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“You hacked into my computer.” The disbelief spiraling through me is profound. My voice is quiet, but he goes still at the monotone in it. “You spied on me! What gives you the right?”
Connor exhales in exasperation, brows pinched together. “Is that really what you’re focused on when I’m showing you all this evidence that Coleman is an online predator? He gets off grooming his victims, knows exactly how to talk to them. He’s a psycho.”
“A what?”
My mind screams in denial at the word victim. It’s not true. As much as I try to keep calm, a raw anguish overtakes me.
Ignoring the predator accusation for a minute, I hold my head in my hands. It feels like my secret has been wrenched from me, but it was mine to tell, not his to hunt down. “This is too much. If you knew about my blog, why didn’t you talk to me about it sooner? Not that I have to explain anything to you, but it’s a sensitive and personal escape for me.”
Flashes of my conversations with my online boyfriend pop into my head, cut in a harsher light.
I was the one to give us that label. Henry never did. No. It can’t be.
It hurts too much to think about. The only thing my brain can focus on is the lesser, but still stinging pain of Connor hacking my computer. Desperation to shut those old questions about Henry behind an iron wall has me pushing all of my anger on Connor.
“Damn it, Thea. It was before we were really together. I’m sorry I did it. I wasn’t spying. Shit, I know it was wrong, baby. But it helped me find him. What Coleman was doing to you for years. Others, too.”
Others. Doing to you. I shake my head, air catching in my throat. I’m not a victim. I stopped answering the emails. I never sent nude photos.
But Henry still controlled you.
The blog was my safe place to escape the nitpicking from Mom about my body. Henry poisoned it, his infection spreading deep until he had me in his web.
A pained noise escapes me.
Connor sets the laptop aside and picks up the thick file, flipping through to show me. “He’s taught at two schools before he showed up in Ridgeview. He was fired from both after sexual harassment reports and complaints for inappropriate conduct.”
Focusing on the pages as he talks is hard. I barely take in any of the information. My mind keeps chanting no over and over.
“He doesn’t even hide how he favors his female students. And he was all over your blog comments even though you’re inactive, then he’s so focused on you at school. Think about when he showed up here. He’s going to make you his next prize.”
An unpleasant hot and cold sensation flies over my skin. This is insane. How could Henry and Mr. Coleman be the same? It’s so much to think about. I can’t accept it.
There’s only one thing I can control right now: how I feel about the man I love invading my privacy.
Isn’t that what Henry did?
Gritting my teeth, I shove the thought back into a mental abyss. Stop it.
Connor is acting like he was justified, as long as he got to find out his version of the truth. Forget who it hurts along the way in his search.
I’d rather deal with Vivian Bishop and my mother at the same time than face the truth—Connor spying on me.
This is the blackmail king of Silver Lake at his best.
Is this all I am to you?
“This is serious.”
“I know!” Connor shouts. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“You had no right to worm your way into my secrets without my permission. Your jealousy of Mr. Coleman is out of control. You’ve been obsessed with him for months.” I give a forceful shake of my head as I grasp at straws, unable to believe. “You could’ve fabricated photos to get him fired because you don’t like him.”
“Are you hearing yourself, Thea? You know me. Would I really put that much effort in when I could get rid of him in other, easier ways? I’m telling you the truth. It’s far scarier than anything I could’ve made up about him.”
“But you hacked my computer,” I repeat, unable to let it go. It’s the only thing I can process in this mess.
Twice in the last day I’ve defended him as a good guy. But he’s been lying to me. I swallow, struggling to choose logic over the shaky emotions threatening to drown me. We always talk out our problems, but how can we work out a betrayal like this?
