As far as I'm concerned, it's still physically impossible for one person to be in two places at once. And unless there have been significant leaps in science since I last checked, my confusion at Xavier being in his kitchen when he should be playing basketball is justified.

Anika grips my arm as more boy's voices filled the room below us.

"Josh," she whispers.

I don't do well in high-stress situations, so panicked I slam the laptop closed whilst her fingers are still settled onto the keyboard.

"What the hell?" She screams before remembering that we're supposed to be quiet.

"Sorry," I say. "I'm sorry."

"Anika," Shawn calls up to me, "Guess who's here?"

"Shit." She says turning to me.

I can almost see the network of thoughts crisscrossing her brain light up. The idea clicks into place and she looks at me. "Okay. New plan?"

The co-captain of the debate club side of her is officially taking charge of this operation. I can't be more glad to have her back in my corner. She's far less intimidating when her teeth are bared at anyone who isn't me.

I nod.

"You. Into the closet, now. And I'll take this." She picks up the laptop. Our smoking gun and then she drops it. "Not yet."

I open the closet door; it's white with slatted wooden doors.

She continues, "I'll go down and distract them."

"What about Josh?" I ask. I don't know much about relationships but what I do know is confronting your ex-boyfriend when he has an entire team of his friends behind him can be detrimental to one's health.

Anika shrugs, "There isn't much of a choice right now."

Because of me. Because I dragged my friend into another suck-ish situation.

"Let me go. You stay and copy the file."

Even as I say it, I realize it's a terrible idea. Every time I interact with Xavier, someone walks away with an injury. Him a broken nose, me a bloody mouth. I'd rather not find out what meeting number three holds in store for us.

She snorts without humor. "I think Shawn will notice the switch. While I'm down, I'll call your phone. Keep it on speaker and I'll give you the all-clear."

With bravery, I know I'd never be capable of; she closes the closet door for me and steps out of the room. Straight the lion's dens.

My phone vibrates and I pick it up and slide Anika's call in to accept. It illuminates the space around me.

Was this the closet Anika was in when she called me that night? I'd lamented the fact that I hadn't been there to watch the drama unfold firsthand. Today I was. What kind of twisted game was fate playing?

In surprising contrast to his room, his closet is clean. With freshly laundered coats and hoodies neatly lined up on hangers. I'm pressed against the wall, right behind a Burberry sweater. Through the slats, I spy the laptop across the room, lying closed on Xavier's desk.

I didn't think anything could surprise me until Anika twisted the laptop to me and I looked down.

As it would turn out the smoking gun was a group chat. The boy's group chat.

Knowing Xavier the way I did, his social media was the first place I should have checked.

An archived chat zipped and tucked away behind file after file but we still found it.

The texts were innocent enough at first. If casual misogyny and male stupidity could be considered innocent. Then they became more pointed, leading. It was more than a little confusing to read about our star players quizzing each other on science and English lit. Then I realized why:

Benchmark should be 70,

An eighty would be sus

Nic getting above a C would be sus. Now imagine him getting an A

Don't memorize it dickheads. You'll get us caught.

Josh's girlfriend will be so over him when she finds out he ain't smart.

They didn't make sense at first until I scrolled down to the links and the files they'd been sharing.

"What the fuck?" Anika whispered when she saw that one of them was the history final she'd been killing herself to get through.

It was a sentiment I shared when I saw my AP math paper tossed into the fray like I hadn't slaved for a month to understand the formulae.

Judging by the timestamps, they had the papers nearly two weeks ahead of the midterms. No wonder they had the energy to play sports after school. None of them had to study. The group chat consisted of half the starters on the basketball team and a few other athletes. Track and field, football, and even hockey. It was a supersized scandal of the most salacious proportions.

Anika and I hadn't just discovered a smoking gun, we'd stumbled upon a detonated minefield.

It was enough to send anyone's head spinning. The implications were beyond me. Teenagers did objectively terrible things all the time. They stole their parent's cars, started fierce school rivalries, and gave the boys they liked second-hand black eyes but to name a few things.

Managing to steal standardized tests from the Fort Knox that was the administrative department under the watchful eye of Deputy Principal Williams blew my crimes out of the water.

I tap the speaker icon on my phone and listen in.

I hear Anika shift as she makes her way down the stairs and finally onto the landing.

Deep breath.

"Hey guys," she tries to say it lightly but her voice is crackly when it reaches me.

I can almost see the starters draped over the kitchen in various positions, on a counter, seated at the breakfast bar or standing under the cool of the fridge, turn to face her. For a few seconds, you could hear a pin drop.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Josh's voice.

"I--," she starts, "I wanted to talk to you."

Someone groans. Loudly.

"Anika babe. We talked about this." Xavier says and I recoil even as I crane to hear what he has to say.

"Don't touch me," Anika says. "I'm not here to talk to you."

"And yet you were in my room?"

To his credit, nothing gets past him.

"What? Were you waiting for me or something?" He asks and someone, definitely not Joshua, laughs. "Ready to finish what we started?"

Finish what?

This is... a new development for me.

"Shut up, Xavier."

"Do you want us to leave you two alone?" A deep voice adds. Nic.

"No. No one leaves. Especially not you." I hear the rustling of fabric and I can picture her yanking Xavier up by the shirt. Placing him front and center. "Let's talk. Right here, right now."

I've never been more terrified for someone in my entire life. As brave as my girl is, I'm still scared stiff for her. And to think she's doing this all for me. It's my turn to tear a leaf out of her book and man up.

I push open the closet door, careful to cover the speakers on my phone.

"You want to talk about us now," Josh asks as I flip the laptop back open.

