Kind of the Same, but Different
Previously: The team holds a press conference and visits Seb Podesta at home.
Need to catch up on The Spring? Visit the chapter index here:
6:25 PM - Friday, November 6, 2014
3rd Avenue and Hugo St, Inner Sunset, San Francisco
“I still need you to answer it, Seb.” Jeannie said quietly.
Mark felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. He watched Seb’s eyes which had so far always been distant and foggy, uncomprehending, almost. In all their other meetings, the kid always seemed to look like he was a little checked out. Not now. Now, Seb’s eyes were clear and sad. There was another note there too: something a little implacable but recognizable among men, but Mark still couldn’t label it. Couldn’t label the trouble, but saw its fire.
Seb huffed at Jeannie and leaned back in his chair. Paco noticed the boy squeezing his hands into fists below the tabletop.
“Seb, honey — wh-why don’t you —” Julie began softly, touching her son’s arm.
“I’m guessing,” Seb answered loudly, ignoring his mother, “I’m guessing, Officer Hagen, you’re either asking me that because you’ve heard something about me, or you’ve heard something about Tripp, or…” He faded.
“Or?” Jeannie countered, eyes calm.
“Or both.” Seb assessed her with a slight, challenging smirk.
“You’d be right.” She tilted her chin up. Mark could tell that while Jeannie was firm, the kid wasn’t going to need a lot of coaxing for once. The smirk on Seb’s face grew slowly and then faded quickly.
“Tell me what you’ve heard.” Seb said, brown eyes glinting.
Jeannie drew a breath, looking at the table while she thought for a moment, then meeting Seb’s gaze directly.
“We heard that Tripp is closeted. We heard that he keeps Angela Parisi around so people won’t ask questions, but that he also keeps Jen Tyson around because he knows if she’s around then guys like you will come around too. We heard that he can be predatory and conniving, and that he often uses his family’s money or the drugs he seems to have around all the time to lure people into social situations. He’s basically an old-fashioned honey pot, but to what end seems change-able. It depends entirely on what he wants.” Jeannie paused, considering Seb whose face had softened slightly. Mark realized she was making it easier for him by laying the ground work of the story. “We heard, Seb, that Tripp maybe wasn’t such a fan of Alexa’s, especially after the situation on July 4th.” Seb’s face went slack.
“What - what happened on July 4th?” Julie asked, looking between her son and Jeannie.
“Would you like to tell your mother, Seb?” Mark interjected. Seb glared at him. “I’m guessing that’s a “no”…okay Mrs Richards,” Mark began. “On the evening of July 4th, when your son and his friends were at Tripp Hartman’s Tahoe house — with zero parental supervision — they tried to intimidate Seb’s then-girlfriend, Alexa Thomas, into sex. Either with Seb or his friend Dash, or with both of them together, along with Jen Tyson — we aren’t really sure who all they wanted to be involved, but —”
“That’s enough.” Seb growled from across the table.
“Really? Because I thought I was just getting to the good part.” Mark glared back at him.
Julie Richards’ face was a confused mask of shock.
“Seb — “ she whispered breathlessly.
“To be fair, Mrs Richards, everyone was quite drunk. So, while he failed to pressure his girlfriend into sex in front of his friends, he had no qualms being serviced by Jennifer Tyson in front of his friends.” Julie’s mouth fell open. “Alexa removed herself from the situation, but not before Dash Reilly made his own attempt.” Seb’s eyes flared. “Oh, you didn’t know about that?” Mark challenged him. “I guess you were preoccupied on the bed with Jen, so you maybe missed how your best friend tried to make a move on your girlfriend. Which is probably why she wasn’t your girlfriend the moment she left the room. Did I miss anything?” Mark folded his arms and stared Seb down.
Seb shook his head slightly, breathing hard.
“I apologize, Mrs. Richards, if this is too much for you to hear, but it is probably better that you’re hearing all of this now, right Seb?” Mark added quietly. The boy’s brown eyes went wet before he looked down at the tabletop. Mark glanced up at Paco who looked to Jeannie.
