Chapter 344 - Clueless
Angela kept crying until her breathing became so uneven that Roxie stopped trying to ask questions.
"Hey, look at me." Roxie moved closer and reached for her hand. "Just breathe first."
Angela shook her head, one hand still covering her mouth while tears ran down her face. Karen stayed crouched on her other side with the phone in her hand, her expression tight as she looked between Angela and the message on the screen.
"You’re okay," Karen said quietly. "We’re here."
Angela squeezed her eyes shut.
Roxie’s own chest tightened watching her. Angela’s usual smile was completely gone, and seeing her curled beside a bush in the parking lot, trying desperately to stop herself from crying, felt wrong. Angela was usually the one laughing even when everybody else was miserable.
Roxie rubbed her arm slowly. "Nobody else has seen it. It was sent to you. That’s all we know right now."
Angela finally nodded, although another sob escaped her.
Karen unlocked the phone again and looked at the picture. "We need to figure out where this came from."
Angela immediately looked at her.
Karen softened her voice. "I’m asking because whoever sent it had to get it somewhere."
Angela wiped her face with both hands, breathing through her mouth until she could finally speak. "I sent it to Caleb."
Roxie went still.
Karen’s eyes dropped toward the screen again. "Only Caleb?"
Angela nodded.
"Only Caleb ever had this picture?"
"Yes." Her voice cracked again. "I took it for him."
Roxie glanced at Karen.
That narrowed things down and somehow made everything worse.
"When?" Roxie asked.
"A few months ago."
"And Caleb still has it?"
"I don’t know." Angela rubbed both hands over her face. "Probably. I sent it to him. I never asked him to delete it."
Karen looked at the unknown number again. "Have you called him?"
Angela shook her head. "He’s in Europe. His grandma is sick and he went with his family. I barely know how to contact him right now."
"Call him anyway," Roxie said.
Angela looked down at her phone, and her fingers started shaking again.
Roxie touched her wrist. "I’m right here."
Angela nodded and took the phone back from Karen. She searched Caleb’s name and pressed call while all three of them listened.
The line rang once, then again before dropping.
Angela tried a second time.
Nothing.
She stared at the screen. "He’s been hard to reach since he left."
Karen frowned. "How hard?"
Angela hesitated. "Sometimes he replies hours later. Sometimes the next day. He said they’re going back and forth because of his grandma and his family."
Roxie looked at the picture again. "That still doesn’t mean he sent it."
Angela’s eyes snapped toward her. "He wouldn’t."
"I know."
"He wouldn’t do this to me."
Roxie squeezed her hand. "I know, Angela."
Karen stayed quieter. "Someone still got it."
Angela looked at her.
Karen’s expression softened. "I’m not blaming him. I’m saying this picture is on two phones. Yours and Caleb’s."
Angela lowered her eyes.
Roxie hated how lost she looked.
"What if somebody got into his phone?" she asked. "Or his account? Maybe he left his phone somewhere."
Karen nodded slowly. "Could be."
Angela looked between them. "Can people actually do that?"
"Probably," Roxie said. "People steal everything now."
Karen gave her a look before glancing back at the message.
COUNT YOUR HAPPY DAYS.
Any little relief Roxie had felt disappeared.
She hated those words more every time she looked at them. They reminded her of Claire’s pictures plastered inside the gym, everyone staring while something humiliating and personal became entertainment for the entire school.
"What does that even mean?" she asked.
Angela shook her head. "I don’t know."
"Did they send anything before this?"
"No."
Karen looked at her carefully. "Nothing weird? Unknown calls? Messages?"
Angela thought about it. "A few calls from numbers I didn’t recognize, but I never answered. I get spam calls sometimes."
"How many?"
"I don’t know. Maybe three."
Karen took a breath. "Okay."
Roxie watched her expression. Karen was trying to think, and that made her feel slightly calmer because Karen usually had some kind of answer when everybody else was panicking.
"We should tell someone," Karen finally said.
Angela immediately looked up. "Who?"
"The school. Principal Gonzalez. Maybe Coach Miller."
Angela’s expression changed instantly.
"No."
Karen frowned. "Angela."
"No." Angela wiped her cheeks again. "What are they going to do?"
"They can at least know what’s happening."
"And then what? Start asking people? Call my parents? Call Caleb’s parents? What if somebody finds out why?"
