Page 82 of Repairing the Wreckage

But Torch saying it…he has every reason to want me to believe Griff cheated. We never spoke about it over the summer. Not once. Then the first time he sees Griff, he tells me to reconsider?

I have to know.

Downstairs seems quiet. None of Remy’s usual nocturnal noises. No hum of the television or rattles from the kitchen. Or worse, giggles from some girl spending the night.

I crack open my door and peer into the hallway like a burglar checking if the coast is clear. I tiptoe past Remy’s closed bedroom door. No light spills from under the crack and I breathe a sigh of relief.

My heart pounds as I ease down the stairs, avoiding the one near the bottom that squeaks.

Without turning on any lights, I perch on the edge of Remy’s recliner and swivel toward the television.

Can I really do this again? Should I wait for Remy to watch it with me?

No. I’m not a kid who needs her big brother to hold her hand.

I turn on the television and flip through the on-screen menus until I find the show. Griff’s face flashes on the screen as the cover photo for the whole show. My heart squeezes. I scroll through the episodes until I find the right one.

Am I really doing this to myself? It took me forever to get those images out of my head.

I fast forward through the dumb opening montage that includes my face as I tearfully hug Griff goodbye. The big bad moment happened near the end, so I keep it fast-forwarding through all the dumb fighter antics, the girls strutting around in their bathing suits, and the outing.

The images on screen shift to black-and-white and I hit play. I mute the announcer’s annoying voice and just watch.

Griff and Kiki at his door.

A couple in bed together. The picture is so grainy. Without the announcer telling me who’s on the screen, would I have assumed it was Griff?

I can’t really see the girl, either. It could be Kiki. Or it could be one of the other ring bunnies in the house.

Disgusted that I feel like I’m intruding on what was an intimate moment for…whoever’s on screen, I shift my gaze to the left. The shadowy shape of the plain nightstand, a chair in the corner, a—wait a minute.

The nightstand.

My heart pounds painfully. Am I crazy? How did I miss this before? Why didn’t anyone else notice?

The picture I tucked away in Griff’s bag, the one the show mocked in the first episode, isn’t on the nightstand where Griff put it, right at the edge, so he’d see it first thing when he woke up every morning.

I rewind and watch again. The quality of the footage is terrible but it’s clear enough to see the top of the nightstand is completely empty. Nothing. Not even the tube of lip balm I sent with Griff, which he also left by the bed.

It’s not Griff’s room.

I grab my phone and Google “Griff Stonewall Supreme Fighter Cheat Nightstand” and find an entire sub on Reddit dedicated to the show. Every comment I read makes my heart thud harder.

Episode: Something Big Happens

FlockingFab20: “I hope his girlfriend knows he didn’t cheat. The photo wasn’t there.”

SUF36: My theory is he removed the picture before Kiki came into the room. Probably stashed in his nightstand so he wouldn’t get the guilts.

FlockingFab20: That makes zero sense. It looked too spontaneous.

On and on the speculation continues. Hundreds of different users. Two thousand different comments in this thread alone. They seem split fifty/fifty on whether Griff actually cheated.

Why would any normal person care this much about people they’ve never even met?

Bile burns the back of my throat. Strangers on the Internet stuck up for Griff more than I did. I was his girlfriend. His friend long before that. I didn’t even let him explain. I wouldn’t hear him out.

Worse, I destroyed the car he gave me for my birthday. The car he bought for me and so lovingly poured many hours into restoring.

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