Page 30 of The Wrong Side of Kai
My heart is thumping as I open the email. It’s blank except for a zipped folder, which I automatically download. The next thirty seconds feel excruciatingly slow, but I’m wide awake now, hunched over the laptop and drumming my fingers against the keypad. Finally, a list of folders appears on my screen:Messages, Photos, Videos, Music, Mail,andNotes.
I stare at the folders, adrenaline flooding my bloodstream, deciding which to open first. It’s so exhilarating, the thought of having Harrison’s life at my fingertips. . . I decide to get the boring files out of the way first. I check his music, but it’s mostly Drake and Post Malone albums, though there’s also a Taylor Swift album in there, which makes me chuckle.
Then I check his email, but his inbox is as boring and as ignored as my own: hundreds of unopened spam emails, random newsletters, and the occasional stranger offering to transfer him three million dollars if he provides his social security number. Oh, and the portable loudspeaker he bought on Amazon was dispatched yesterday.
I open up his notes next. A couple of reminders about assignments that are due, a list of colleges I’m guessing he must be interested in, and then the first worthwhile thing I’ve found so far: names. Names that include my own.
Lizzie Avery 7/10
Madison Romy 5/10
Sierra Jennings 8/10
Vanessa Murphy 9/10
I stare dumbfounded at my computer screen, the names etching themselves into my retinas.
It’s the girls he’s hooked up with.
It has to be. There’s no other explanation, especially because my name is the newest addition. It’s so gross and it makes me want to claw at my skin. How could I have ever been attracted to a guy like this? And Madison Romy is on there too? Oh, damn. I would have never guessed that in a million years. Lizzie Avery, however? She’s on the cheer squad, so that’s no surprise. Even expected, more like. But Sierra Jennings? The name draws a blank in my head. I’ve never heard of her, and unless she’s a freshman, then I’m convinced she doesn’t go to Westerville North. Unless. . .
Unless Sierra Jennings isKai’s ex.
I grab my phone and take a picture of the list on my screen. This information is more intriguing than useful, and it’s made me realize that Harrison is kind of a dog. I mean, seriously?Ratingthe girls he’s been with? Like he needs to create a list to record his achievements? What a scumbag. I should have known that on Sunday when he told me I wasn’t the only girl he had on speed dial.
There’s nothing else of interest in his notes, so I move over to his messages. The messages are displayed as a thread of text, each conversation contained in its own subfolder. I open Harrison’s messages with me first, even though I know exactly what they say. Our last messages to each other were on Sunday night before I ended things and he kicked me out of his truck. I scroll back through the thread, all the way back to our very first exchange on the first day of September. It was me who got in touch first.
VANESSA: Hey, it’s Vanessa. Saw you at Polaris earlier. We should hang out sometime.
HARRISON: What’s up? Yeah, maybe we should.
In hindsight, I wish I had never texted him. I was bored, having cooled things down with Nick Foster a month earlier, when I saw Harrison at the mall. He just happened to look hotter than usual that day and I wondered what it’d be like to kiss him. We hooked up for the first time that same night, embarking on what soon became a two-month fling.
I cringe as I flick through the rest of our messages. All the flirting and teasing. . . None of it was worth it. But how was I supposed to know that Harrison would turn out to be such a jackass? That he would have absolutely zero respect for me?
I brace myself – I don’t know what I’ll find this time – then read his messages with Noah and Anthony too, mostly focusing on what they all discussed on Sunday night and also Monday when the video was first leaked. They are all in one big group chat together with a handful of other guys from the team.
HARRISON: You were right, man. She just cut things off. Left her at Heritage Park lol. Girls like her will get picked up easily there.
NOAH: Told you she gets bored quickly.
ANTHONY: Who do you think she’ll go after next?
NOAH: You if you’re unlucky enough ;)
Then I can see that Harrison sent a file into the chat just after six the next morning, and I know exactly which file that was. In front of me is the exact moment Harrison broke my trust and shared that video. I can’t bring myself to read the string of messages that followed, so I close that chat.
I then work my way through each subfolder of conversations with different contacts, reading mundane texts between Harrison and his parents, until I get to the exchanges between Harrison and Sierra Jennings. I hesitate before I open the folder. I’m suddenly aware that I’m snooping around Harrison’s private life, and it feels wrong, but I mentally remind myself that he doesn’t deserve privacy. He didn’t givemeany.
I check my phone for the time. It’s 06:23. The darkness outside is beginning to lift. I inhale and open the folder, glued to my screen as I read over the most recent texts between Harrison Boyd and Sierra Jennings. They’re from Monday.
HARRISON: A lot of shit happened today. Need you to make me feel better.
SIERRA: Oh, babe. Do you want me to come over?
Oh, babeindeed.
So. Sierra Jennings is the other girl then, which feels immensely awkward, given that she’s Kai’s ex. This feels like the worst love triangle in the world, the way we’re now all linked.