“So Seb, why don’t you take us through what you know and we can see how it lines up with what we know?” Jeannie offered quietly. “Let’s start with July 4th — tell us about the video with you, Dash, and Jen — were you aware that video was being filmed?”
“Video? Seb — there’s a video?” Julie asked, anger brewing on her face as she looked at her son. “What is this video?”
“I didn’t know about the video until I saw it on Pr3pSF with everyone else.” Seb spat out.
“So you admit that someone took a video of you committing a sex act with Jen Tyson and Dash Reilly without your consent?” Jeannie was stone-faced with the question.
Seb nodded slightly. “Yeah, I mean, I didn’t know about it, so I didn’t give any permission or anything.”
“But you were drunk, and you told us that Tripp had admitted to you that he’d also dosed you with GHB. Is that correct?” Jeannie challenged him.
“That’s correct.” The boy whispered.
“When, exactly did Tripp admit this to you?”
“On July 5th. I woke up with a massive headache in Tahoe. It was the worst hangover I’d ever had and when I said as much, Tripp laughed and told me he’d given me GHB. Then he started to tell me all the crazy shit we’d done that night…” Seb faded, rubbing his face with one hand and then stretching his eyes wide. “It took me a little while to put everything together.”
“What did you put together, Seb?” Mark asked.
“That my girlfriend had fled in the early morning, along with almost everyone else — everyone that wasn’t from Xavier, at least, and that she thought I was a manipulative jerk and hated me and my friends and wanted nothing more to do with me.”
“Who told you that?”
“Tripp did — he was…he was laughing.” Seb shook his head.
“Why did he find it so funny?” Seb’s eyebrows raised as he thought for a long moment.
“I — he, he didn’t like Alexa and he didn’t have any reason not to — he’d seen me with plenty of other girls before but for some reason he didn’t like her. Maybe because I was more serious about her? I don’t know.”
“Were you really serious about her, Seb? You were still seeing Jen the entire time you were with Alexa.” Jeannie tossed at him.
“I know.” His eyes went wet again. “I know, and I shouldn’t have done that. But it was just…habit? But Alexa was so different and so smart and fun…I was falling for her. Tripp and Dash kept complaining that I never stopped talking about her, and then somehow it came up that she was still a virgin and then Tripp started the betting pool about wether or not I’d be able to hook up with her — July 4th was the date he’d set. I didn’t know Dash was another betting pool —”
“Betting pool? Sebastian, she was your girlfriend.” Julie’s face was hardened as she glared at her son. Paco saw her cheeks going patchy with red flashes on the skin.
“Mom — I know. I know I was awful. It just…it just all happened. Tripp is like, he’s like the puppet master — he just pulls these strings and it all goes out of control. I don’t know what’s happening half the time.”
“Sebastian, you’re not stupid.” His mother growled at him, her ire coming to the surface.
“I know Mom — but it’s just, it’s like the worst peer pressure…and he’s just a jerk, and it’s like it’s easier to have him focus on someone else than have him focus on me, you know? I don’t want to be on his bad side.”
“What would happen if you were on his bad side?” Jeannie interrupted. Seb stared at her wide-eyed for a long moment. “Or has that already happened?”
This time the wetness in Seb’s eyes began to spill over as he tried to catch a shaking breath.
Paco watched the mother’s face shift from rage to concern to fear.
“Why don’t you tell us the first time that —” Jeannie paused, trying to be delicate, “the first time that you knew Tripp Hartman had feelings for you?”
The silence rang around the room. Seb gasp for a breath while his mother shook in her chair.
“Seventh grade.” Seb rasped out. “Tripp had a sleepover — it was me, Vin, Charlie, a few of the other guys. We played video games and ate pizza and told fart jokes — everything you do when you’re in 7th grade. We went to sleep— everyone in sleeping bags on the floor of the TV room, you know? We went to sleep and the next thing I know I wake up and Tripp’s hand was down my pajama pants. He was asleep next to me, but his hand was…” Seb faded.
“And since then?” Jeannie asked.
Seb shook his head.
“Do you think there could have been times when…when perhaps you didn’t know…?” She whispered. Seb swallowed hard.
“I — I think something happened at Tahoe — something more than just what happened with Dash and Jen.” A large tear went down Seb’s cheek as he swallowed again, gathering himself.
