The Takedown(43)

“If you didn’t want me to share your whorey pics, then you shouldn’t have sent them.”

One of Cobi’s friends knew a senior at Park Prep. It wasn’t long before half the boys at Prep had seen her topless. Audra eschewed her tech for a week. She also spray-painted CHILD MOLESTER LIVES HERE across Cobi’s dorm-room door and sent a letter detailing Cobi’s indiscretion to the dean of Columbia, as well as all his professors, and his mother.

That was Boobgate. I.e., Audra hadn’t been at all laissez-faire back when it was her body being fully exposed. And the pics hadn’t even claimed the top spot on her profile for longer than a few weeks. But I stayed my fingers.

Audy was right. I should have txted Fawn. I immediately rectified my mistake and forwarded Fawnie the original message. She’d be more sympathetic.

audy BESIDES, nobody looks at every single vid in a person’s cache. It’d take days.

As I waited for Fawn to txt back, I replied:

moi I guess that makes me feel better? Xmas Eve movie date night?

audy Can’t. Gonna meet Sharma in a couple then got other Xmas Eve plans. Xoxoxo

Wait. What plans? I thought we weren’t celebrating Christmas this year. So what were she and Sharma doing that I wasn’t invited to? Plus, I thought Sharma was off Doc. And why the H-double-L wasn’t Fawnie txting back? Whoa there, Kyle, I told myself. No need to go all paranoid. And yet, if this was my friends being supportive, this blank-faced emote was me being underwhelmed.

I swiped back to my ConnectBook, to the first ten Woofer videos that had nothing to do with the Mr. E. sex vid. The second Woofer was of three Park Prep girls. They were in the cafeteria, talking about a mustard/mayo preference. The person recording them must have gotten bored, because she panned from her friends and zoomed in on my lunch table. Or rather, she zoomed in on me. I reached over the back of my chair to pick up a dropped sandwich eco-baggie. My hair fell forward, curtaining my face. As I sat back up, I flipped my hair.

“Oh my gosh.”

It was like the person who took the video, focusing in on me like that, knew exactly what she would use it for. She didn’t even use a fake moniker. It couldn’t be any clearer: the poster was @EllieCyr.

Stay calm.

Everyone had access to these videos. It could be a total coincidence that my stalker had pulled footage from one that Ellie made, if that was even the clip. The angle seemed mostly right, but it would be nearly impossible to blend my hair into the Mr. E. video like that, and, let’s be honest, I wasn’t unknown for flipping my hair. But ten seconds before the clip ended, I smiled exactly as I did at the end of the Mr. E. video.

My chair screeched on the white tile as I pushed it backwards. Without a doubt, it was the source video and it was filmed by Ellie. Who was suddenly friends with Jessie. I hurried to the entrance. Sharma was powered down for thirty minutes, so I txted Audra instead because she was the last person in my txt thread.

moi Finished watching vids. When you see Sharma tell her the Woofer vid is from Ellie’s account. Gonna try and get to bottom of this Ellie & Jessie friendship. Regardless, finally have proof it’s not me!!!!!

I waited for a reply, but none came. Her txt line spooled for a moment. Then her avatar went red.





In retrospect, my next move wasn’t the brightest. I should have called my mom or tried to get ahold of the lawyer or at least waited until Sharma and I could do more digging, but I wanted it to be over. So I took a shortcut. Still, I’ll blame Brittany Mulligan for what happened next. If she hadn’t ousted me from Community Club, I would have been dressed as Mrs. Claus right then, inadvisably leading off-key Christmas carols.

Instead I thought I’d won.

Ellie was changing out of her school clothes and into her gym clothes when I found her in the YMCA locker room on Ninth Street thirty minutes later. (Though why bother? Both outfits involved sweatpants.) Even if I hadn’t downloaded the WhereYouAt app that Caleb had told us about and cyberstalked her, I’d have known where to look for Ellie. If she wasn’t at basketball practice, Ellie was always at the Y working out. I’m sure it partially had to do with her court game, but every Park Prepper knew her parents were going through a nasty divorce, trying to gain custody of their brownstone while still both residing in said brownstone. The divorce was Ellie’s mom’s second. Rumor had it, Ellie’s stepdad was the parent she liked better.

For the hundredth time, I thanked the universe for my parents’ happy marriage.

Whatever mix of nationalities Ellie was, not to be mean, but one of them had to be oak tree. Sturdy and thick with muscle, she wore her brown hair in a short bob, which she always tied back for games using one elastic and a hundred thousand bobby pins. She jumped when she caught my reflection in the mirror at the end of the locker row, surprise dribbling across her round features. But then she laughed.

“Oh boy, let me guess.” She faced the mirror and reworked her ponytail so it shot directly out the back of her head. “You’re here to blame me for your hair not coming out right today?”

Wait, seriously, what was wrong with my hair?

“No, actually, Ellie, I found the clip of me that was used to make the sex video. It came from footage you took.”

I don’t know what I was expecting—that she would fess up? Or be floored by my detective work? Or at the very least be creeped out like I was that someone had stolen her innocuous vid to frame me? And, fine, if I’m being 100 percent honest, even though there’s nothing lamer than women fighting women over men, a tiny part of me hoped she’d be as nice as she always was, so I could press her for a little insider info on why Ailey and Mac suddenly looked so chummy.