Chapter 11 - My Friends Thought It Was A Game
Saturday night, three people came to my apartment.
Not Brooke.
Friends from the picnic.
Sam.
Tori.
Eli.
People who had laughed when I smashed Rachel’s cake.
They brought pizza.
I almost closed the door.
Tori held up the box.
“We figured birthday replacement.”
“Not my birthday.”
She winced.
“Right.”
I let them in anyway.
For ten minutes nobody mentioned the fight.
Then Eli said:
“So are we supposed to apologize?”
I looked at him.
“For?”
He shrugged.
“Laughing.”
Tori said:
“I thought it was a bit.”
“What bit?”
“The Vanessa thing.”
I stared.
She continued carefully.
“You do stuff.”
“Stuff.”
“You poke people.”
Sam interrupted.
“Not like that.”
Tori looked at him.
“Yes, like that.”
The room got quiet.
I sat on the arm of the couch.
“What did you think was happening?”
Tori answered first.
“That you were trying to get Rachel to freak out.”
I stared.
“And you laughed.”
She looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because everybody laughs when you do that.”
No useful excuse.
Sam said:
“I didn't know you planned to use the video.”
“Would that have changed it?”
He thought.
“I hope.”
Bad answer.
Better than certainty.
Eli said:
“Brooke warned me.”
My head lifted.
“What?”
“Before the picnic.”
Tori turned.
“She did?”
Eli nodded.
“She asked me not to get involved if something happened.”
My anger returned.
“When?”
“Like an hour before.”
“What exactly?”
“That you were trying to provoke Rachel and security might show.”
I stood.
“Brooke knew security was coming?”
Eli looked confused.
“Didn't you call them?”
The room stopped.
“What?”
He pulled out his phone.
“You told us you were reporting a threat.”
I stared.
Then remembered.
The morning before the picnic, I had used the campus safety app.
Not a formal complaint.
A “concern” message.
Rachel Carter has been confronting me repeatedly and may approach me during the East Quad event.
No lie technically.
No mention that I had invited her there.
The officers had been approaching because I arranged the possibility.
Brooke knew because I told her.
They were never watching Rachel.
The line changed meaning again.
She had not meant security.
She meant the people on her stream.
I sat back down.
Tori looked sick.
“You called security before smashing a cake into her?”
“Yes.”
Nobody said anything.
That silence had more weight than a lecture.
Then Sam asked:
“Why?”
I almost gave him Rachel/Lena/Brooke.
All true.
Not enough.
“Because I wanted the end ready before I started.”
Tori looked at me.
“That’s…”
She stopped.
“Say it.”
“Scary.”
I nodded.
Fair.
Eli looked toward my laptop.
“Is Brooke posting that big thing?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I don't.”
“You guys breaking up?”
I almost laughed.
“We're not dating.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did.
Brooke had been the person beside me in every room for four years.
Friendship has breakups too.
Less paperwork.
More confusion.
Tori looked at the pizza.
“Can I ask something?”
“Apparently.”
“Was Rachel actually trying to expose you?”
I thought.
“She wanted me to correct something.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Tori stared.
“You did all this over that?”
I wanted to say it wasn't just that.
It was Lena.
My reputation.
Brooke's betrayal I hadn't known about yet.
My fear that one old story could reopen.
But from outside, the sequence was humiliatingly small.
Rachel asked me to admit one clip was incomplete.
I arranged a fight.
“Yes,” I said.
Tori looked down.
Nobody knew what to do with the answer.
Then Eli’s phone buzzed.
He looked.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen.
A campus gossip account had posted a new video.
Not Rachel.
Not me.
Brooke.
Two years earlier in North Hall.
Her voice clearly audible before Lena entered:
Put the phone on the shelf. If she freaks out, we have it.
The caption:
THE CAMERA GIRL WASN’T JUST FILMING.
May you like
Brooke's past had entered the story.
And I had no idea who had posted it.
