She purposefully disconnected the call. It was cut short. She started texting him.

“Please look at the CoS site. Something’s wrong. Everything has no value.”

He pulled up the app in his teacher desk, the biggest screen in near him. He could see that his location, his family history, and nearly everything had been demonetized. It was all free. All open to the public.

This time he tried calling her again. It went to voicemail, so he concluded she turned her phone down or off. She had to have.

She texted back. Why couldn’t she let him believe?

“I won’t look at yours if you promise to not look at mine.”

She sent again “You don’t have to answer.”

He left the house, trying his best to not keep looking at his phone for a “Seen by” tag on any of his information.

He checks the time with the first click. It’s around nine o’clock. He leaves the school, locking it back up.

Ten minutes pass. Nothing.

Twenty minutes. Nothing.

Thirty minutes pass and he gets a call from David. Steven tries to greet him, but he cuts off.

“Steven, what the hell!? I’m on your ‘Sexual History’ tab? Did you … make money off of our relationship?”

“Hell no! I set that tab to the highest price I could, because I didn’t want anyone to buy it! I only put it there when I had no money, and when we were stranded in a one room apartment! I couldn’t do that to you!”

David is livid “My information shouldn’t have been in there in the first god damn place! No one in both of our families knows that we were … close! If anything, it would’ve been worse if someone found out if you were –”

Steven cuts him off “I had no money! You were the one that left me! After you left, I had to look out for myself!”

A pause. The tension rolls down. David sighs.

“I’m … I’m not mad that you did this. I’m mad that you never told me anything.”

“Well, I was mad that you left me because I was supposedly too much to handle, so I guess we’re even.”

Steven hangs up. David looks at his ceiling fan, watching it spin, hoping that it would hypnotize him into being calmer. He wasn’t angry now. He was lost.

Fourty minutes. Nothing.

Fifty minutes. Still nothing. The only “Read by” tag coming from David.

An hour hits. Another tag loads on the screen, linked to Lorraine’s name. She texts him.

“I saw. I can’t go through with this. I know you care about him, too. I’m sorry.”

Steven shuffles his way home. He feels his way into bed, not wanting to turn on the lights. People are just dropping him like flies.

The morning comes, and Steven makes it to work.