Karen opened her mouth, but Angela’s breathing was already getting faster again.
"What if the picture gets out because people start talking about it? I don’t want everyone knowing. I don’t want people looking at me like..." Angela stopped and pressed her lips together.
Roxie understood.
Angela had been teased about her chest since freshman year. Roxie remembered seniors on the cheer team whispering that awful nickname behind her back, BB, short for Big Breast Bitch. Angela had always laughed when someone mentioned her chest after that, acting like she didn’t care, but Roxie knew she did. If Angela had one insecurity she had never completely gotten over, it was that.
The thought made Roxie’s stomach hurt.
How could anyone do this to her?
Angela barely had enemies. She was sweet to everyone, sometimes annoyingly sweet, and somehow somebody had decided that the easiest way to hurt her was to take the thing she had always been insecure about and turn it against her.
The worst possibility stayed in the back of Roxie’s mind.
Caleb.
Roxie hated herself for even thinking it. He always looked completely in love with Angela. Every time Roxie saw them together, Caleb watched her like she was the best thing in the room.
"We can wait before telling the school," Roxie said. "Just until we figure something out."
Karen looked at her.
Roxie met her eyes.
Angela needed to calm down before they turned this into something even bigger.
Karen seemed to understand because she nodded once. "Fine. But we save everything."
Angela looked confused.
"The message. The number. The time. Screenshot all of it."
Roxie nodded. "That way if they send anything else, we have it."
Angela looked down at the phone again and swallowed. "You think there’ll be more?"
Roxie wished Karen had answered first.
"I don’t know."
Angela looked terrified again.
Karen reached for the phone. "That’s why we keep everything."
Angela handed it over. Karen started taking screenshots while Roxie stayed beside Angela, rubbing her arm whenever her breathing started getting uneven again.
"Who else could have gotten it?" Roxie asked after a while.
Angela shook her head. "Nobody."
Roxie stared at the ground.
There was only one person she could think of.
"Bianca."
Karen’s head lifted.
Angela stared at her. "Bianca?"
𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
Roxie nodded slowly. "Maybe."
All three of them went quiet.
Bianca was Caleb’s cousin. If anyone around Caleb could possibly get access to his phone, she was one of the few people Roxie could think of. Bianca also had enough history with Roxie that imagining her doing something horrible wasn’t exactly difficult.
For a few seconds, it made perfect sense.
"She’s in Europe too," Roxie said.
Angela wiped her cheeks. "Yeah. Her family went."
Karen frowned.
Roxie could almost see the thought moving through her head too. Bianca was in Europe. Caleb was in Europe. Bianca was his cousin, and the picture had only ever been sent to Caleb.
Then the obvious problem hit.
"Why would she do this to you?" Roxie asked.
Angela looked helpless. "I don’t know."
That was where the theory started falling apart. Bianca had always had a problem with Roxie. Angela had never done anything to her that Roxie could remember.
"We still don’t know if they’re even together," Karen said. "Europe is huge."
Roxie sighed and rubbed her forehead. Every answer seemed to create another question.
They had an unknown number, a topless picture Angela had only sent to Caleb, Caleb on another continent and almost impossible to reach, and Bianca somewhere on that same continent. Under the photo was one stupid sentence that told them absolutely nothing about what the sender wanted.
"What am I supposed to do?" Angela whispered.
None of them answered.
The bell rang across campus.
Roxie looked toward the building before turning back to Angela. "We can skip. Come back to my place with me."
Angela looked lost for a moment, then shook her head. "I can’t sit somewhere knowing my picture could be sent out any second."
Karen dragged both hands through her hair. "We need to find Bianca."
Angela grabbed her arm, tears starting again. "What if it is her? What am I going to do?"
Roxie watched Angela’s face while the other possibility sat heavily in her stomach.
Bianca was the easier answer.
Bianca was the answer Roxie wanted.
Because the other one was Caleb.
For the first time in her life, Roxie found herself hoping Bianca had done something horrible.
Then a notification rang.
Roxie looked down.
Another sounded from Karen’s phone.
Then Angela’s.
The three of them froze.
More notifications followed, one after another, coming from different directions across the parking lot and from inside the school building.
Angela’s face changed.
Roxie stopped breathing.
They might already be too late.