#Chapter 1: Pathetic

  Celeste

 

  As Christmas approached, so too did the Moon Goddess Festival ball. It was an annual celebration on campus, one where all my classmates would pair up for a night of laughter and dancing. I was the only one who didn't deserve it. My brother and everyone around me reminded me of that.

 

  It was pathetic, really. I was eighteen, legally an adult and a freshman in college, but I was stuck under my brother’s thumb.

 

  “Celeste, another round!” Jack's voice cut through the clamor, an unspoken command. I picked up the pitcher of punch sitting on the kitchen counter and obeyed.

  

  Laughter echoed around the room, sharp and poignant, another reminder of my outsider status. My brother's friends, arrogant and self-assured, moved about the room in a buzz of excitement, their eyes filled with amusement each time they glanced my way.

  

  Jack, as always, was the ringmaster of this circus, commanding the room and myself with equal authority.

  

  I had no choice but to obey my brother. He was my legal guardian, and he made sure that I never forgot that fact. He was a lot bigger and stronger than me, and he always made sure that I never forgot that, too.

  

  If I ever disobeyed my brother, things would turn sour very quickly; I learned that at a young age. I was eighteen now, but I was still inferior to him. He practically made all of my choices for me—everything from the way that I dressed to who I hung out with.

  

  It wasn’t like I had much of a choice, though. I was always a bit chubby, ever since I was little. I had ugly brown, frizzy, thick hair that fell in a pyramid-shape on my shoulders; my brother always cut it for me because he didn’t want to waste money on a hairdresser.

   To make matters worse, my eyesight was shit. I wore glasses all of the time, and not even the cute kind of glasses because, once again, Jack didn’t want to spend the money on nice frames.

  

  Even my eyes were different colors; one was brown and one was green. It was an interesting feature, I guessed, but I hated it. I just wanted to look normal, like all the other girls.

  

  For that same reason, all of my clothes were hand-me-downs from Jack. Believe it or not, wearing baggy men’s clothes made me look even bigger than I was.

  

  As I walked around the living room and poured punch into people’s glasses, I could feel their judgmental eyes on me.

  

  They talked about me aloud, commenting on my poor posture, my ugly side profile, my fat thighs.

 

  Maybe they didn’t think that I could hear them over the loud music, or maybe they just didn’t care. It was probably the latter. I uncomfortably tugged my shirt down harder to keep myself covered and kept my head down as I continued my task.

 

  Going to the prom, wearing a pretty dress, holding a boy's hand, and enjoying the stares of the crowd?

 

  That kind of treatment could belong to anyone. Except me, and I willingly accepted my fate.

 

  Even though I was an ugly virgin that no one wanted in reality, and no one would even ask me to prom. But online? No one knows what I look like. Who can't have their own dirty secrets?

 

  Shhh - keep it for me.

  

  A soft vibration in my pocket provided a momentary escape from the chaos. It was a message from him—the enigma I'd been sexting for weeks.

  

  His words had always offered a temporary sanctuary, a digital world where I was desired, not dismissed. He was one of several in my history of anonymous online sexting, but he was the most recent and the one who I had felt most smitten with.

  

  Scurrying into the kitchen, I set the empty pitcher of punch down on the counter and checked over my shoulder. I was alone. I opened the message, and my heart pounded against my ribs.

  

  Pics. Now. Show your breasts. Or it's over.

  

  Fear twisted in my gut as I read the message. The anonymous comfort of our sexting, the secret thrill of our encounters, had never crossed this boundary.

  

  But his ultimatum was clear, and I had to obey. I didn’t want our arrangement to end; as a pathetic virgin who had no realistic future of ever losing her virginity, I was desperate for attention from guys like this.

  

  For a few moments, I chewed my lip as I glanced around. Jack was in the living room with his friends.

  

  I glanced around the corner of the kitchen door to see him grinding up against a hot girl, grabbing her hips and pulling her slender body closer.

  

  Jack wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. He was just as drunk as everyone else, and so I decided to take my chances.

  

  I quietly slipped up the stairs, down the hall and into the bathroom. My hands trembled as I unbuttoned my shirt, my pulse echoing loudly in my ears.

  

  Just as I was about to snap a picture, though, I realized that I was forgetting one necessary piece to my little puzzle.

  

  In the darkness of the bathroom, I groped around inside the vanity before my fingers brushed the lace trim and pointy cat ears of the object that I was looking for. It was a discarded masquerade mask—a remnant from a past Halloween party.

  

  I kept it shoved into the back of the vanity, where Jack was unlikely to stumble across it. I had it saved just for occasions like this, because no one could know my online persona. It was my little secret; I had an account dedicated to sexting guys anonymously.

  

  Even though I was chubby, guys liked my big breasts, and so I had sent more than one nude picture in my time. This mask came in handy on those occasions. No one could know who I was. No one.

  

  With the bathroom lights off and the flash on my phone on, I angled my camera towards my chest, attempting to capture an image that could satisfy his demand.

  

  A few pictures were snapped. I paused in between each one.

  

  “God,” I whispered to myself as I swiped through the pictures and shook my head. “I can’t get a good angle…”

  

  My phone buzzed again, and a notification popped up on the screen.

  

  I’m waiting… Time is ticking.

  

  I chewed my lip as I read the text. Sighing, I lifted my phone again, my thumb poised to hit the shutter button. I arched my back as much as I could, stuck my my lower lip out in a pout, and pushed my breasts together.

  

  Suddenly, a voice, groggy yet familiar, shattered the silence.

  

  “Hey… what's going on here?”

  

  A gasp escaped my lips as I spun around. There was no one there; at least, that was what I thought at first. But then my eyes wandered downwards, toward the bathtub, and I finally caught sight of my unwitting companion.

  

  He was laying in the tub in a drunken stupor with one leg dangling over the edge. He was shielding his eyes from the flash on my phone and squinting, making a face of annoyance.

  

  “What are you doing in here?”

  

  His voice was groggy and thick, but I recognized it immediately. I scrambled to shut my phone off, casting the bathroom in complete darkness once more now that the flash was off. My heart pounded in my chest like a war drum inside my rib cage.

  

  I knew him. This was no ordinary partygoer, no stranger; this was my brother’s best friend and the hockey team’s current captain… Matt. The sexiest man I've ever been around, bar none.

  

  And he had seen everything.