I stare at her with a blank expression, my gaze like a piercing glare that could burn a hole through her. Her words fail to register in my mind at first, and even when they finally do, they leave me feeling disoriented and confused. Did she really just admit to being the one who exposed my letter to Edward?
I blink my shock away and try to process what she just told me. I glance away from her, still struggling to wrap my head around the situation. I don't even realise how hard I'm holding the packet in my hand until the plastic loudly crackles and I force myself to relax my grip.
"What?" I mumble, feeling disconnected from reality.
"I'm really sorry," she immediately says, looking at me with guilt in her eyes.
A harsh breath unwittingly escapes through my nostrils and a fury like no other befalls me when it finally sinks in what she has just admitted to me. My jaw clenches as my teeth grit against each other and I still don't want to believe her confession to me but why would she lie about that? It would seem rather idiotic to fib about something that almost ruined my friendship with multiple people.
I try really hard not to show that fury on my face. The little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me to remain calm and not to blow a fuse.
To achieve that, I pinch my eyes shut and inhale a deep breath, letting it out simultaneously.
"Instead of apologising, explain to me what you're talking about."
My tone has her fearfully rearing back a bit, but she composes herself and says, "I found your sketchbook and memory card in Dominic's drawer."
"What? When?"
"On his birthday, he invited me over. I was going to give them back when I realised they were yours. I knew that you wouldn't have given them to him willingly."
"So then why didn't you?"
Her eyes nervously skitter away from my firm gaze and hesitantly, she says, "Because Savannah convinced me not to."
My eyes widen the slightest bit at her words. Savannah? Then my brows furrow in bemusement and I glance away thoughtfully. What does Savannah have to do with any of this? Was Savannah also invited over to Dominic's house on his birthday or did she show them to her?
"I showed them to her after I left his house," she confirms my unasked question. "I probably shouldn't have. I shouldn't have snooped either."
"So, who leaked my letter to Edward? You or her?"
"Both of us," she says quickly, suspiciously averting her gaze from me and I narrow my eyes at her to try and get the truth out of her. "I won't throw Vannah under the bus, because I could have stopped her if I really wanted to. If I didn't show the sketchbook to her in the first place then none of this would have happened. Ultimately, it was all my fault."
But ultimately, it was Vannah who leaked them.
I ask, "What was your involvement in the whole ordeal?"
"What do you mean? I just told you, we were both responsible for the letter leaking."
"Who made the YouTube channel?"
At my question, she noticeably squirms and continues to avoid my gaze. Trying to conceal my amusement, I purse my lips and nod my head in knowing acknowledgement.
The silence that follows speaks volumes, and I can tell that she is doing her best to cover for her friend.
What I conclude from her silence is that she stumbled upon my private belongings in Dominic's drawer, and made the regrettable mistake of both reading and watching my personal material. Not only that, but she also made the misguided decision to share my private stuff with her closest confidant, who absolutely abhors me for some unknown reason. Savannah then took things a step further than just reading and watching my private material.
She posted all of my videos on the internet and made a bunch of copies of my letter to my friend's boyfriend, stapling them all over the noticeboard.
"I just don't understand why she hates me so much," I mumble into my arm after resting it on my knee, staring into the far distance.
"You really don't know?" she muses, glancing at me with a ponderous look, wondering whether I'm actually this oblivious.
I turn my head and blink up at her. "Do you?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because she's jealous of you," she states in a banal tone, furrowing her brows in confusion at my clueless expression.
"What?"
"Mm-hmm."
"That makes zero sense. Why would Savannah be jealous of me?"
After turning around to face me, she asks, "Do you remember in the tenth year during recess when she told us that she had a crush on someone in our year?"
I think back to that day.
And I do recall it.
The four of us were all sitting underneath the big oak tree. I was barely listening to what the three of them were whispering about amongst themselves.
At the time, all I could focus on was the silhouette of Michael as he was animatedly retelling a story to his buddies and distractedly, I played with one of the many lone acorns that littered the freshly yellowed grass around the big tree. When the words that left Savannah's mouth were her confessing that she had a crush on someone, it immediately broke me from my daze.
Throughout my friendship with her, I was under the impression that she was irked by the idea of being with someone. She was always making it vocally blatant that having feelings for some pubescent person wasn't her idea of intelligence and we were fools for even trying to entertain it.
I kept wondering who it was that managed to get her to fall for them and in the end, I came to the conclusion that it was someone who was in university. Nothing pubescent about them.
"I remember her saying she had a crush on someone but I did not know it was someone in our year," I confirm to Jodie.
"Yeah, well that guy was actually Michael."
My brows flick up in astonishment. "Michael Kohler?"
She bobs her head up and down, her lips pursing grimly and when I process her words, my eyes pinch shut as I'm submerged in a pool of mental pain.
"I thought she said she would never fall for some pubescent boy in our school," I remind her and recalling those very words leaving her mouth, she nods in agreement. "So what? She hates me because we both happened to like the same guy. The guy who didn't even like me back?"
"I mean, that's where it stemmed from, yeah."
"That's the most delusional thing I have ever heard. Is that the reason why she started spreading rumours about me?"
"Pretty much."
"That's so fucking childish."
Jodie wordlessly shrugs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me.
"It's more delusional considering Michael started dating her immediately after rejecting me. Why would she go to such lengths to do all that when she got what she wanted in the end?"
"I don't know," she answers, glancing away and her actions make me wonder if she does know and just isn't willing to tell me.
"If that's the case, how come she's still so pressed?" I muse, prompting her through narrowed eyes to come completely clean. "She got what she wanted."
"Not necessarily," she mutters, her gaze still wavering sheepishly. "So it actually turned out she didn't really like Michael so she broke up with him in about a week. During that time, you started hanging out with James a lot more than you were before and I guess at some point she started catching feelings for him too."
This time, I just watch her unimpressed. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Yeah, I don't really know what was going through her head. Even I could tell how much she kept flip-flopping around. One minute she was saying that she would never date anyone at our school and the rest of us were fucking idiots for doing so and then she was considering dating someone at our school, but still calling the rest of us idiots."
"That still doesn't make sense since James didn't like me either."
"No, I am pretty sure James did like you. We could all tell that he was totally in love with you. If I'm not mistaken, he told Riley who told the football team and then some of us in the friend group found out too. He was just too pussy to admit it."
So they all knew that James liked me too? How come it took his girlfriend telling me that he liked me to find out? Why would Jodie keep that sort of information from me? Was she that loyal to Savannah to have forsaken all that we have been through together all the way back to primary school?
"Savannah was constantly trying to get his attention and he didn't seem interested in the least. That's what got under her skin the most. At some point, she started asking me what was so special about you."