Betty
I woke up to buzzing. Not the gentle kind. The violent, gut-punch kind that shook me out of sleep like a nightmare I couldn’t crawl out of. My phone lit up like it had been set on fire—notifications piling in so fast I couldn’t read one before another took its place.
At first, I thought maybe—just maybe—it was Marcus.
But then I saw the first text.
"Daaaamn, Betty! Didn’t know you were that thirsty. 😂"
"Knew the braces were for something freaky."
"Betty Branson’s glow-down. Who posed her like that??"
I sat bolt upright, heart hammering. My fingers tapped through my lock screen and there it was.
My video, the most vulnerable one..
The one I never meant to share. The one I took just once, for myself. But Stacy had her plans.
It was posted. Screenshotted. Reposted. Circulating like wildfire.
@riversideconfessions had it pinned.
“Braceface goes baddie – who knew?”
There were memes already. One showed a bottle of mouthwash labeled: “For after kissing Betty Branson.” Another had a zoom-in of my photo under the caption: “When your Photoshop trial expires.”
Laughter. Emoji chains. People I didn’t know tagging each other. People I did, reposting like it was just another trend.
My whole body went cold.
I dropped the phone like it had burned me. My chest was too tight to breathe. My hands clutched my blanket like it was the only thing tethering me to the room.
Then—hope.
Marcus. I needed to talk to Marcus. Maybe he hadn’t seen it yet. Maybe he’d defend me. Be there.
I fumbled to open our chat.
Nothing.
I called. Once. Twice. Four times.
No answer.
Then a notification popped up—group chat: RIV BALLERS 🏀🔥
My heart dropped as I opened it.
Vel: "So who filmed Betty's sad little lingerie video? Bro, I lost brain cells."
Mary: "I watched five seconds and had to bleach my eyes. Why would she even record that??"
Marcus: "Lmao. If she thought that was sexy, she needs help."
Marcus: "One kiss and now she's out here posting thirst traps like we’re a thing. Delusional."
I couldn’t breathe.
I blinked at the words, then opened a new message. A private one.
His name. His profile picture.
Marcus Mitchell: "Thanks for the show, braceface. You’re even more desperate than I thought."
My body stopped feeling real.
No. No, he wouldn’t—he couldn’t—
But the message was there. Under his name. That number. The same one from our texts. The same smirk in the profile photo.
It wasn’t a mistake.
The boy who kissed me like I mattered had humiliated me like it was nothing.
I stared at the phone until the screen blurred. My fingers shook. My face burned with a shame so deep it felt permanent. Like it was carved into my skin.
Downstairs, I heard my dad’s voice. A knock. Then the door opening.
“Betty?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
He stepped inside. Took one look at my tear-streaked face. Then the phone, buzzing again with more messages. His face hardened.
“Sweetheart… what is this?”
I choked on a sob. “Someone leaked it.”
He looked down. His jaw clenched. Then he sat beside me, voice low and tight.
“We’re going to fix this. Whoever did this is going to wish they hadn’t.”
I nodded numbly. But inside?
I was done. Broken in a way I didn’t know how to fix.
And the worst part wasn’t the photo.
It was that I believed him. That I believed Marcus ever cared.
He had kissed me like I was his.
And now he’d thrown me to the wolves.
And all I could do was bleed.