“Why do you say that, Seb?”
“My butt hurt the next day?” He looked up, pleadingly, shrugging his large shoulders. “I didn’t know why — it didn’t make sense.” His face crumbled into tears, which he tried to wipe with the cuffs of his hoodie.
Mark realized what that familiar glint was in Seb’s eyes: wounded pride.
“Seb — honey, what - what happened?” Julie whispered, leaning toward him.
“I don’t know!” The boy exploded. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to remember — when, when I saw the video on Pr3pSF it made me think other things…things that were kid of the same, but different, you know?” He looked at Mark and then Jeannie, who nodded at him. Paco sat very still, watching the boy next to him vibrate all over in frustration.
Mark leaned forward slowly. “Seb, you’re correct — something did happen on July 4th.” He began gently. Seb met his eye from under his floppy golden curls, his gaze wary and caged. “I’m sorry to tell you, Seb, but there was another video taken that night and it’s of you and Tripp Hartman. It’s the same room as the video that’s on Pr3pSF, but this time it’s just the two of you. Do you have any kind of memory of this?”
Seb’s face contorted in despair.
“No—no…” the boy whispered out between sobs. “No I don’t remember any of that.”
Mark nodded at him slowly, a pit of sickness sinking through his middle. He glanced at Jeannie.
“Seb.” Jeannie began, looking at the beautiful golden boy across from her whose soul had just been shattered in front of all of them. “Seb, if you don’t remember that encounter, and you didn’t give your consent, then it’s assault.” She paused. “Do you understand?”
The boy shook all over, crying and sniffling. His mother darted out of her chair to grab the box of tissues on the kitchen counter near the TV. She placed them in front of her son on the table, and then stood to wrap one arm around his shoulders, another arm cradling his head. She leaned into him and held tightly, kissing his hair.
“It’s okay sweetheart, it’s okay — “ she whispered to him. “It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong — nothing wrong...”
Jeannie felt like she shouldn’t be watching this intimate moment, none of them should. She suddenly felt fatigued, her uniform heavy and tight somehow. She looked up to meet Paco’s eyes and could tell his thoughts were the same.
Julie Richards grasped her son’s face, wiping his tears with her thumbs. She pushed a wodge of Kleenex into his hands and sat down again, holding his hand.
“Sebastian — I need you to understand the legal implications here.” Mark began. Seb took in a long, unsteady breath. “The video with you, Dash, and Jen is one thing. You didn’t create the video and you didn’t post it on the internet, but it’s out there. Until we can figure out who is running the Pr3pSF website and get it shut down, it’s going to be on there and people will see it. I’m sorry. That said, we do know that it was likely filmed by Tripp Hartman, and posted to the internet by him or at least one other person.”
“Tally.” Seb whispered.
“Why do you say that?” Jeannie asked carefully.
“Tripp and Tally are always scheming together. I don’t know why — she’d usually have some reason for doing something like that, but I don’t know what she has against me or Dash…or even Jen. She’s always making fun of Jen.”
“And you think Tripp would have shared the video with Tally?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.” Seb whispered. “They both love anything they can use against anyone else.”
“Well,” Mark began again, “the second video of you and Tripp was only found on Tripp’s laptop. He probably took it off of his phone a few weeks ago. We have a witness who saw it on his phone and —”
“—and told Alexa.” Seb looked at him blankly. “It was Ryan. Tripp went after Ryan over the summer and Ryan saw parts of the video, and then he told Alexa.” Seb licked his lips.
Mark was gobsmacked.
“How - how did you?”
“Alexa told me.” Seb tossed out, drawing a sharp breath. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve again. “When she got home at the end of summer I finally got to talk with her after her soccer practice one day — you know, her Dad told me not to come around. I waited at the field and she talked to me. I told her what Tripp had told me about the GHB on July 4th and I apologized for everything. She told me about her summer and about her friend Andrew…” Seb shook his head slightly. “She — she was totally over me, but she told me— she told me about the video, that Ryan had seen it.” Seb’s face contorted again. “She said that if we could get it from Tripp’s phone we’d have proof against him.”