Blind Speed Dating #25 (YA)

Title: UNSEND

Genre: Contemporary YA

Word Count: 64,000

Query:

Coming into her senior year after a jilted suitor posted private sexting messages onto her school's Facebook page, Mila Cavanaugh is struggling with her new notoriety.  When she meets Rup, an unnervingly hot and domineering college student, she learns any problem can be solved by a master manipulator for the right price. 

Each time Mila stumbles Rup is there to help her back up, but each new favor requires Mila to fall deeper into Rup’s sphere of influence.  As his recompense goes from inconvenient to criminal, Mila finds herself moving away from Rup and toward her best friend’s brother Blake who asks for nothing in return for his support.  

Just as Mila’s life starts to resemble normal again, a grainy video taken after a long night of partying surfaces, one that could ruin more than just her reputation.  In trying to contain the video, Mila learns that Rup has been behind every problem he’s ever solved for her.  Now he’s offering to make the video go away forever, but his price is a night alone with him.  Giving herself over to Rup could bury her worst mistake under the weight of an even greater one, costing her something she can only give away once.  If she can learn Rup’s true identity, Mila may be able to finally get the upper hand in a game she didn’t even know she was playing.

First 250:

Sitting on a toilet is the perfect vantage point from which to re-examine your life.  I mean, where are you going to go?  Shorts around your ankles and nothing but graffiti to read, it’s kind of the ideal spot for self-reflection.  Egos don’t follow you into a bathroom stall.  Pretentiousness has no useful application whilst perched on a porcelain throne.  It’s too bad you spend a relatively brief amount of time on the commode in the grand scheme of things.  Sometimes a little pause is all you need to avoid making a major mistake in your life.     

With my head cradled in my hands and my elbows on my knees, I hear the outer door swing open then slam against its jamb, rattling the metal grey walls around me.  A small herd approaches the wall of sinks, unzipping purses and clicking compacts. 

“Did you ever get to read the whole thing?” I don’t recognize the girl’s voice, but her tone is rushed and guilty.      

“I did,” someone else says.  “My mom walked into the room just as I was shutting it down.  Can you imagine if she’d seen me reading it?  I would have died.”

Oh yeah, I know where this is going.

“I read it at a friend’s house,” a third says.  “I got to see it just before they figured out how to take it down.  I heard whoever posted it messed with the school’s security access to the Facebook site.