Page 114 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“Don’t apologize,” I say, even though my own breathing has gone wrong. “Explain.”

She presses the flash drive toward me harder, and this time my hand comes up automatically because refusing suddenly feels worse than knowing. Her fingers close mine around it with a quick, desperate squeeze. “You didn’t deserve it,” she says.

The words hit me like a fist to the throat in slow fucking motion.

“What did she do?” I ask, and my voice sounds far away even to me.

The girl’s face crumples. “Eli—”

“What did she do?” I demand louder this time.

A few people nearby glance over. She sees them, and fear snaps through her hard enough to make her step back.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, frantic now. “It’s on there. I put what I had on there, okay? Screenshots, the group chat, some videos, what I could get before they locked me out. I’m sorry. I should’ve done it before.”

“Videos?” The word leaves me cold.

She backs up another step, shaking her head. “I have to go.”

“No,” I say, moving after her. “Wait. What videos? What group chat?”

She turns, and I reach for her, not to grab exactly, but to stop her long enough to get one answer that won’t make me look at a flash drive in my hand and imagine the worst possible things alone. She slips away before I can touch her, darting around two students crossing between us. Her name still won’t come to me, and that pisses me off in a weird, useless way, because I can’t even call after her properly.

“Hey,” I shout instead, pushing into the moving crowd. “Wait!”

She cuts across the plaza toward the student center, fast enough that her tote bounces hard against her hip. I follow, but the space between us fills immediately with people coming out of the building, a cluster of students in matching event shirts, two guys carrying poster boards, someone with a coffee who nearly collides with me when I try to dodge left. I curse and twist around them, keeping sight of the girl’s ponytail for maybe three more seconds before she disappears behind a busier stream of bodies near the steps.

“Fuck,” I mutter, moving faster. “Fuck!”

By the time I reach the edge of the crowd, she’s gone in the most ordinary, infuriating way possible. Lost behind people and doors and movement.

I stand at the top of the student center steps with my heart hammering and my hand locked around the flash drive so tightly the plastic edges bite into my palm.

I think I might throw up as I turn away from the crowd and walk blindly toward the side of the building, needing air that doesn’t smell of coffee and perfume. There’s a narrow strip between the student center and a line of bushes where people cut through sometimes, but it’s empty now. I stop there and brace one hand against the brick wall, lowering my head until the world stops tilting.

The flash drive is still in my fist.

I open my hand slowly. It looks harmless lying there against my palm. Stupidly harmless. A tiny black piece of plastic, the kind of thing people use for class presentations or old photos or files they forget exist in junk drawers. Not the kind of thing that should have the power to make my chest feel like it’s being pried open.

Screenshots.

Group chat.

Videos.

My breathing catches, and I squeeze my eyes shut because for one second, my mind tries to fill in every blank at once. I don’t want it to. I can’t let it. Not here. Not standing beside the student center with my backpack digging into one shoulder and Julian’s unread text still sitting on my phone asking whether I bought his ridiculous notebook.

Julian.

The thought of him steadies me and hurts at the same time. I grip the phone harder and look down at the flash drive again.

I don’t know if I want to know what’s on it—that’s the truth. I don’t know if I want confirmation or proof. I don’t know if I want to find out how many people knew enough to laugh or hide or stay silent while my life was turned into something I couldn’t remember.

But Mila exists, and I love her more than I hate the fear. If this flash drive has anything that helps protect her, anything that keeps Celeste away, anything that proves what happened wasn’t some story I invented because the alternative was too ugly, then I can’t throw it away. I don’t have to be brave alone. I don’t have to open it alone. But I do have to keep it.

I close my fist around it again. Then I press Julian’s contact and lift the phone to my ear before I can talk myself out of it.

He answers on the second ring, voice warm and teasing. “If you bought me a notebook with inspirational quotes on it, we’re breaking up before we ever officially announce anything.”