Page 104 of Worth Every Game

No one had those photos except me.No one.

I scroll through them, faster and faster, as if the speed might make them disappear. Might take this all away. But they keep coming, one after the other, more and more of them… every single shot I took.

My legs feel weak, and I slide down the wall, crouching near the floor. I feel sick. Really, truly, violently sick.

What am I supposed to do about this? There are pictures of Elly with her legs spread for me—for me—out there in the world. Guilt burns every inch of my insides like I’ve swallowed a bottle of bleach. My mouth gapes and I cover it with one hand, trying to buckle down the rising panic.

Another message comes through from Derek, containing a link to an existing video.

Derek:This one is gaining traction. Nearly a million views already.

With trepidation, I open the attached link to a video. It’s byUser5498,and it’s a slideshow of the photos, blurred in all the appropriate places, but still horribly obvious. An AI voiceover is reeling off comments about Elly. “Elly Carter is a slut. A whore. A toxic disgrace—”

“What’s that?”

My heart crashes so hard against my ribs, it could almost break the bones.Elly. I shut the phone down and look up to see her standing in the doorway, her beautiful face creased with consternation.

“I heard my name. What is it?" she queries.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie.” She paces towards me and sticks her hand out as though she expects me to put my phone in it. “Show me.”

“It’s just internet crap. Social media. It’s not worth—”

“Why are you out here alone watching it, then? And with that look on your face.”

An uncomfortable tightness rises up my throat. I have no good explanation for it, so I opt for the truth. “Derek sent it.”

“He told you to watch a video describing me as toxic? A disgrace? A slut?”Shit.How long was she standing there watching me listen to this fucking video? “Why? To warn youoff? To make sure you knew what you were getting involved with?”

“Fuck, no. Nothing like that. He was worried because it might impact your marketing.”

“Let me see it. If you don’t let me see it right now, I swear—”

“No.”

She comes towards me, and I slide back up the wall to standing. My heart is pounding. There is no good conclusion to this. However this pans out, on some level, it’s my fault.

She grabs at the phone, but I hold it out of reach.

“Jack, what the fuck is going on? Let me see it.”

I shake my head, but Elly is tearing at me, jumping up, and I get the cruelest flash of her trying to reach her guitar that very first night I came back to the flat and she sang for me. I wish I could go back to that moment instead of being here on the precipice of everything going to shit.

I can’t hide this from her forever, but I can damn well try for now.Why did this have to happen tonight, when everything was going so well?

She gives up, knowing she can’t reach my phone and I won’t relent. “I’ll just look it up myself,” she says, tugging her own phone from her pocket.

“No. Don’t do it,” I rasp, my hand covering hers. “Please don’t. Not now.”

She raises worried eyes to mine, and somehow the severity of the situation seems to become truly apparent. She backs away from me, still holding her phone, her fingers moving rapidly over the screen, scrolling, typing. I hold my breath.

Her hands begin to shake as she swipes over the screen again and again. It doesn’t take long for small whimpering noises to slip from her lips, increasing in frequency until, finally, she sucks in air in one enormous gasp. “Oh, God,” she cries, her phone tumbling to the ground before she grasps her stomachwith both hands as if she’s going to throw up. She bends over, repeating over and over, “Oh, God. How? How?How?”

She totters on the spot like she’s drunk, and when I try to steady her, she pushes me away. Her head snaps up. “You said you deleted them. Did you? Did you delete the photos?”

“I…”

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