“Anyway, the hows and the whys are sort of beside the point,” I say. “I’m just feeling kind of exhausted by it all. School. Danny. And . . . some other stuff.” I trail off vaguely.
I’m not sure why I don’t want to tell Betty about the website, or the nudes. Mainly I don’t want to worry her, especially when she’s so damn exhausted herself. In fact, I feel kind of guilty about complaining, given all the sacrifices she makes to her health just to keep me alive and in full-time education.
But it seems like she’s not really listening. She traces a wrinkly thumb around the rim of the teacup, staring intently at the steam. It looks like she wants to say something heartfelt, but she often needs to give herself a pep talk before spouting a sentence containing actual emotion, so I give her the space she needs to build up to it.
“Listen, kiddo,” she starts, throat hoarse like it so often is at the end of a long shift. “I wish your mom was here to see you now.” Her voice catches. “You know your own mind, and you’re not afraid to speak it, you know?”
Tears press heavily against my eyes.
No, I’m not, I want to scream. ?If my parents were here, they’d see nude pictures of me all over the internet!
I can’t talk about this. I can’t. And from the tension on Betty’s face, she’s too exhausted to see the conversation through to the end. So I shut it down.
“Anyway,” I say, swallowing my comparatively meager pain, “how was your day?”
10.01 p.m.
Once I’m alone, I take a deep breath and open the World Class Whore blog. Not in a self-flagellatory way; I just want to wrap my head around what’s happening, and the way it went down with Vaughan in the woods made it hard to do that. As much as I’m an insane extrovert and love being around people, when something major goes down I need time to process it alone.
I wash my face and brush my teeth, change into prehistoric PJs, switch the lights off in my room and climb into bed. I then proceed to create a cocoon-type setup with the duvet and some pillows, pulling the covers all the way over my head and curling up into the fetal position. I’m not sure what it is about this maneuver that feels so comforting. If I was in any way academic, I’d probably posit that it’s something to do with recreating the atmosphere of the womb. But alas, I am not in any way academic. Remind me to ask Ajita.
The website takes a few seconds to load on my phone screen, but it’s still not long enough. Even though I know exactly what I’m about to see, it’s still like a punch to the gut when the screenshot flashes up.
My boobs and my va-jay-jay, on show to the world. Just under the pic of Vaughan’s above-average length, below-average girth, bending slightly to the left penis. For which I’m 104 percent sure he will not receive anywhere near as much criticism as me.
I stare and stare and stare at the photo of me, gut churning uncomfortably. It’s not that I’m body conscious or anything. I’m not. But I am old-fashioned in the sense that I like to give people individual permission to view my boobs and other bits, rather than allowing blanket access to seven billion internet users. That may seem unreasonable to you, but it’s true.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God. This feeling of violation is skin-crawlingly terrible. It feels like being on the criminal side of a police mirror, where everyone can see you, but you can’t see them. I am an exhibit, laid bare before every single kid in my school – hell, probably my town. And I feel so exposed.
Again, I’m not body conscious. But your private parts are just so . . . intimate. I have a hard enough time showing them to my family physician. A couple of years ago I had a weird lump on one boob, and even though it turned out to be nothing, I still think about the embarrassment of being fondled by a middle-aged male doctor with stale coffee breath, while I tried and failed to make conversation about the strength of the dollar.
Now that mortification is multiplied a thousandfold. And I still don’t know anything about currency depreciation.
1.14 a.m.
Fuck. What am I going to do?
Wednesday 28 September
8.05 a.m.
Feel beyond anxious at the thought of going to school today. I woke up stupidly early again this morning, so decided to write a sketch about a senator and his son who get stuck in a waste incinerator like that hugely traumatic scene in Toy Story 3. Not that I am harboring any violent feelings toward the Vaughan family or anything.
At least there is slight progress on the eyebrow front. Ajita lent me her pencil, which is a good five shades too dark for me, and I attempted to fill in the little gap. Because of the mismatched hue, I then had to even up the same spot on other side. So I have a very attractive ombré-caterpillar-type situation on my forehead, a look which I am sure we can all agree will hit beauty vloggers’ screens anytime now.
I’m too scared to look at the online reaction to the nudes. The mid-sex garden bench pic was one thing, but this is so . . . explicit. Every time I remember they’re out there, which is roughly every 2.3 milliseconds, I get a horrible sinking sensation in my belly, like when you go over a speed bump too fast. I obsess over who might be looking at these pictures of me – bare, exposed, eighteen – and judging me for them. Judging my body; my choices; my life.
I know this will blow over eventually. But until then, it’s going to be hell.
9.01 a.m.
Ajita, Danny and I arrive at the school gates to find a cluster of freshmen armed with smartphone cameras pointed straight at me. As soon I get within twenty feet of them, they start to snap pics and hit record, and I hear a couple of them narrating my humiliating entrance to their bazillion followers live on social media. Danny wraps an arm protectively around my shoulders, and I don’t really know how to take it in the context of everything else that’s happened between us, but in the moment I’m just grateful for the support, both emotional and physical. It steadies me.
Then someone shouts, “Jeez, O’Neill, have you banged Wells too?”
It is at this point that Ajita delves into her backpack, pulls out some overripe kiwi fruits and hurls them straight at the freshmen scum. Green pulp explodes everywhere. It’s fantastic to behold. Then she yanks my arm and hauls me and Danny past them without looking back.
When I look at the kiwi juice all over her hands quizzically, she simply says, “We were out of eggs.”
9.14 a.m.
In the last thirteen minutes, I have been sarcastically told “nice tits” in excess of 587 times.
9.37 a.m.
Oh shit and merde and schei? and every other linguistic variable on the word. Just when he was beginning to swallow his confusing feelings and support me through this ordeal, Danny found the mashed-up tulips in the woods. Of course he did! Why would anything run smoothly! I’m a writer. I should’ve known the tulips were some sort of Chekhov’s gun and were doomed to go off in the third act. [I know this is still only the second act, but who are you, the story-structure police?]
He found them all muddy and smooshed before first period. He just went out to get some fresh air [I have tried to explain to him why this is so overrated but he won’t listen. In conclusion, if people just listened to me a bit more we’d find ourselves in far fewer upsetting situations]. To clear his head. And boom, he walks straight into the mangled flower carcasses.
Because he is a highly dramatic individual, instead of just leaving the flowers there and letting me off the hook, he gathers them up in a paper bag, brings them back into school and dumps them on my desk just before chemistry is about to start.
“You left these behind last night.”
It’s such a petty move, but I’m struggling to be mad due to lack of energy and enthusiasm, and the fact that the only thing I’m capable of thinking about right now is the nude photograph of me on the internet.
“It wasn’t me,” I explain feebly.