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“He loves me,” I state, hating the doubt in my own voice.
“We’ll see,” she says, and there’s something about the smugness in her tone that has trickles of dread crawling up my spine. “Nathaniel’s a good boy. He came outright,”she declares. “It’s time for him to leave you behind and get on with his life.”
“He’s a grown man,” I argue. “He can make his own decision.”
“Of course he can. And he’s decided he doesn’t want anything more to do with you.”
I shake my head slowly, fear and trepidation clawing at my chest. “No. No he wouldn’t do that. Please, Mom—”
“I am not your mother,” she says harshly. “I am no one to you. Don’t call this number again.” And then she’s gone.
I spend a good minute just staring at my phone, feeling completely numb. And then I snap into action, bringing up Nate’s information and hitting the call icon.
But he doesn’t answer.
I try calling five times within half an hour but every single call goes unanswered, and the more time that passes without hearing from my brother, the more fearful I get that my mother was right. Nate doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore…
Giving up on the calls, I decided to send a text. Maybe it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that he’s not answering his phone. Maybe he’s at a movie or something. Or maybe he’s not sure how he feels about me and doesn’t want to speak just yet…
Either way, I figure a text is probably more likely to get a response, even if it means I might need to wait a little while.
After crafting the text and sending it to Nate, I flop back onto my bed and will myself not to cry.
I’m too emotionally drained to call Finn now. Which is kind of silly because he’s probably the one person who could put a smile on my face right now. But I just have this ridiculous fear that he won’t want anything to do with me after hearing about the video, and I can’t handle his rejection on top of my fear about Nate. So I call Aidan instead and just hope I’m not interrupting any New Year’s morning sex romps.
12
FINN
One phone call from my brother on New Year’s Day is all it takes for my mood to swiftly change from exuberant to downright shittastic. I try not to let it bother me that I hear the news about the leaked video from Aidan, and not Ellie herself; I know she must be dealing with a ton of shit right now and is no doubt occupied with whatever it is celebrities do when these sorts of crises happen. But it does sting a little. Actually, it stings alot.I want to be the person she turns to when stuff like this happens. I don’t want to be hearing about it along the family grapevine.
The fact that I’m in the video too doesn’t even blip on my radar as a concern for me. Not compared to my worry over Ellie right now. I honestly wouldn’t care if there was a video circulating of me wearing nothing but a hula skirt, doing the limbo to the soundtrack of “Baby Got Back” if it meant Ellie was out of the firing line.
As soon as I’m off the phone with Aidan I go to call Ellie, but then I decide I don’t just want to talk to her; I want to see her. I want to hold her close and make sure she’s okay. So I quickly throw on some clothes and head out the door, making sure to grab the keys to Shay’s apartment on the way out.
Aidan’s place isn’t too far from Shay’s so I decide to just walk. On the way I stop by a little deli and grab some soup considering it’s almost lunchtime and the smells wafting out of the place are practically orgasmic.
“Hey,” Ellie says when she opens the door of Aidan’s apartment. She offers me a smile, but it’s nothing close to the dazzling, self-assured ones she was flashing me last night. This one looks shaky and weak, as though she’s barely managing to hold it in place.
Stepping forward, I wrap my arms around her and pull her in close. “Fuck, El. I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why areyousorry?” she asks, a little hitch to her voice. “I’m the idiot who let her account get hacked.”
I pull back from her, fixing her with a hard look. “Nothingabout this is your fault, Ellie Cat. Do you hear me?”
She swallows hard, then nods. “Yeah.”
I let her go and she leads me into the apartment, before slumping down onto the sofa.
I set the bag from the deli on the counter and start unwrapping it. “You hungry?”
She just shrugs one shoulder and lets out a non-committal noise. Then her phone chirps from the coffee table and she dives on it like it’s a grenade, snatching it up and clutching it to her chest. Biting her lip in hesitation, she holds the screen out and reads the notification, her features crumpling as she reads whatever’s on the screen.
Frowning with concern, I stalk over to her and pluck her phone from her grip.
“Hey!” she protests, but it’s half-hearted at best.
I scowl as I see what’s on the screen, my jaw locked in agitation. “Jesus Christ, Ellie. Please tell me you haven’t been reading all this shit.” I flick my finger to swipe the Twitter notification away. No sooner has it disappeared than another message pops up on the screen—this one from Instagram. It’s in the same vein as the previous one: some narrow-minded asshole who thinks it’s perfectly fine to tag Ellie in their post spewing a bunch of trans-erasing shit.
