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18
Chapter Eighteen
I am cornered against the table lining the back of the couch where Vivian sits, with Emmett glaring at me in fury, having no clue what exactly I’ve just walked into.
“You’ve got some nerve showing back up here,” Vivian sneers from behind me.
“What is she talking about?” I ask him, refusing to acknowledge her directly. “Emmett, please. Tell her to go or take me to your room. I need to talk to you.”
“To tell him what?” She stands up from the couch and huffs over. “That you’ve been fucking Malcolm?”
My lips part to tell her how wrong she is, but before I can get out a single word, Emmett flies across the room suddenly and swoops his arms across the fireplace mantle, sending a flurry of vases and frames crashing to the ground with the loud, startling sounds of breaking glass. I flinch and push further against the tabletop, practically sitting on top of it.
“What!?” I cry. “No! I would never…”
“Check your phone, Ophelia,” Vivian tells me, with a tired and irritated voice. “The whole school knows now. It was sent to everyone.”
I want to argue back, but I’m too confused—and afraid of Emmett’s unexplained seething rage. I fumble for my phone in my bag and look to see the notification for a text from an unknown number. I open it to see a photo has been sent to me and every other student at WJ Prep. I remember Lily telling me
about the app—one that Malcolm helped design, no doubt. It served as the Elites’ blacklist and had the ability to text every single person in the school, letting them know if someone had fucked up and was expected to be treated like shit now. But it hasn’t been used since the Elites were taken out. Until now.
The file takes impossibly long to load, but my heart sinks in horror as it finally pops up on the screen. It’s a photo of Malcolm and I on his couch, but it is nothing like what actually happened. I am topless, with one of his hands cupping my bare breasts. Our mouths are locked together, and the rest of our bodies are out of view, but imagination fills in the blanks. We are obviously having sex. I try to blink the image away, but it stares back at me boldly.
“No…No, no, no. This isn’t what it looks like,” I stammer, shaking my head cluelessly.
I fly into a panic. How the hell could this have happened? Even if it were a photo of me from back at his place before I came here, I was definitely never topless and definitely never kissing him back. The position could be slightly similar to that of me warding off his advances, but everything else about it is wrong. I feel a crack in my mind as I race to piece it together.
“Emmett, that’s what I was coming to you for.” I fly to him across the room. “I was with Malcolm and…”
“Obviously you were with him!” Vivian smirks. “We can all see that, Ophelia.”
“Not like that!” I shout, my voice cracking into fearful tears. “We were just hanging out and then…”
“Don’t listen to her shit, Emmett.” She cuts me off, walking over and putting her hands over his arms in comfort. “You don’t need this right now.” Her eyes cut back over to me with an accusing stare. I’m the outsider now. I’m the one who has betrayed him.
“Fuck off, Vivian!” I snap. “Did you do this!? Are you the one who made this photo and sent it to everyone!?”
“She was with me the whole time,” Emmett says coldly, refusing to look me in the eyes.
“Now who’s just making desperate attempts for Emmett’s attention?” she taunts. “Pathetic. You’re so jealous and insecure…you have to run off and fuck some other guy while your boyfriend is sitting over here worried sick about his family.”
“Will you please just stay out of this?” I beg. “I don’t even know why you’re still here!”
“Because I care about him. In ways you obviously don’t.” She rolls her eyes like a dutiful person sweeping in to clean up my mess.
I want to slap her, but it wouldn’t help anything right now. I look back to the photo again, wishing I knew how to explain it and realizing nothing may help right now.
“Emmett, you have to believe me…that message…” I shove Vivian out of the way and try to force myself into his line of sight.
“I can’t look at you right now,” he seethes, pushing me away.
“Emmett, please!” I plead, grabbing for his arms and face, trying everything I can to pull him back to me.
With a vicious roar, he growls and firmly grips my shoulders before hurtling me off of him down to the ground. I fall back and land on my ass with wide, stunned eyes. I try to get up quickly enough to try again, but he is already storming out of the room and up the stairs.
“You better go,” Vivian commands before running after him.
I am frozen, unable to move. I hear more crashes coming from Emmett’s room, and I hate myself for unleashing this side of him in such force. I feel so guilty, I have to keep reminding myself that I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened with Malcolm, and I know that. But how can I argue with what is staring me right in the face?
