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trust me, you’re right. It was way too perfect. So perfect, in fact, that if I hadn’t been so smitten with Kevin, if I hadn’t been so naïve, if I had been more skeptical in any way at all, I would have seen the crash-and-burn ending coming. But I liked the optimistic, trusting girl I was with Kevin, and that trust was why it was so shocking.
    W hile devastating to me, it wasn’t a rare occurrence. Kevin cheated.
    I found out through some friends, then confronted Kevin, who denied it at first, but finally admitted it.
    I asked him who he wanted to be with , me or her, and his response was direct and blunt: “I’m not sure.”
    So I made it easy for him and informed him that he didn’t need to make a decision; I was removing myself from consideration. Thanks, but no thanks.
    Having gone through that, I couldn’t have imagined anything worse, which is why the second hit was like a tsunami, demolishing all that was familiar, washing away everything I had. Or thought I had.
    It was early May, two months after the break-up, and everyone was preparing for exams, looking forward to the last summer being college students, and eager to get on with our senior year and become adults.
    I shared a two-bedroom apartment with my best girlfriend, Liz. I was up late one night, cramming for my ecology exam—the one I dreaded most—so I was already not in a great mood. I thought Liz might be asleep because I heard no noise coming from her bedroom. It turns out she was quiet because she was studying, too, but she had taken a break to answer a text from her boyfriend, Travis.
    Liz knocked urgently on my door and when I asked her what was up, she came barging in and sat down on the bed next to me, whe re I had papers strewn all around my laptop.
    “ Travis just texted me something you have to see.”
    “Can it wait a few minutes?”
    She thrust her phone at me. “No. Look.” As I reached to take the phone, she said, “I’m so sorry.”
    I looked at the screen and there, staring back at me, in full screen was…me. A picture of a naked me. Well, the top half, anyway. Totally bare-chested, with my hand up near my face and one finger at the corner of my mouth, my eyes half-shut—a forced seductive pose.
    A pose I had struck for Kevin.
    It was one of several pictures I had allowed him to take a few months before the breakup, and which he promised me no one would ever see.
    Liz was silent, and I couldn’t bring myself to let her see my face.
    I had to stop looking at the picture and my head just dropped. “Where did Travis get this?”
    “ Here.” She reached out and I handed her the phone. She pulled up the text Travis had sent her, then handed the phone back to me.
    He told her that a mutual friend of theirs had texted him, asking Isn’t Liz friends with this girl? and included the link to a site called My Hot College Girlfriend, where there were pictures of naked girls. Girls like me who had trusted guys to take intimate pictures of them. They call it “revenge porn.”
    How fucking stupid could I have been?
    Liz hugged me. “I’m so sorry. I feel so bad showing you this.”
    I held on to her tight. At that moment, she was more than a best friend, she was the only person in the world I could have sought refuge in. No longer was Kevin that person.
    I cried for a few minutes as we sat there on my bed, and then the anger set in. More than anger, actually. It was pure fury.
    I didn’t bother calling Kevin. It was almost two in the morning and I left our apartment, got in my car, and sped the entire four miles to his house. I banged on the door violently for a solid minute until I heard the door unlocking.
    Kevin’s roommate, Ari, opened the door. He looked like he’d been in a deep sleep.
    “What the hell, Leah? What’s wrong?”
    I barged into the apartment, shoving him out of the way and hearing him say, “What the fuck?” as I made my way to Kevin’s room. I opened the door and found him just waking up. A faint beam