Sweet Nothings

Chapter 20: Confessions

 Mona Lisa and I entered this huge room in the recreation center on campus. Besides Bianca and Olivia, there were three other women in here. They stopped talking when they saw us. We sat on the two empty chairs in the circle.

"Hey, everyone. Let's get to know each other before going to court. I'm Eden. Who wants to talk next?" I said, putting my bag on the floor.

A dark skinned woman with brown locs raised her hand. "I'm Trina. Before you reached out to me, I thought I was the only one. Because Dick said no one would believe me. I got a question, though."

"What is it?"

"Do tweets and voice recordings count as evidence?"

"Yeah. Show us the tweets."

Trina took a stack of papers out of a blue folder and handed them to me. All of the tweets were disgusting. But one tweet caught my attention first. It was a response to a photo of a blonde white woman getting fucked on a balcony by some guy.

The only good thing about dating is keeping secret sex tapes as a souvenir.

What a tool. I frowned and passed the tweets to Olivia. She gasped. As she read them, she covered her mouth with her hand. The blue haired brown skinned woman next to her grabbed them off her hands. Just then, my phone vibrated in my bag. I took it out and checked it. A message from 'Skylar' appeared on the screen.

Hey, Naomi. What do you look like?

My heart raced. I didn't expect her to ask me this. We were literally in the same room. When I looked up, Bianca was staring at me in coonfusion. This meant one thing.

I was in trouble.

I put my phone in a pocket of the red varsity jacket I had on. She looked at me wide eyed right before she read Dick's tweets. The light skinned woman next to her flipped her red braids over her shoulder before she spoke.

"I'm Ashley. Dick pursued me right after he dumped Bianca. He pretended to date me, but ditched me for not sleeping with him. But guess what he sent me."

She held up her iPhone and showed all of us a video of Dick fucking Olivia. Olivia's eyes filled with tears. I gave her a box tissue that was next to me on the floor. She wiped the tears spilling on her face.

Ashley put her phone back on her lap, taking a deep breath. Olivia sniffled. Mona Lisa cleared her throat.

"I'm Mona Lisa. When Dick pursued me, I was very insecure. I lived by this idea that I could fix a shitty guy with my affection. Of course, it didn't work at all, because he refused to change. I told him how exhausting that was, and he ghosted me."

She blinked back tears. I put my hand on top of hers. What she said hit close to home. The sole reason I got with Dick was the idea I got from my mom. The idea that I had to fix a guy. But of course, it bit me in the ass.

Mona Lisa squeezed my hand with her other hand. The one other thing we had in common was our prick of an ex. Bianca gave us both a dirty look. Was she mad about the messages or jealous of Mona Lisa?

 "Eden, why don't you tell them about your experience?" Mona Lisa suggested, letting go of my hand.

I rubbed my hands on my lap. "My mom was obsessed with perfection, so I had to get a decoy boyfriend to draw suspicion away from my secret dates with Dick. Those dates ended with me giving him blowjobs and I saw a sexy photo of Bianca on his laptop. But I overlooked all that, because he made me feel mature. Until...he dumped me."

I let out a sigh. It felt like a burden was lifted off my shoulders. After what happened with Nathan, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone else about it. I thought people would see me as desperate and stupid if I did. Today was the last day I'd be a vault of secrets.

Everyone gave me sympathetic looks. Bianca tapped her foot on the floor. I averted my eyes from her. We can handle the problem later. I didn't want to make a scene. The woman with the blue hair spoke.

"Hi, y'all. I'm Leisha and I hooked up with Dick right after he was dumped Mona Lisa. He showered me with affection, as long as I did a little something for him. He had me out here thinking lust and love were the same, until he iced me the fuck out."

"I feel you, Leisha. He did the same thing to me. For a while, sex was a form of validation for me," Bianca said, leaning back in her chair.

I was speechless. Just when I didn't think Dick couldn't be any more of a walking red flag, he outdid himself. What kind of prick expects to sexual favors for giving affection?

Bianca was staring at me again. Except this time, she was giving me a dirty look. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

Mona Lisa and Ashley glanced between us in confusion. Fuck. They knew something was up, didn't they?

"Why don't you two deal with whatever issue you have? I got this," Mona Lisa said.

Bianca got up. "Oh, we will."

 She grabbed my hand, and pulled me behind her out of the room. As soon as the door closed,she turned to face me. I took a step back. My heart raced when she moved closer to me.

It was eerily quiet in this hallway. I didn't want to say anything, because it could start an argument. Even though Bianca was mad at me, I loved staying into her warm brown eyes. That moment of silence ended when she spoke.

"Why did your phone vibrate when I messaged Naomi?"

"That was a coincidence. I just got a message from my friend Skyla-. I mean, Stephanie." I lied.

"Wait a damn minute, were you about to say Skylar?"

"Um. No."

"If I look at those messages right now, I won't see the name Skylar?"

Shit. She was onto me. I can't show her the messages, because they would expose me as her secret online friend. Then, our relationship would've been doomed.

She reached into my pocket, and grabbed my phone. After a full minute of scrolling through messages, she looked at me with tear filled eyes. I wanted to erase this moment. My hands trembled.

"Why did you lie to me?" Bianca asked, giving me my phone back.

I pursed my lips. "Well...you wouldn't have talked to me if I used my real name."

"You're damn right I wouldn't have talked you. You made me feel like shit that day."

"I know. I just...got curious when I saw your Twitter account and found out that I was wrong."

"I'm glad you realized you were wrong. But you still lied to me. I can't even look at you."

 The tears spilled down Bianca's face. My chest ached. I reached out for her, but she pushed my hand away. She walked down the hallway, leaving me against the wall. I was completely alone. She fell apart, and it was all my fault.

I went back inside that room and sat down in my chair. My make shift support group looked at me in concern. I blinked back tears. They couldn't know about my doomed relationship. I can fall apart later.