SURPRISE UPDATE!!! because I love you all! 

A very important chapter!

Chapter 27

Karma is my long lost friend.

~~~

I was standing at the place I didn't think I would ever see again. I stared at the barred gates and security guards walking around.

The same lady was sitting at the desk again, her feet on the table as she flipped through a Vogue magazine.

"Damn those skinny bitches." She muttered under her breath, staring the pages and turning them violently.

I swallowed blinking and looking around, wondering if this was a wrong decision. No one knew I was here, Alex thought I was with Zivah and Zivah thought I was with Alex, if those two talked now – I would be so screwed.

But I needed to this – to confess.

As much as Ray Parker deserved this, my unconscious mind hadn't been able to sleep for the past many months. The guilt was weighing me down and with each passing second it was drawing a hole in my heart.

Maybe Athena was right – I craved for acceptance.

"Are you going to go in?" the lady questioned, not even sparing me a glance. "Hurry up before the meeting hours end."

Taking a deep breath that I hoped would give me enough confidence, I signed my name and entered the meeting room.

Since he was now a convicted felon, there was a glass barrier between us and that calmed me down. With that barrier Ray couldn't harm me.

I sat down opposite him and picked up the phone. His hair were now cute short, almost gone. There was a tiny bruise on his left cheek and eye as if someone had punched him and his black square specs were broken as they hanged loose on his nose. His shoulders were slumped and he looked in too much agony.

I closed my eyes in pain, unable to take in the sight. "I am sorry." I whispered on the phone.

Ray's voice was as soft and unwavering as always. "I know you did it."

I couldn't blame him for figuring it out. He was after all, incredibly smart.

"I know." I said, not having the guts to look at him.

"What I don't understand is why."

I licked my lips nervously. "Julia Brown."

There was a sight pause and deep intake of breath. I wanted to see the expressions playing on his face but I couldn't, I was too restless.

"How did you know?"

I finally glanced up, looking at his face and then back down. "I became a hacker to figure out what happened to her."

"I was young."

I scoffed. "That's not an excuse."

"I didn't know she would commit suicide." Ray whispered and the worst part was I didn't notice one hint of guilt in his voice. It was a plain emotionless statement.

I looked at his face, scanning it slowly, hoping, praying for a miniscule sight of remorse but there was none. His face was blank as he stared at me through his broken specs.

"You don't regret it." I noted.

Ray shrugged. "I was young." He repeated.

I swallowed, the guilt had previously for putting him behind the bars slowly disappearing. "You are sick!"

"Maybe."

My hold on the phone tightened as I told myself to not cuss him out. "Why did you plead guilty?"

"To protect you."

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief.

"I told you Myra, we are meant together. You and me until the very end." He repeated the very words he had spoken the last time I was here.

Despite the glass barrier between us, I felt fear creep up my veins. "You need an asylum. You are delusional."

Ray just lifted the corner of his lips slightly, giving a very small and a very creepy smile.

"Why did you do it? To Julia?"

"You mean why I leaked her nudes pics all over the internet?"

My hold on the phone tightened and I bit my lower lip to control my rising anger. "Yes." I hissed.

"I was bored. She was hot."

That was not the answer I was expecting. I couldn't believe that boredom could be a reason to practically invade someone's privacy and then proceed to destroy their life like it was not at all a big deal.

The scene from three years back flashed into my mind. The day I realized what had really happened with Julia.

Julia had committed suicide because all her personal naked photos were spread across her school, on websites, on messages, on phones of people she didn't even know. She couldn't face anyone, not even her own parents.

School life had of course become very difficult for her, everywhere she went there were gossips, rumors about her. No one wanted to be near her, no one wanted to be her friend, no one favored, no one sympathized.

She was the laughing stock and gossip topic for the girls and a sexual desire for the boys. They leered and whistled as she passed by, staring at her like she wasn't a human with feelings but just an object for their fantasy.

Even her family had stopped talking to her, ashamed of her.

So she cried every night to sleep and when she woke up she would cry again.

She couldn't understand how the photos got out because she never really sent them to anyone. They were in her phone on a folder, she didn't share them. So how could they get out?

But it didn't matter anymore because they were already out there for everyone to see. The world was laughing at her, jeering her with every breath she took.

So she decided to not take a single breath anymore. She hanged herself to death on a cold winter night when the moon was hidden behind the clouds and there were no stars shining in the sky.

It was the perfect night to kill herself, for even the sky didn't seem to care.

Like I said, on some nights even the moon disappears.

It took me lots of hacking classes and lessons and practice to finally figure out the root cause of the leak. Her phone had been hacked. And the only hacker I knew in her life was – Ray Parker.

But he was good, there was no single clue left behind. Nothing that could be taken as an evidence. This was a crime for which he could not be arrested.

So at that moment of time, I decided to make a crime that he could be arrested for.

Privacy invasion is a crime that should not be taken lightly.

And I might not know Julia Brown that well but I knew she didn't deserve what she got. She did not deserve the hate from her own family or the taunts and mockery from her friends.

She deserved to live.

So I got close to Ray Parker, I pretended to be his friend, I placed the evidence on his laptop. I took my revenge.

And now, sitting in front of the same guy who held no remorse for indirectly taking an innocent girl's life, I felt the last shred of guilt wash away.

He deserved this. He deserved to rot in prison. Because even then his pain would be microscopic compared to the pain Julia Brown felt when the world scorned her and at the same time zoomed on her photos to drool over them.

I couldn't even imagine the disgust she must have felt every time she looked at herself in the mirror.

The hate she must have felt, not for the world, but for herself.

Ray Parker did not deserve forgiveness.

I looked at his apathetic brown eyes. "You deserve this. This is your Karma."

Ray tilted his head and smirked. "Karma is my long lost friend. What makes you think it will back stab me in the back like this?"

"Julia didn't deserve to die."

"She shouldn't have killed herself. I didn't kill her she killed herself."

"Because of you!" I exclaimed in anger. "Because you made it impossible for her to live."

Ray just winked. "Just be glad your phone doesn't have any nudes."

I physically flinched. And if I wasn't already sitting I would have stumbled on the ground because I couldn't feel my legs anymore. "What?" I gasped, a hand resting over my erratic heart.

"I look forward to meeting you again, this time outside the prison. Goodbye Myra." Ray placed the phone back on the table and walked away.

I stared at the empty space he was just in. The glass between us did nothing to protect me from the words that came crashing down on me.

My hand dropped on my lap, the phone hanging down till my feet. My shoulders fell down as did my head. Unconsciously I wrapped myself in my arms, feeling a wave of coldness wash over me. I shivered at just the thought of Ray Parker going through my photos, my phone, maybe even my chats.

I took deep calming breaths, my palms rubbing my arms as I tried to not break down into a puddle of pain, shock and disgust.

"Ma'am. You must leave now."

I barely heard the words of the guard, they seemed far away. I slowly stood up, my feet feeling weaker. I stumbled and sat back down on the stool, unable to swallow and my breathing uneven.

"Ma'am?"

The voice seemed farther now. My eyesight blurred as I held the stool for support. And before I knew it I felt everything go black.

~~

Tell me, do you hate Ray yet?