Viral

Five

Humor is the shock absorber of life; it helps us take the blows.
-Peggy Noonan

There's always a moment that changes everything. It's always something that feels insignificant at the time, but it blows up any sense of normalcy and everything you've worked hard for. When you look back and try to figure out what changed you can't quite put your finger on it. You just know things will never be the same.

It's only been two hours since I appeared half naked in everyone's phone. But I feel like my entire relationship with Finn has shifted. There's something unspoken and uncomfortable forged between us. It feels extremely foreign since he's the only person I've ever been 100% myself with. Now he can't even look me in the eye without turning into a tomato. I sighed counting down the minutes until the end of my last class.

When I realized my phone was missing, I had dashed right back to the last place I had it, Mrs. Winters' classroom. When I arrived, her room was empty but right at the front of the room inside of the wicker basket was my phone in the same place I left it.

"Are the photos still there? Does it show them in your recent messages sent to anyone?" Finn asked inquisitively. I hadn't even noticed he had been running behind me to the classroom. I flipped the phone over in my hand then checked my recent messages. The last one was from my mother telling me she had made it home from work. I had also received my photos from an unknown number just like everyone else had, but other than that there was nothing significant.

"No clue who got the photos or how but for safe measure may as well delete them." I began scrolling through my picture album and hitting delete on the photos. So much for the feeling of empowerment they had given me.

"Photos? As in more than one?" Out of my peripheral I saw a small smile on Finn's lips. I couldn't quite read his thoughts, but his face showed a mixture of being amused as well as impressed. When my eyes met his he blushed and looked away. Is this what our relationship will consist of now? No eye contact and heated faces?

"Well yeah and the video." I deleted the video and slid my phone into its natural home in my back pocket.

His eyes snapped back to mine and his face flushed to reveal a stark white that had been hiding underneath what currently felt like permanent red. "You have a sex tape?" He was practically shouting. I grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him out of the classroom.

"No, shut up! It was just a video of me..." I couldn't find the best way to say what I had been doing in the video but it wasn't hard to guess.

"Oh." was all Finn could muster up to whisper before he repeated a louder," Oh," when he realized what I had been implying.

He hasn't made direct eye contact with me since we had that conversation hours ago. He has also blushed a total of eight times subsequently making me feel smaller every time he did. What was so embarrassing about seeing me naked?

It may be a biased opinion, but I personally believe I look phenomenal. Part of me felt like Finn was just shocked that I wasn't a man beneath the manly clothes I clinged to for security.

When the final bell rang I found myself waiting in the parking lot next to Finn's car. I could feel anxiety filling my chest and began rubbing it with my hand in attempts to calm myself down.

"What are you doing?" I looked up at Marcus as he stepped into the path of the sun blocking the blinding light. He began brushing his hair with his hand, neatly directing his waves in the direction they should go. Marcus was good looking in a way most people weren't. His chocolate skin always appeared to be glowing, whenever I would point it out, he would make jokes about how his melanin gives him a youthful glow and that I would look 80 by the time I was 25.