Page 42 of Talk to Me

He gave me a smile, but said nothing, and instead went back to shuffling his feet and looking down at them. Realizing I couldn’t stand there forever, holding our food and waiting for him to say anything else, I finally spoke up.

“Well,” I said, “put on some pajamas that don’t smell like a trap house, and follow me upstairs. We can eat lunch in my room.”

“I don’t want to make things worse for you. I should probably—”

Turning, I said, “I’m giving you privacy to change. Take the opportunity while you have it. If you don’t, I will stare creepily at you while you change.”

Though I could tell he was trying not to do it, Theo laughed. He sighed.

“Okay,” he said. “Give me a second. And you don’t have to act all prudish. I have on underwear.”

I didn’t make such a big deal of keeping my eyes turned away, but I relaxed and headed over to stand by the door. Waiting patiently for Theo to change his clothes—he slipped on some basketball shorts and a pocket tee—I was dying to get out of the room. If the smell hadn’t already permeated every fiber in my clothing, I would have been surprised.

Silently, Theo grabbed his keys, and we left his room, turning off the light on the way. We hopped in the elevator, which Theo seemed anxious about, but fortunately we were able to travel down one floor without anyone joining us. Once we were down at my room, after having passed more than a handful of staring and whispering students, I quickly opened the door and we rushed inside. Fortunately, Collin wasn’t in our room.

I hadn’t expected to see my roommate in the dorm since he had been avoiding the room as much as possible for weeks. After the exchange in the lecture hall, I expected he’d start doing everything he could to avoid me in our room for the rest of the school year. If he had to sleep in the room, I was certain he’d be sneaking in after I was already in bed, then sneak out again before I woke up.

That was going to be just fine with me.

“Here.” I handed Theo the food, and he cradled it in his arms. “I have to change. I can still smell your roommate on me.”

A minute later, with both of us in fresh clothes, Theo was sitting crossed legged at the end of my bed and I was sitting at the head of the bed. We’d unwrapped our sandwiches and opened our chips and were digging in like we hadn’t eaten in years. I spent the time it took scarfing down my sandwich and chips—which we washed down with sodas from my fridge—to think about how to begin the conversation with Theo.

When the food was gone and there was nothing keeping us from it, I spoke up.

“So,” I said, “what did Ben post?”

“It’s nothing,” Theo said. “Just his usual—”

“I don’t know what his usual thing is,” I said, cutting him off. “So, give me the actual skinny on what the punk did.”

Chuckling uncomfortably, Theo continued.

“Just what he always does,” Theo said. “Well, what he did. He hasn’t posted one of his ‘go get him, fans’ videos in months.”

“He weaponizes his…fanbase or something?”

“Oh, yeah,” Theo said. “If I go too long without trouble, and people are starting to get tired of treating me like shit, he seems to have this sixth sense that tells him. So, he posts some vague video about how awful I am, without actually mentioning me by name, and it all starts over.”

Theo ripped the tab from the top of his soda can, seemed to realize how violent the act would seem, and dropped it gently onto his sandwich wrapper. I sat back and pulled my phone from my pocket. I opened Peepers and clicked on the search function. Two seconds later, I’d found Ben Carter’s Peepers account and had his bio on the screen. I scrolled down, found the first video, and tapped on it.

The first thing I noticed was that the lighting and setting were really good for a person who was desperately trying to look casual. Ben was a handsome guy. Stylish curly blond hair. Good skin. Great smile. Obviously, a total douchebag hiding behind his cherubic looks. Then again, biases may have been at play in m assessment.

“I don’t know guys,” his video began. “I woke up this morning feeling totally worthless. You all know how much I’ve worked on my self-worth over the last several months. And I know I’m worthy of love and respect and I’m a good person. I just don’t feel like it today. All those months of work feel lost.”

Cringing, I looked over the top of my phone at Theo. He was fiddling with his hands in his lap. I turned my attention back to the video.

“Anyway, it’s just hard to have a good day and feel good about yourself when awful people are just living their lives, pretending like they didn’t totally betray you and ruin your life. They just carry on and play with animals and hang out with their new friends and act like they aren’t actually Satan. I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. Anyway, send me good thoughts today. I’m sending you all love!”

That was it. The entire video. It was obviously about Theo, but Ben had been smart enough to not name actual names. Plausible deniability.

It was evil.

“What a fucking dick.” I breathed out as I dropped my phone onto the bed beside me.

Theo snorted. “Yeah.”

Frowning as thoughts swirled through my head, I leaned back against the wall behind me and crossed my arms over my chest. Ben had put Theo between a rock and a hard place. If he responded to the video, he’d look defensive. If he didn’t respond, he’d look guilty of…whatever. Defending himself would be ridiculous anyway since Ben hadn’t mentioned him by name—nor had he said what exactly it was that Theo had done to upset him.