picture,” he said.
I said nothing.
“Are you going to report it?”
“No.”
He made an angry sound. “Why the hell not?”
Damn him. Couldn’t a girl be left alone to suffer her indignities in peace? I lifted my head from the pillow to glower at him. “God, do you get that I don’t want to talk about it? With anyone? Or see anyone?”
That shut him up.
“I know you’re being nice,” I whispered. “But I just can’t…” I dropped my head back onto the pillow, facing the wall. Maybe if I just ignored him, he’d go away.
For a long moment Rafe was silent. “Fine,” he said eventually. “We don’t have to talk. But you still have to get up.”
“No.”
“Yes. We’re going running.”
“What?” I was confused enough to turn my head again so I could see his face.