AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She smiles at me and tosses that gleaming mane of hair over her shoulders. It falls down her back like a cloak.
“And,” I say, holding up one hand, cautioning her against being so thrilled by my answer, “you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on. All of it.”
She nods, her smile fading a little.
“Now would be good. Or you can keep putting it off and—”
“I took photos.” She blurts it out, then presses her lips together nervously. “Photos of me—naked ones. I was going to send them to my boyfriend. I never did, but I kept them on my camera. Stupid, right?”
Some questions have no good answer. “Who’s this boyfriend?”
She looks down and reaches across her body to adjust the shoulder strap of her bag, making her seem smaller and more vulnerable. “We broke up. He didn’t even know. He couldn’t have anything to do with this.”
She’s lying.
I’m not sure which part is the lie, but now that we’re getting to the details, she’s exhibiting tells. Avoiding eye contact. Fidgeting.
“So I guess someone got a hold of them,” I say, prompting her to continue.
She nods. “My camera got taken two weeks ago. Then this past Sunday someone slipped a note under my door. It said that I have a week to get five thousand dollars. I have to bring that to the baseball pitch at six in the morning next Tuesday or the person’s going to show the photos to everyone.”
“The baseball pitch?” I frown. “Let me see the note.”
She reaches into her book bag and gives me a folded piece of white printer paper, probably from one of the computer labs on campus. The note says exactly what she told me.
I frown. Something doesn’t add up.
She swallows. “I don’t have that kind of money—not like the note wants—but I could pay you. I could find some way to pay you.”
The way she says it, with her lashes fluttering and her bruised voice, I know what she’s implying. And while I don’t think she’d actually follow through, she must be panicked to try that angle.
Plenty of people get conned because they don’t know any better. They’re just gullible. But lots of people are suspicious at the start of a con. Maybe the initial investment is small enough that they can afford to lose it. Maybe they’re bored. Maybe they’re hopeful. But you’d be surprised how many people start a con knowing there’s a good chance they’re being conned. All the signals are there. They just keep ignoring them. Because they want to believe in the possibility of something. And so, even though they know better, they just let it happen.
“So you’ll find a way to help me?” she asks. “You’ll try?”
Mina’s lack of skill at lying touches my heart. I know I’m being conned—just like all those other suckers—but somehow, in the face of her enormously obvious attempt at manipulation, I can’t turn her down.
“I’ll try,” I say.
I don’t understand much about this situation, except there’s a pretty girl and she’s looking at me like I can solve all her problems. I want to. Of course, it would help if she told me the truth about what they were.
I could really use a win.
She throws her arms around my neck as she thanks me. I inhale the scent of her coconut body wash.
5
I STALK INTO PHYSICS and slide into my new spot, next to Daneca. She’s opening her notebook and smoothing down the pleats of her black skirt. She turns to give me a poisonous look. I glance away from her eyes and notice that the gold thread on the Wallingford patch over the pocket of her blazer is fraying.
“I’m really sorry I didn’t make it to the library yesterday,” I say, putting my gloved hand to my heart. “I really meant to be there.”
She doesn’t reply. She tugs back a mass of her purple-tipped hair and rolls it into a loose bun, then slips an elastic band off her wrist and around the whole thing. It doesn’t seem like it should hold, but it does.
“I saw Lila,” I say. “She had to tell me something about my family. It really couldn’t wait.”
Daneca snorts.
“Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”
