Page 49 of Cruel Riches

It didn’t work.

The girl was such a carbon copy of me that it was getting harder and harder by the second to separate her from myself in my mind. Every time I looked at her, I saw myself sucking that man’s cock. I saw myself taking him from behind, and I saw myself moaning and crying out for more.

It got worse, too. Instead of seeing the man as a stranger, I started to picture him in my head as Nate. He looked similar enough, with that dark hair cut short on the sides, and the two-day stubble on his jaw.

Soon the video had blurred with my imagination and memories so much that I could no longer separate fact from fiction at all. It felt like the whole sex tape had actually happened to me, and part of me could even ‘remember’ what it felt like to feel Nate’s cock stretching me out; that sweet agony of letting my worst enemy degrade me in the most humiliating way possible.

With a shaky sigh, I tossed my phone down and put my head back in my hands. After a few minutes of that, I felt too weak to sit up any longer, so I lay on the carpet under the big wooden table and curled up in a ball.

I wallowed there in my shame and misery for hours, wishing I could just evaporate into thin air. I knew I couldn’t hide in this little room forever, but at the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. As soon as I stepped out of the library, I’d return to the real world with all the people staring and whispering behind their hands. Slut. Whore. Bitch.

“I thought we might find you here.”

I sniffed and looked up to see Laurel and Ruby standing at the narrow entrance to the octagonal room.

“Come on. It’s okay,” Ruby said softly, kneeling beside the table. She reached an arm out to grab my left shoulder, and Laurel followed suit with the right one.

“That’s it,” Laurel murmured, pulling me to my feet. “You’re okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

Tears sprang to my eyes again. “No, it’s not. I’m fucked.”

“You aren’t.”

I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and sat down. “You really don’t need to do this,” I muttered.

“Do what?” Ruby’s forehead wrinkled.

“Hang out with me.” I sniffed again, trying to stem the tears. “Someone will see you eventually, and trust me, you don’t want everyone to know you as the campus pornstar’s friends. They’ll just paint you with the same brush they’ve used for me.”

“So? You seriously think we’d ditch you right now?” Laurel asked.

“I’m just saying, I won’t blame you at all if you don’t want to hang out with me anymore,” I said softly. “You’ve only known me for three weeks, so if you want to cut and run, I understand completely. No hard feelings.”

Laurel scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. She leaned closer. “Do you remember what Ruby said this morning, about me hating everyone?””

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I know she was kidding, but it’s basically true. I do hate most people, because so many of them suck so fucking much. I usually feel pretty alone because of that, but ever since I met you two,” she said, pointing to Ruby and me in turn. “I don’t feel alone at all. You guys have been nothing but good to me, even though I was a total bitch to both of you when we first met.”

“Yeah, you definitely weren’t the friendliest chick,” Ruby said with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. She reached over and playfully pinched Laurel’s arm as she spoke.

Laurel flashed her a self-deprecating smile before turning back to me. “My point is, I’m not ditching you just because some fucking asshole decided to mess with you and post a fake sex tape.”

My eyes widened. “So you believe me?” I said. “You know it’s not me?”

She snorted. “Of course I believe you! I knew it wasn’t you from the start. You’d never let someone film you with your hair looking that scruffy.”

I almost cracked a smile at her joke.

She went on. “Seriously, though, we know it’s fake, and we can prove it.”

“What?” I sat up straighter, brows shooting up.

“It’s fake, and we can prove it,” she repeated.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Ruby chimed in. “Where do you think we’ve been for the last five hours?”

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