Page 93 of Ruining Vanessa

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I’m restless, but it’s my day off so I can’t burn off all that energy with work. I end up at my workbench at home instead, assembling a new train layout that I’ve been neglecting for the past few weeks. There were just more important things to worry about.

I open the drawer to grab some of the craft glue when my eye catches on something.

A phone, forgotten among all the other shit I threw in there.

Vanessa’s phone.

Giulio had given it to me for safekeeping after he’d first brought Vanessa to Ntimacy, and since there wasn’t any purpose for it, I’d just left it there. Out of sight, out of mind.

Except now my curiosity gets the better of me. A phone has a lot of information about a person. I could get to know Vanessa a lot more intimately, all the things she isn’t telling us.

This is the first time I’ve ever cared to know more about somebody like this, and I’m kind of annoyed by that feeling, but it doesn’t stop me from lifting the phone out and examining it under the lamp.

I haven’t turned it on at all since Giulio had given it to me, and I’m not dumb enough to just turn it on as is. I pry the back off and remove the sim card, then turn it on. There’s a swiping password, but holding the phone under the light shows me smears in roughly the patterns Vanessa has swiped. It takes only two tries to get the order right. Once the phone’s unlocked, I check what apps are on it.

Nothing suspicious. I disable the GPS, uninstall all map apps, and turn the phone on airplane mode before replacing the sim card. It’s unlikely anybody is actually tracking the phone—and I check to make sure there aren’t any weird programs running in the background—but better safe than sorry.

There aren’t actually a lot of contacts in the address book. Mom, Dad, Lucia—the sister, if I remember correctly—and a handful of other names that, judging from the text history, are just college friends.

But I do notice Brad.

That was her old boyfriend, the one who’d given Vanessa all sorts of weird ideas about her body. I bite down on my annoyance and start going through their entire texting history. Good thing Vanessa wasn’t deleting old texts automatically.

It goes back almost two years, and tells a strange, almost sweet tale at first. They started as partners in some group projects, and they just hung out more and more. Until suddenly there are lots of heart emojis, and it takes all my self-control not to destroy the phone immediately.

But there’s something else, too.

Brad’s texts waver between sickly sweet to subtly insulting. Sometimes there’s a stretch where he doesn’t text back at all, then Vanessa’s asking, Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?

Fucker was playing her.

I’ve seen it all before, guys playing women and stringing them along. The bastard must’ve at least had the decency to break up with her in person, which is somewhat surprising given the history between the two. But I can see where it all changes, where he starts reminding her they’re still friends—then asks if she wants to come over the next day.

Of course she says yes, because she’s Vanessa, and I can only imagine what happened after that. My jaw tightens with the thought of someone fucking with her—someone who isn’t us—and I keep scrolling through. It keeps happening again and again, though, with him ghosting her then reaching out to invite her over. Eventually, she starts refusing him, but by then, I can see the damage has been done.

I read to the end of the text chain, recognizing the date as that of her sister’s wedding. His casual hey is anything but; it had been about two weeks since the last text. Obviously, Vanessa never had a chance to reply.

My curiosity gets the better of me, and I turn the data on to see if there are any new texts. Several pop up, and the most recent is only three days ago.

I scroll back up, amazed to see the sheer number of messages since then. There are a few nice texts from Brad, some more sweet ones, then they gradually get more hostile. He accuses her of ghosting him, like he hadn’t done the same thing over and over.

It’s the sight of the dick pic that gets me really pissed, especially with the accompanying, don’t you miss this dick?

He just can’t take a hint, can he?

I flip through a few of her more recent texts, seeing friends who are worried about her, but I ignore those after a precursory check. My attention is focused on Brad and his dick pic and insults to Vanessa.

I’d planned on going through some of her social media, but I’m just too agitated to focus. I can always do it later… after I take care of this.

I power the phone down and grab my own, calling Giulio.

He answers almost immediately. “Yo, what’s up?”

“You free now?” My voice comes out as a growl. “Because I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Um… Give me half an hour? What kind of surprise?”

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