"You didn't mind talking about it with your friends. How about talking to me in front of them?"

Damn. This is the literal definition of taking one for the team. When we were done, I was going to tell her I loved her. There was no way around it. This level of self-sacrifice had to be rewarded with the highest possible honors.

"Fine, okay. It's like that then." I hear the creak of a barstool. "Where do you wanna start? The drunk texts at 1 AM. The phone calls. You stalking my girlfriend?"

"No. Let's start right at the beginning." She says. "Let's start with how I broke up with you. And somehow everyone in this room thinks it's the other way around."

My eyes widen at the admission, as I start downloading the entire group chat archive onto Anika's pen drive.

"What are you even talking about?" He asks. "We broke up because you made out with my best friend."

"Guilty as charged," Xavier says with a chuckle.

I gasp before remembering I'm on speakerphone. How the hell am I the last to know this? My friend kissed Xavier Preston. Not the choice I would have gone with obviously.

"Shut up, Xavier." They both say at the same time.

"And screw you, Josh. We both know that was after."

"Before."

"I have the screenshots, asshole." I love her composure. The last time she confronted him she was sobbing and drunk. This is a solid comeback.

I glance at the laptop and it says there are five minutes left.

"Fuck the screenshots. You being a hoe kinda trumps the screenshots."

Yup, the jury that was out on whether or not Joshua was an asshole has come to a unanimous decision. He's undeniably an asshole.

"It makes me a hoe?" She laughs, and it sounds like she genuinely finds this entire situation amusing. "So what does the fact that your browser history had almost a hundred hits from PornHub say about you? That's why we broke up."

I snort but it's not nearly as loud as the laughter that erupts from the boys on the other end of the phone. Nothing says savage takedown like bringing up your ex-boyfriend's search history. It will take a long while for Josh to live any of this down.

"You don't believe me? Our accounts are still linked. Your latest search was... mmmh this one is both racially and historically inaccurate. Do you want me to—"

"Okay, okay. Stop. Let's talk outside, okay?"

Shame I really wanted to hear what was so inaccurate about his searches.

The phone muffles her response. But I guess that it must be in agreement because I hear the sound of the two of them walking away. I hope she doesn't forget to keep Xavier at bay. There are still 45 seconds left for the load.

"Twenty, nineteen, eighteen," I whisper to myself. "Almost there."

"I need to change," A voice announces before bounding up the steps.

"Come on," I say willing the laptop to process the information faster.

I jerk it out just as it reaches 100%. Pausing for a split second, I realize that I have two options. Jump out the window or throw myself back into the closet.

The door swings open right as I tuck, roll and fling myself under Xavier's bed with one thought on my mind, "no amount of shampoo will ever make this moment okay."

So this is how it ends, with my back placed firmly against the thick layer of grime on the floor and my face dangerously close to what I know is a dirty pair of undergarments.

I turn my face to the side when I hear his feet cross the floor.

He pulls off his shirt and tosses it onto the ground then he walks into the door opposite the bed. Going into the bathroom, I presume.

I wonder if I can dash to the window in the time, he's in the bathroom. But I guess I didn't factor in the fact that boys pee standing, which is, twice as effective but only takes half the time.

He riffles through his closet and I'm glad I didn't choose that as my hiding spot. One wrong move and the game would be up. He manages to find a sweatshirt amid the chaos of his room and then I see the backs of his ankles as he takes a seat at the foot of his bed.

After a few moments, I see a different pair of legs walk up to the bed. Four legs to be exact. It must be the fat house cat Anika talked about. It rubs itself against Xavier's feet before hopping onto the bed. Which creaks in response.

When I hear the sound of tapping on his phone and the steady purring of the feline I curse under my breath. Doesn't he have anywhere else to be? I try to stay as still as possible as the bed shifts above me. The two of them are getting too comfortable.

The sound starts softly. A quiet buzzing coming from somewhere next to me. Immediately I reach for my phone but it's silent. Then I locate the origin of the sound. Tucked away between the framework of the bed and the mattress is a vibrating piece of long-forgotten technology.

A Blackberry?

I jam my hand up against the bed until I'm close enough to grab it. Careful not to disturb the boy lounging above me. I press the power button until the vibrating stops.

Who the hell still owns a Blackberry?

This was not 2009, okay. Nobody uses buttons or Blackberry messenger or took rear camera selfies. Apple had made sure of that. Only the shadiest of the shady carried socially outlawed phones. Was this the real smoking gun? A crappy phone.

Why else would Xavier be keeping it? Unless he was oddly sentimental, that is. It was a burner phone and he would have to get a new one too because I'd be keeping his.

I clutch the phone to my chest, waiting and trying very hard to not breathe deeply. I have to be quiet and that gives me nothing to do but think. Think about how justified my actions are. Thus far I've committed more than three crimes and given the fact that Xavier's parents are government officials, two of them are federal.

Was I really doing all this for Leah or because Leah was Darnell's best friend? It was enough self-reflection to give anyone a headache.

"Xavier. Leggo," someone calls up from the kitchen cutting my thoughts off. Thankfully.

He sighs and places his feet back onto the floor, "Coming."

I count sixty seconds. Sixty seconds for him to run down the stairs and re-join his friends. Then I count another to make sure they're really gone before I let myself roll out from under the bed. Covered in a fine layer of dirt. An occupational hazard.

I leave the same way I came. Balancing on a tree branch and nearly breaking my neck in the process. It's all worth it, I tell myself. All worth it.

I start walking to my rendezvous point with Anika which in simpler terms is just the bus stop.

I'm beginning to think this might be a really long weekend.