Not After Everything by Michelle Levy Page B

anyway. It’s just her precious scheduling system, so I head back to where Henry is and wait.
    Unfortunately the door chimes and we’ll have to wait till after the session to see if Henry was able to capture anything other than my inner douchiness.
    The next clients are a new family: young mother, young father, and very little baby. They tell Henry that they want to do something really arty, like, with them all tastefully naked. Henry shoots me a look that they don’t see and I’m forced to cough in order to cover a laugh.
    The wife asks that the “girl” help them, instead of me. She’s uncomfortable being naked with another man in the room. I guess Henry doesn’t count.
    Jordyn still doesn’t look up at me when I tell her what’s going on with the family. I expect her to laugh with me when I explain about the tasteful nakedness. But she’s all business.
    As I waste time checking Instagram—like I care that Justin Ramos had an orgasmic shake at Smashburger or that Gwynnie Yang posted another duck-face pic—I feel the pull of Jordyn’s computer taunting me with the evidence of my humiliation. I can just peek, right? Or, better yet, I could erase the ones that make me look like a complete tool. There’s no way Henry kept count of all the pictures he took. He’ll never know.
    I listen carefully for footsteps as I inch toward Jordyn’s side of the circular counter and bump the mouse. The screensaver vanishes. Then I understand that Jordyn’s not avoiding me because she’s embarrassed. It’s because she’s back on the jacket. The screen is on eBay—she’s found something similar but not exactly like hers. The auction ends next Saturday at midnight. She’s put in a bid for $150 and another person has just outbid her by one dollar. One of
those
. The “buy it now” price is $600. I wonder how much she paid for the ruined one. I feel the leather again; so smooth until you reach the white
slut,
then it’s rough and cracked. I scrape at it with a fingernail, but it’s useless. It’s fucked.
    I think I hear shuffling right on the other side of the curtain and I freeze, trying to remember how to put the screensaver—alternating photos of Jordyn’s mom, Henry, and Jordyn on vacation—back up so she doesn’t see me snooping. Then I hear Henry ask Jordyn to move something, and her voice answers from the other side of the room. I hurry and write down the details of the auction so I can find it, then I click on a few things until I figure out the screensaver, and breathe a sigh of relief when Jordyn’s mom’s face nuzzled into the side of Henry’s neck pops up.
    When the Tasteful-Nakeds finish, Henry informs me that we’ll have to wait till next time to check out my photos. They have family game night over at Jordyn’s dad’s place.
    Well, I have no reason to be jealous, because I get to go home and play “How Drunk Are You?” with my dad. We have family game night every night.

TEN
    On Thursday, when I exit the gym after last period, I’m faced with a horde of cheerleaders. They’re in the hall, spewing insults at a pitch I’m convinced only other teenage girls can hear well enough to decipher.
    â€œWho the hell do you think you are?”
    â€œSheila was too good for you anyway!”
    â€œAsshole!”
    And various other, more imaginative insults fly at me while I stand there, blocking the gym exit for those who had the misfortune of following me out of the locker rooms.
    I stare past Sheila’s friends, trying to wait it out without making the situation any worse. The reactions on the faces of passersby are fairly amusing, ranging from uncomfortable to annoyed to absolutely horrified for me. Truth is, I’m enjoying how completely normal it all feels. It takes every ounce of self-control not to smile.
    â€œWhat the—” Sheila pushes her way