Part 23

As expected, sleep didn’t come easily.

I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. Without my phone to verify the time, I had absolutely no idea how long it actually took to drift off. It made me wish I still had the analog clock that had been on my nightstand while I was growing up. Though I was both physically and mentally exhausted, that was juxtaposed with a combination of flashbacks and projections.

At some point, I ended up crashing. Thankfully, once I was out, I was out. My subconscious wasn’t rude in terms of recreating any of those memories; in fact, I didn’t dream at all. Next thing I knew, I was squinting against the morning sun and groaning in annoyance. Did I not close the blinds last night? For a moment, I was considering rolling over and using the covers to block the light and maybe sleep in a little bit more. Then, everything came rushing back to me.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself. Yep, now I was awake.

Everything came rushing back to me and I couldn’t help but blush bright red in the privacy of my room. For whatever reason, it had been easier to disassociate last night when one step led to the next, and so on. The pounding music, the party setting that was so different from the smaller gatherings I usually attended, the justifications that I had to do this to avoid that. It was something else entirely when I was in my bedroom, in my parents’ house, and my real life was clashing with the events of Autumn’s party in an overwhelming way.

Did I really do all that?! I had literally been dancing topless, and then stripped naked after putting on such an inappropriate show with Zoey. And . . .

Quickly sitting up and reaching for my phone, the sight of the empty charger reminded me that the device wasn’t here. It was back at Autumn’s house, along with a couple other important things.

I had my laptop, however. For the moment, social media was my main concern, and I could at least check a couple accounts from my desk. I tossed my covers aside and hopped out of bed, as if hurrying would do anything to affect the damage that would have been done for hours at this point. Though I was quick to cross the room and log in, I froze as soon as I opened the browser.

As long as I didn’t check, I could exist in denial for a little bit longer. Maybe it had been a nightmare. Maybe every single person at that party had kept their photos and videos to themselves. But I had to know. Taking a deep breath and steeling myself, I navigated to my profile page . . .

My heart immediately sunk as I saw just how many times I had been tagged. As if in a trance, I clicked through photo after photo, not fully processing the fact that it was me I was looking at. After all, everything had been from my own perspective the previous evening. This was the first time I was seeing myself performing like a stripper from the outside. Straddling some guy, while dancing provocatively in just my skirt and bra. Bending over as I eventually took that skirt off, with my ass almost completely on display, as my thong did very little in terms of modesty back there. Smirking on the table-stage while countless dollar bills were sticking out of my bra cups and underwear waistband.

After looking through dozens of mortifying photos, all of which I immediately reported and untagged myself from along the way, I noticed that I had yet to stumble across any nudes I had been dreading. The closest I came across so far was my make-out session with Zoey, where it was clear from the angle that I was fully topless, but my breasts were pressed against the other girl’s chest enough that only so much of me could be seen in the photo. Of course, the sapphic image of me and an eighteen year old was its own issue, but still. I doubted everyone at the party individually decided that they should draw the line at nudity, so I had to assume it was the advanced features of the site flagging the pics before they were uploaded for the world to see.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared. But it was still pretty bad.

My phone and laptop weren’t synced, so I couldn’t see if any of my friends had messaged me about the hundreds of slutty photos that had been posted. It had taken nearly thirty minutes to take my name off every picture and video, and there was no guarantee that was the end of it. Any number of Autumn’s guests could be sleeping in after partying hard and then . . .

Wait, what if I deleted my accounts? Simple in theory, yet more and more complicated as I thought it through. Many of my current classmates and dancer friends were early risers, so it’s not like I would be keeping this from a number of them. Plus I’d lose a lot of important contacts and groups, and would no longer have the ability to report anything. On the flip side, at least no one could tag me, and it would definitely mitigate future views. Not that anything could permanently fix the problem, as the internet is forever, not to mention texts and gossip and whatever else.

After a few minutes of deliberation, most of which was spent staring at a collection of images of me grinding Autumn, I decided that it was worth trying. I could always start a new profile from scratch and get most of what I had back. For now, I needed to focus on the bigger picture. Get off the grid in terms of my online presence, and deal with the rest later. It was ultimately better to keep as many people as possible from seeing the evidence of my promiscuous behavior last night, even if there was a somewhat reasonable explanation for how things snowballed.

I was tempted to take some time to pull some old photos and make notes of things I’d have to rejoin later, but every minute counted. It was already almost 9:30 AM and I was worried about all the people that might just be waking up after a late night. Deciding to just rip off the bandaid, I clicked over to the appropriate page and reluctantly confirmed that I wanted to delete everything.

Wincing as the site reverted to its neutral state, I tried to convince myself that I made the right call. One problem solved, kind of. Now I just had to find a way to Autumn’s house, as I was in a similar predicament as last night–no phone and no car. No, this would be easier. My note already informed my parents I had been given a ride, and it wouldn’t take much to convince one of them to drive me.

Before I could fully formulate that plan, and whether or not I wanted one of my parents to take me to the house where I did so many indecent acts, my mother was calling me from downstairs.

“Bella? Hey, Bella!” she said, “Someone’s here to see you.”

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