“Bruises,” I tell him. “You haven’t seen me covered in bruises.”
The violence my dad never gave to me when I was a kid, I got from Ben.
“He hit you?” Damian asks.
“Yeah,” I answer, “a lot. That’s going to be the story. I’m going to be the only celebrity in the fucking world who gets naked pictures leaked and nobody’s going to give a shit about the naughty bits. Everyone’s going to be looking at the bruises.”
“But that’s tantamount to him admitting to the assault,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, “I guess so, but I think blackmail is going to be the heftier charge.”
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m not great,” I tell him. “I’m not looking forward to any of what’s going to come next, but it’s really too late to worry about that now. What’s done is done and there’s not a damn thing that either of us can do about it now.”
I don’t know if this is the nicest restaurant in the city or not, but it’s not the kind of place where anyone can just walk in out of the gutter and get a table. There’s a dress code here, and a certain conduct is expected of those who dine here.
None of that, though, seems to have any effect on the 30-something man who comes over to the table where I’m sitting with Damian, pulls out his phone, and takes a picture of me.
The man sees that I’m looking at him and he says, “Sorry. You’re Emma Roxy, right?”
“You’re the one with the picture,” I answer. “You tell me.”
“Do you think I could get a picture with just the two of us?” he asks.
It’s all I can do to keep Damian in his seat.
* * *
I get the call an hour after Damian and I leave the restaurant that Ben’s been apprehended, and they want me to come by and take a quick look through the glass to make sure they’ve got the right guy.
If it’s what they need to screw him to the fucking wall, I’m happy to do it.
Damian, bless him, won’t leave my side even when I’m walking into the police station and identifying the jackass who tried to ruin my life twice and get away with it.
They take Ben away, and even knowing there’s going to be a trial and I’m going to have to testify and everything, it already feels like so much is already done. The fact that he’s nowhere he can get to me is enough for now.
Damian was right about one thing: leaking the photos was a stupid idea. I don’t know if he didn’t think I would call the police if he let the pictures slip or not, but now that everyone in the world is seeing either blurred or explicit shots of me covered in scrapes and bruises.
That weekend, Ben told me at the time, was to make up for what a child he’d been a few days before. He was referencing our “discussion” that put those bruises on me, and while he told me that he wanted to take those pictures because of “how sexy” he thought I looked, I knew why he was really taking them.
He wanted a reminder of just how much power he had over me. He wanted something he could throw in my face if I ever went so far as to defy him. Well, now I’ve defied him, and that picture is in everyone’s face and it’s going to go a long way toward influencing whatever jury he ends up with.
For the first time in my life, I’m actually not ashamed about those bruises.
“You’re going to have to make a statement at some point,” Damian says.
“I know,” I tell him.
“It would have been better if you could have gotten in front of this before he sent out those pictures, but—” he stops. “I think things are going to be all right,” he says.
“Yeah,” I answer.
This is my first real movie.
This is my first one.
When people talk about me from now on, they’re going to be talking about those pictures. Maybe that won’t always be the case, but that’s my immediate future, at least.