Page 40 of Better Watch Out

I don’t realize I’m crying until Boone wipes tears off of my cheeks, leaning down to press a kiss to my jaw. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “We won’t let anything happen, okay?”

But itishappening. It hits me that yesterday Boone knew I was lying when I said I didn’t have any trauma to confess. That was why he acted weird about it. Why Fletcher shushed him.

“I…I’ve seen this before,” I whisper, eyes glued to the screen. The familiar sting of embarrassment worms its way through my insides, and I cringe away from the soft, enthusiastic sounds I’m making in the video. “I also lived it. I don’t need to?—”

“You promise she won’t be mad?”The me in the video is younger, more naive, and way too trusting of her ‘friends.’ “I don’t want to upset her. You promise she knows?”

“Yeah, of course,”Theo assures me. “Everything is fine, okay? Would I lie to you?” He would. Hedid.All because I’d been drunk with them at a party, at their urging, and admitted to having a crush on Olivia’s boyfriend, Theo, and the only guy of our friend group. Looking back, I’m not sure I really had that much of a crush on him, but what do I know? My memories of SIU are pretty tainted now, and I try not to think about any of it.

“You like this, right?”I can hear my own breathing, and the undertone of malice in Theo’s voice I hadn’t heard then. He’d known, of course, that Joanna and Olivia were in the closet, filming me. He knew and had tailored everything to be more dramatic, more entertaining.

Morehumiliating.

It’s so hard to watch as he kisses me, as he teases me over my underwear, and when he finally pushes me back on the bed. The only bright side is that it’s almost over now, but the worst part is still coming and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“Say you’ll be a little whore for me, Conor,” Theo purrs and I flinch away from the words under Boone. “Say you’re such a whore.”

I never would’ve agreed, and I know the people who got to see this video didn’t know I wasn’t sober. I was stupid and all of my friends knew how easily I got blackout drunk. That night, Theo had been the one to push more and more alcohol on me, not letting me deny him until I was drunk enough to follow him around like a little lost puppy.

“I’m…”Even though I know how this goes, some part of me pleads for past-me not to say it. Not to say the thing that’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.

“I’m such a whore,” I said at his urging, and I whine, head tilting back against the couch. I can’t do this anymore. Remembering that night, remembering how horrified I’d been when?—

In the video, the closet door bangs open and Olivia laughs as Joanna comes up to the bed with the phone camera in my face.

“Say hi to everyone else at SIU with a Facebook page,” Oliva sneers, the camera on my dazed, confused features. “This is a public service announcement, class of ‘23. Conor Maxwell, is?—”

Mercifully, when a sob leaves my throat, Fletcher stops the video. But I’m already crying, already pushed past my limit as I try to bury my face in the back of the couch.

“Wh-why are you doing this?” I gasp, writhing under Boone. I don’t know where I want to go, or how I’ll get away from this. Not when I’ve worked so hard to get the memory out of my head. “Because I didn’t tell you? Why are youso mean?—”

Fletcher’s fingers tangle in my hair and he drags my face carefully out of the couch. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he tells me softly. “But we needed you to watch it. We need you to remember how awful they were. What they did to you. They’re the reason you took those pills. The reason you were in that rehab. You didnothing wrong, princess.”

“But—” My head spins, and I want more than anything to ask them how they know any of this. “Why?—”

“And then just to get the video taken down and a slap on the wrist? No suspension, no real consequences?” Boone’s voice is an angry, irritated snarl against my shoulder. “The world’s not fair, Conor.”

“But neither are we.” Fletcher presses a few more buttons on the remote, but I don’t look at the screen. I don’t know if he’s rewinding the video, or doing something else?—

“I’m sorry!”The sobbing voice is immediately familiar and my eyes fly open, head jerking sideways so I can see the screen.This, too, was filmed on a phone, though I can see that Fletcher is streaming it right now from his connected iPhone.

“What…” Olivia’s face fills the screen, bloody and bruised. She rocks back and forth, her hands tied behind her as the camera pulls back, showing her, Theo, and Joanna in the snow.

At the overlook on the trail.

“What did you…” I don’t get to finish. Boone appears on screen, hate in his eyes and a cruel grin on his face. He drags Olivia to her feet as she cries, sobbing, begging for him not to hurt her. Boone croons in her ear, promising he won’t. Promising all she has to do is everything he says.

“Tell my brother you’re a whore.”The words onscreen make me jerk in surprise, and I look at Boone above me, his eyes glittering with satisfaction and excitement. “Tell him, or I’ll slit your throat.”

“I’m a whore!” Olivia doesn’t even hesitate. Boone makes her repeat it, over and over, running his knife along her throat but not cutting her. The words blend together in my ears, until all I can hear is her sobbing and begging, her words mixed with Joanna’s and Theo’s pleas.

And then Boone starts cutting.

This I can’t watch, not after Olivia starts screaming, and I turn to bury my face in Boone’s chest, shuddering against him on the couch. I can’t close my eyes, but all I see is the darkness of his shirt. “I—Turn it off.Turn it off, please!”I feel like I’m going to be sick.

This time, Fletcher listens to me. He pauses the video, cuts off Olivia’s screams and the begging from Joanna in the snow.

Leaving us in the silent living room of the winter house.

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