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.