Nolan looks at our confused faces. “Uh . . . yeah.”
Emi and I trade glances before I ask, “Are yousureit was Kalani and not someone else? Or maybe he mixed up the name?”
Nolan’s brow furrows. “It’s pretty hard to screw up a name like Kalani.”
Emi pulls me to the side, away from Nolan and Jay and Nolan’s friends, who are wondering what’s going on.
“Why would Kalani share it with Ralph?” I ask Emi, trying to think past the hurt. “Why would she share it with anyone at all? I’d never do that to her. This can’t be right. She’s my best friend. She’d never send a video like that of me around on purpose.”
Emi’s already gotten her phone out and is clicking around with a determined look on her face. Jay joins us, Nolan and his friends having already left.
Emi holds her phone flat in her hand between the three of us and clicks the speaker button. Rings fill the air, then a deep voice. “Miss me already, Emi? I literally just left.”
“Hey, Ralph, settle something for me,” she says, getting straight to the point. “Did Kalani send you a video of someone puking out the window of a car? And if yes, when did she send it?”
“Yeah. Friday night. It was of a girl puking out the window of a beautiful Beemer while going a hundred on the highway.”
Emi and I look at each other with wide eyes. We’re both thinking the same thing. I force myself to breathe through the shock as Emi asks, “Can you check the time stamp for me of when she sent it?”
“Yeah, hold on . . .” There’s shuffling, and then his voice is so clear I can’t pretend I didn’t hear it when he says, “It was at 11:19 p.m.”
“At 11:19 p.m.,” I repeat, my heart beating in my chest, hurt at the betrayal. “That was literallyrightafter I puked. I know because I looked at the clock at 11:10 wishing Wyatt would hurry the hell up and get me home, then I couldn’t hold it anymore. That means . . .” No. It can’t mean what logic tells me it means. I don’t want to believe it, but the facts are staring me right in the face, and I can’t bury my head in the sand and pretend they don’t exist because I don’t want them to. “Kalani must’ve been the one to take the video of me, and she was the one to send it around.”
Saying the words out loud hurts more than I thought it would. Wyatt mentioned a white car in his blind spot. It must’ve been Emmett’s Volvo. Kalani would’ve had the perfect vantage point to take the video.
“Is that Carina?” Ralph asks. “Hey, Carina. I didn’t want to bring it up earlier because you were having so much fun with Jay, but I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize it was you until after it started going around more. I wouldn’t have sent it to anyone if I had realized it was y—”
Emi hangs up on him. “Kalani’ssucha bitch! I can’t believe her! She’s been extra bitchy lately, I’ll be the first to admit that, but recording her best friend at such a low moment and passing the video around with the intention of embarrassing you, then pretending not to know anything about it after? On top of the fact that she’s been setting you up on shitty dates on purpose? Let’s go have somewordswith her.”
She starts marching toward the car, but I stand in the same spot, frowning at the tree line as I try to make sense of everything. I’ve known Kalani since the second grade. What’s happened to our friendship that she’s having these malicious intentions toward me? She’s activelytryingto hurt me.
“Why would she do that to me, Emi?” I ask, my voice cracking, though I force myself not to cry.
Emi’s anger softens as she returns and pulls me into a hug. “I don’t know, Carina. I’m sorry.”
I glance at Jay for the first time and see his jaw and fists are clenched. His entire stance is tense, and he looks like he’s trying really hard not to say something he can’t take back.
Emi pulls away, and a thought occurs to me. “Do you think she’s the one who started the rumors about me at school? Needing to pay for dates and stuff?”
Emi and Jay exchange glances, and it’s clear by the set in their jaws and their rigid postures what their opinion about that is.
Why is she doing this to me? Because I was ruining her prom numbers and seating arrangement? Because I didn’t want to go on any more stupid dates? Because . . . because she knows about Emmett?
But even if that was true, does that make what she did any better?
I swipe at my cheek when I feel some tears slip out, and Jay’s nostrils flare.
“I’m sorry, Jay, but I need to go. Are you ready, Emi?”
“To go kick her ass? Yes!”
“No, Emi,” I say, not feeling the same fight she’s feeling. It’s clear she and Jay are pissed on my behalf, but I just feel drained. “To go home.”
“Are you okay to drive?” Jay asks, gently wiping the wetness on my cheeks I didn’t get the first time.
Emi says, “You mean okay to drive straight to Kalani’s house and stir up some shit?”
“No, no confrontations,” I say, walking with them along the path to the car. “I want to go home.”