Page 46 of Corrupt Me

They had to go.

I began the tedious task of erasing each picture. It was tempting to select all and delete considering I was working under a deadline, but there could be irreplaceable memories stored on his phone. If someone erased the photos I stored on my phone, I’d be devastated. It held some of my most precious moments, including many with my mom. I never wanted toforget what she was like, and I feared, as time stretched, those memories would fade. The pictures helped keep her alive.

No shortcuts. Not even to save my hide.

I had to then get rid of the deleted files and pray he didn’t back up his phone to the cloud, something I planned to check when I snagged his laptop. He’d be pissed to notice it gone, but I’d give it back…eventually.

It was his fault.

He never should have blackmailed me or underestimated me.

I kept swiping and removing files until I stared at a picture of Preston. And another. And another. Nearly as many as he had taken of me. Which shouldn’t be a big deal except the more I swiped, the less likely I thought Tristan took these photos. They looked like shots a private investigator would take, flipping like a movie, one frame to the next.

My finger halted.

What the actual fuck?

This couldn’t be right.

I stared at a still of Preston with his hands on another girl. His damn lips were on hers as he pressed her against a building with his body. Either Preston moved the hell on quickly, or this had been taken when we were together.

Neither thought filled me with much relief.

I scrolled to the next picture and the next, unable to believe what I saw. I might not want to believe it was Preston in the image, but there was no mistaking it was him.

“Bastard,” I hissed between my clenched teeth.

Each photo had an upload date, and I hit the tiny I icon, checking to see when they’d been saved to Preston’s phone. June of this year. The beginning of summer. When Preston and I had very much been a couple.

The prick cheated on me.

I’d love to admit I was surprised, but the lack of response inside me should be concerning. My lungs should be squeezing. My anger should be spitting. My heart should be splintering. The shortfall of emotions told me something about my feelings for Preston. Yes, I was mad, but where was the gut-wrenching hurt? The fury?

They weren’t there.

And to think, last week he’d been here on campus expecting us to get back together. Why would he do that if he was sleeping with other girls? It didn’t make sense.

Preston wanted to talk. Fucking boy, were we going to talk.

If there weren’t so many pictures, I might have thought they could be photoshopped, but seeing Tristan snap images of me, I knew what he was capable of.

I quickly selected a few of the cheating photos on Tristan’s phone and sent them to the messaging app, picking my number when it came up. He had an old image of me as my profile from when I was probably fifteen. It was like Tristan wanted to constantly remind himself I was like a little sister to him.

The petty side of me hit send and then immediately went in to change my profile picture, choosing one of the sexier photos he’d taken. I’d completely derailed from my mission, and time was ticking.

My fingers tapped on each item to highlight for deletion. Just another minute and I’d have every image of me wiped?—

The door to Tristan’s room opened, and my head jerked up, and I stared at a very menacing scowl.

“What are you doing, Shortcake?”

sixteen

Itossed Tristan’s phone onto the bed as if it burned me, staring at him with wide, guilty eyes. My heart knocked hard against my ribs, and I could hear it thumping in my ears. I remembered him asking me a question, but my mind went utterly blank at the sight of him, making me feel like a deer caught in headlights. My body froze.

Tristan stood over the threshold in a white towel wrapped around his hips, his chest bare and covered in ink.

I took in his face, attempting to judge his mood, but it was difficult to tell when all Tristan ever did lately was scowl at me. He definitely wasn’t thrilled to find me in his room, snooping on his phone.

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