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“Have you seen the news?”
Rubbing my eyes, I try to stir some life into my barely conscious body. “No?”
“Fuck, babe, I don't even know how to tell you this.”
“What, Leigh?” I probe, impatient, anxious and confused. “Just tell me.”
She takes a long pause and I hear her suck in a deep breath, steadying herself for whatever she's about to say. Then, finally, in a quiet and stuttered voice, she says, “There's a picture of you circulating online. A, um…shit. A naked one.”
Something seizes my body, like claws wrapping around me and piercing deep into my flesh. My heart thunders, beating so violently that it makes me breathless and the acidic bite of vomit burns in the base of my throat.
“How?” I gasp. “What photo? I don't understand.”
My head feels funny, like it's full of helium or beer bubbles. I have no idea what Leighton's talking about. How can there be a naked picture of me online when I've never taken one?
Not since I was seventeen and I naively sent provocative images of myself to a talent agent who then used them as blackmail to make me touch him in ways I didn't want to.
I would never take or send explicit photos of myself after that.
Never. Never. Never.
But then I remember...
Like ice water pouring down my back, I fucking remember.
Cole.
That night in the bathtub, as we touched ourselves together, he'd wished he could take a picture of me and I'd let him.
No, I didn't just let him. I'd encouraged him.
I'd told him to do it.
“You're in the bath,” Leighton whispers. “Shit, this is fucking awkward and I hate that it's me telling you, babe. Really, I'm so fucking sorry. But it looks like you're, um, doing things to yourself. You can't see it properly in the photo, but it's pretty fucking obvious to anyone with eyes.”
I'm going to be sick.
Retching over the side of the bed, I spill the contents of my stomach all over the plush carpet floor.
“Who would do this to you, Thea?” she asks gently, sounding as confused and rattled as I am.
But I can't say it. I can't let myself think that he'd really do this to me, not after what I've told him, not after the things he's said over the past few weeks.He told me he loves me. Was it all a sick joke to him? A way to get me back after breaking his heart six years ago?
Why would he do this? I don't understand.
“Cole.”
“What?” Leighton releases a shocked gasp, then laughs it off. “You're joking, right?”
“He took the picture.”
“No, that doesn't make any sense,” she says, her voice thick with bewilderment. “He loves you. It's clear as fucking day to everyone in this town—even India, for fuck's sake. He loves you so much it's stupid. He'd never do this to you.”
I thought that too.
But there's no other explanation for it.
He's the only person in the world with access to that photo.
