Thoughts tumble around in my mind. Video of who? I know it can’t be a video of me with Blake Bonham. What if it’s me and Oliver?
Oh shit. Ben said he had something. How would he get something like that?
Nausea churns in my belly. I have to know. I have to watch it.
I take a few deep breaths and click one of the links. The recording is fuzzy with darkness, but Mindy’s white couch is easy to make out. Okay. Okay. I relax a little. It can’t be me and Ben. Or me and Oliver. Neither has ever been in Mindy’s apartment, and Ben was only in the doorway.
The angle is from the bookshelf next to the TV. A sinking realization floods my chest. The statue. The Greatest Dad Award. That’s where the video is shooting from. Ben put a camera in it. There’s no other explanation.
Two figures appear on the screen, accompanied by the low murmur of voices and laughter. The couple kisses, hugging, then they tumble onto the couch together, Blake on the bottom. His features are discernible, despite the low lighting, but the woman has her back to the camera. Her hair is shorter than mine.
Oh no. I strain my eyes, focusing intently when her face turns slightly, exposing a partial angle, the hint of a cheek, the side of a nose. I drop the phone onto my duvet and cover my face my with hands.
It’s Mindy. It’s Blake and Mindy. Shit. But everyone in the world thinks it’s me, except for the people directly involved.
I pick up the phone, kill the video, and then heave myself out of bed, my heart pounding as I race into the living room and lift the statue. I want to smash it.
Wait. There has to be something illegal about all this. I can’t smash it no matter how much I want to. It’s evidence. But I can’t let it stay here, watching and listening to us, either.
Grimacing, I go into the kitchen and place the statue it in one of the drawers. Not good enough. I march back to the living room, grab a couple of throw pillows from the couch ,and thrust them on top of the statue.
Now the drawer won’t shut. The pillows are too big. I push at them, working the drawer closed and shoving in the fabric that keeps popping back out.
“You told me you were separated.” Mindy’s voice seeps through the thin wall.
I stop wrestling with the pillows and freeze.
“That’s not the point.” Blake’s lower baritone is just as audible. “The point is how it looks—you know that.”
I can’t listen in to their private conversation if I can help it. I race back to my room and shut the door, taking a deep breath and leaning back against it. Everything is quiet.
Until they move into the living room. “You lied to me,” Mindy says.
Silence. Footsteps.
“Don’t leave like this.” Her voice cracks. “Please.”
I rub my head. I’ve never heard Mindy sound so desolate. Or so desperate.
“I have to go. You, of all people, should understand.”
The front door shuts. I wait a minute before leaving my room. Mindy is standing in the kitchen in her robe, her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the pillow-stuffed drawer I couldn’t manage to shut.
“Mindy?” I say softly.
She faces me. She’s not crying. Her face is empty and wrung out. “You’ve seen it?”
“I didn’t watch it. Not past the first few seconds. I thought it might be something Ben took of us and then manipulated.” I wince. I almost wish that were the case. Anything is better than the dead space in Mindy’s eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Piper. The things they’re saying about you because of something I did.”
“It’s okay.” I step forward and put my arm over her shoulders. “It’s not you who did this—it’s Ben. And honestly, I don’t know what to feel right now.” Other than sick to my stomach with guilt because this is more my fault than hers.
If only I had never met Ben. If only I had left him earlier… I shake the thoughts away. I can’t change the past. “I’m worried about you too. What did Blake say?”
Her hand slashes through the air in a dismissive motion. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. He can’t leave her now.”
“What? Why not?”