“They’re gone,” Cate says, and I give in to a rush of relief that Joe and Sasha are no longer right behind me, living out some deep and tragic love story. My whole body relaxes.
“Oh, no, I mean, I don’t care about—” I try. It’s awkward. Cate’s face is stuck in that gentle-pity mode.
“Jemma and Alison should really stop coming here,” she continues. “Paul said it the other day and I thought he was just being . . . Paul. But he’s right. It’s not fair to you. It’s mean.” I stare at her blankly for a moment before realizing she actually isn’t psychic after all. I hadn’t even known Jemma had come back today. But Cate’s looking at me all proud and expectant, like she is Mother of the Year for figuring out what’s gotten me all worked up.
I give a smile that takes approximately as much energy to muster as running a marathon would. Give a quick glance to see that Joe and Sasha are still here, of course.
“You gotta get over those bitches,” Cate says. I love her for it. For the words she chooses and the secret way she whispers them into my ear. But she’s looking at me like she gets me, and there’s nothing lonelier than the fact that she doesn’t.
“Thanks,” I say, and Cate closes my computer screen for me and heads back to the counter and I’m alone.
I reach into my bag and make sure The Secret Garden is still in there. That there is actual evidence of someone in the world totally getting me.
“I love you,” I hear Joe say behind me. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend he was saying it to me. But then there’s Sasha’s ridiculous giggle, and the whole fantasy vanishes so fast, I lose my breath.
That night I hole up in Cate’s office as usual.
Elise and I chat about the meeting she had Friday with our impressively ignorant school counselor, Mrs. Drake, who passive-aggressively asked her about her dating life before launching into a speech about Elise’s chances of getting into an Ivy League school.
I ask Elise if she’d stand up to Mrs. Drake if she had a whole group behind her. If she thinks maybe people can do more if they act together.
There’s a long pause, a smiley face emoticon, and a vague uh sure? But I was hoping for more.
Elise logs off, and I stare at the screen waiting for Joe for another few, full, heavy minutes. He’s never missed this much time, and I feel an inside itch at the thought of him not coming on at all.
I know what to do. I know because I want Elise to approve of me, and I want Cate and Paul to be right about their idea that I am special and good. I know what to do mostly because it hurts too much to sit here waiting for Joe.
I write him an email.
Hey. This is wrong. So we can’t. It’s not who I am.
It feels good, writing it out. It’s the Right Thing to Do. I’m relieved, thinking I can sit back and cry in the bathroom every time Joe and Sasha kiss or make googly eyes at each other in Tea Cozy. I can be sad and lonely and not have to worry about anyone being angry at me.
I won’t be a bad girl anymore. I won’t be a cheating immoral person. I’ll be regular, comfortable Tabby. The one Jemma and Alison and everyone else want me to be.
The inside itch doesn’t go away after I send the email, though. I’m relieved that I have stopped something terrible and amazing from slowly destroying me, but now the mountains seem even larger, Cate’s office is even smaller, and I am even further away from liking my life.
It’s that itch that makes me type in the website from the book again. The site comes to life in blue and gold and silver. The freckled knees and Dorothy shoes make me smile even harder than they did the first time.
This is the first time I’ve seen the site on my computer and have had a moment to really look at it. I click on the “Members” link and hold my breath. There’s a list of nicknames, and a picture of each one from the knees down. About a dozen members, apparently.
The spiral logo twists and turns, animated, and the whole site is practically breathing.
I make a profile. Call myself by the nickname my parents have been using since I was small: Bitty. Take a picture of myself from the knees down: worn jeans and gold ballet flats. No names, it says. No locations. We are from everywhere. We are everyone.
I vaguely remember a Morning Assembly we had about how Google can track all our searches and privacy doesn’t really exist online. But with a fake name and only, like, a dozen people belonging to the site, it doesn’t fit any of the “red flags” that lecturer talked about (credit cards, identifying pictures, meeting up with people you’ve never met in real life, webcams).
And then it tells me I have to share a secret. One secret, big or small, to join the group.
Secret:
I kissed someone else’s boyfriend.
—Bitty
Seven.
It’s past midnight. Joe hasn’t logged on all night, and Sasha’s poem is still streaming on an endless loop in my mind. But I’m blocking it out by sifting through random secrets posted on the site, while reading and rereading the list of rules that are firmly stated on every page.