Betty
I hadn’t left my room in two days.
The curtains stayed drawn, the air heavy and stale, like the whole world had decided to hold its breath. My phone buzzed occasionally—sometimes a cruel text, sometimes another meme, sometimes just someone tagging me in a thread I didn’t want to see. I stopped checking. I stopped responding. I stopped caring.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
But the truth was uglier. I cared too much. I cared so much it hurt to breathe. Every second of every day since that photo leaked had been a living nightmare. The shame crawled under my skin, thick and unbearable. I couldn’t wash it off, couldn’t cry it out, couldn’t scream loud enough to silence the voices in my head.
I tried to scroll past it all—“Braceface strikes again,” “Who knew she was packing?” “Marcus’s little side piece.” The comments blurred together after a while, but the pain didn’t.
What made it worse—what turned the ache into something jagged and bleeding—was the silence from him.
Marcus.
After everything… nothing.
No explanations. Just that final, awful message from his number.
“Thanks for the show, braceface. You’re even more pathetic than I thought.”
It played on repeat in my mind like a broken record.
I sat on my bed, the covers wrapped around me like armor, hair in a greasy bun, eyes puffy and sore. I hadn’t eaten more than a granola bar and two sips of tea since Friday. I didn’t want food. I didn’t want sympathy. I wanted to not exist.
The worst part? I kept replaying that night with Marcus in my head.
How he touched my cheek. How he looked at me like I mattered. How I let myself believe—just for a second—that I was enough.
God, I was so stupid.
I picked up my camera. It was dusty from sitting untouched on my desk. My fingers hesitated over the record button. Then I pressed it.
The screen glowed back at me, showing a version of myself I barely recognized. Messy, tired, broken. But real.
I forced a breath.
“Hey,” I said, my voice cracking. “So, um… I don’t even know why I’m recording it, honestly.”
I tried to smile. It didn’t work.
“I guess I just need to say it somewhere… even if no one hears it.”
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
“It’s weird, right? How one video —one—can destroy you.
I swallowed hard. My throat tightened.
“I don’t know who I can trust anymore. Not Marcus. Not even myself. I keep thinking… what if this is just who I am? What if this is all I’ll ever be? The girl people laugh at. The girl who gets humiliated for sport. The girl who falls for the guy who never meant it.”
My voice broke completely then.
“I want to disappear. I want it to stop hurting. Just for one day. One hour.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, hot and silent.
I stared into the lens for a long time.
Then I reached forward and shut it off.
I didn’t delete the video. I just let it sit there, unwatched, like a bruise under the skin. Something I might return to. Or maybe not.
I curled back into bed, wrapping my arms around a pillow, pretending it could hold me back. Pretending I didn’t feel completely, utterly alone.
The silence dragged on.
Until a knock sounded at the door.
I froze.
No one had knocked in days. Not since Dad gave up trying to coax me out, not since the world decided I was better left alone.
The knock came again. Firmer.
“Betty?” a voice called. “It’s me.”
My heart stuttered.
Kate. The last person I expected.
“Can we talk?” she said, softer now. “Please?”
I sat up slowly, unsure whether I was ready to see anyone, let alone her. Kate—the girl who used to laugh at my shoes. Who used to share lip gloss with Stacey. Who once called me “The Walking Cringe Compilation.”
What did she want?
And why now?
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my hoodie but didn’t answer.
A pause.
Then her voice came again, urgent. “It’s about Marcus. And Stacey. And the leak.”