Page 8 of The Way You Hurt Me

She has my number—courtesy of her sister. I think she’s had it for years.

But on her seventeenth birthday, she makes use of it for the first time.

I ignore it.

I ignore it for an entire year.

Then, the next summer, I do what I must and she stops texting. I tell myself to ignore that, too.

And it works. For a while.

3

WILLOW

Three Years and Three Months Later

I resent the times I wake up in the middle of the night, haunted by the utterly embarrassing shit I used to do. The night before my nineteenth birthday, I remember the text I sent exactly three years prior at midnight.

One naughty picture. Red lipstick. And the words “wish you were here.”

God. I cringe into my pillow.Wishing I could bleach my brainis more accurate this year.

Honestly, looking back I’m lucky I don’t have a restraining order.

At least, I can say I’m finally cured of the debilitating infatuation I had on my sister’s friend with benefits, or whatever. There’s only so much humiliation a girl can take before getting the memo.

I check my phone. 1:18am. I’m officially twenty. With a sigh, I drag myself up, knowing I won’t be able to get back to sleep. Four hours is as much as I get on a good day.

I scroll through my notifications; a few early birthday wishes, a couple of bills, and of course, tons of messages forRuby Red Heart. It’s also her birthday; I didn’t bother to change many details when I set up my alter ego.

Ruby Red Heart is me, online, behind a black mask and very little clothing.

I’m not fond of the termporn star, much preferringcam girl; but well, I’ve long ago moved on from naughty pictures to inserting various things in certain orifices for an audience, so porn isn’t exactly the wrong word to describe what I do.

Hundreds of people are wishing Ruby Red a great birthday. I suppose I should post a thank you tit pic later.

No one knows it’s me behind the mask—I’ve been extremely careful, scrambling my location, using VPNs on top of VPNs, and I subtly change my features with makeup. My own sister wouldn’t recognize me online.

I realize that if I were discovered, I’d be at risk of losing a lot—my scholarship, my future—and thatshouldbe enough for me to never have posted the first picture, but that’s just the thing.Not much excites or challenges me. Not kissing boys, not dancing at parties, not even sex. But being watched?That’sfun. It’s my naughty little secret; a harmless one that hasn’t yet come to bite me in the ass during the last two years.

I scroll past these notifications, and gasp when I catch an email completely unrelated to my birthday. It’s come earlier than expected.

Dear Ms. Brown,

You will find attached?—

I don’t bother to read the full message, rushing to open the file containing my transcript.

I was in so many AP classes at Cross and Roses, Columbia accepted many of them as credit for my first year; and I took nine classes at a time, stacking my course load, which means that now, three years and four months after my enrollment, I have a full Master of Computer Science as well as a Master of Business Administration.

Thank fuck it’s over. I freakinghatedcollege.

It wasn’t as terrible as high school, but I seriously can’t stand listening to lectures repeating things I’ve read about in the damn textbook just to get a piece of paper telling me I’ve learned things I already know.

I like learning. I hate having to validate my knowledge to people who only have a small grasp of the subject.

I take a second to consider the time—ten o’clock in Cali. I doubt my sister’s in bed yet, so I decide to attempt calling. Hopefully, I’m not catching her during the rare times when her newborn lets her sleep.

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