It buzzed relentlessly in my hand, notifications filling the screen.
Voicemails and missed calls from Megan, Caryn, Amy, Sharon, Megan again, Becca, Megan again, Jake, Sharon again, Becca again, my mother, a cousin I hadn’t talked to in ages, and a couple of numbers I didn’t recognize.
The emails were still loading: 250, no, 300, no, 487, no, 726 new emails.
What on earth? I looked at the calendar icon. It wasn’t Sunday. I had slept for close to thirty-two hours. Which thankfully didn’t matter because of the holiday. But still. What was going on?
The text messages came clanging in as well.
I clicked Megan’s thread first.
Are you kidding me?
Jesus Lily
You started a fucking blog?
What were you thinking?
I don’t even know what to say to you right now
Are you really not even going to answer me?
The blog. Oh God. The blog.
I dashed across the room to my laptop and flipped it open, my heart racing. My name wasn’t anywhere on it, so Megan must have stumbled on it randomly and figured out it was me. Of course she would be able to tell that I wrote it; she knew me so well.
I refreshed my blog dashboard page. When I saw the number of hits, I closed my eyes, assuming I would see the real number when I opened them. In the thirty-two hours since I had hit “Publish,” the blog had amassed over a million new views.
“What the hell?” I exhaled.
“Lily?” Becca called, the door opening. I didn’t move from my computer screen.
She came to my doorway. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”
I looked up at her, my eyes wide. “I—turned off my phone. After the party.”
“Jesus,” she said, sinking down onto my bed. “When did you get back online?”
“Just—now.”
“So you don’t know?”
“What happened?”
Becca typed something on her phone and handed it to me. “Buzzfeed,” she said. “You went viral.”
“I—what?” I took the phone from her. A Buzzfeed headline read, World’s Worst Bridesmaid Hilariously Blogs about Her Five Bridezillas. It was typical Buzzfeed-style writing, an author detailing her favorite parts of my snarkiness with screenshots highlighting specific passages.
I skimmed through it. The last paragraph had what I needed to know.
And while I can’t one hundred percent confirm who the bridesmaid from hell is, a recurring IP address where posts and comments from the blog’s owner originated is registered to the Foundation for Scientific Technology. I did a little social media sleuth work (or stalking, call it what you will—it wasn’t hard; there are only three women under fifty who work there) and it looks like FST’s Public Relations Director, Lily Weiss, is, in fact, listed on five different wedding websites as a bridesmaid, including her brother’s, her sister’s, and three friends, one of whom is a coworker. If that’s not a smoking gun, I don’t know what is.
*Note: Messages to Ms. Weiss have gone unanswered so far. We’ll update this post when we hear back from her.
Fuck.
I looked up at Becca. “Is it too late to deny it?”
She grimaced. “If you’d seen it early enough, maybe you could have. But I think everyone and their mother has seen this post by now. It’s all over my Facebook and Twitter timelines.”
The room started spinning and I thought I might throw up, but I closed my eyes and waited for the spell to pass.
“I don’t think I’m in any weddings anymore, am I?”
“I don’t know.”
I put my head in my hands. “I don’t even know where to start dealing with this. Should I take the blog down?”
“Honestly? I don’t think that would do much. It’s already been screenshotted everywhere.” She paused. “I got worried when you weren’t answering your phone. I thought—I don’t know.”
I reassured her that I wasn’t about to do anything stupid and thanked her for being probably the only friend I had left.
“It’s not—I mean, it’s not that bad.”
“Thanks, Bec.”
“No, I mean, you didn’t actually say anything that bad about Megan. Or Madison. Or Sharon—well, I mean, you did about her mom, but not about her. And Caryn’s were mostly fine until the last few; it was more about her friends and they already hated you.”
I thought about what I had said about Caryn after the hair and eyelashes debacle. And about Sharon’s mother. And Amy. Oh God. I hadn’t held back about Amy. Did I say she had been flirting with someone else at her bachelorette party? I couldn’t remember now.
I took a deep breath and exhaled through my mouth, trying to fight off the impending panic attack.
Becca excused herself when I said I needed to go through my voicemails, and I climbed back into bed to listen.
The first one was from Megan. “I don’t even know what to say right now. You just—you put my business out there in a blog? What were you thinking? Don’t call me back yet, I don’t think I’m ready to talk to you.”
Could have been worse, all things considered.
Caryn’s was next and her voice quivered with anger. “How could you do this to me the week before my wedding? Everyone is mad at me because you published what I said about them! What kind of person does that?”
Amy didn’t leave a message. She clearly listened to my outgoing greeting and then hung up instead of saying anything.
Sharon’s message was hard to hear through her tears, but what I could make out was: “Tell me that wasn’t you. My mom is mortified. I’m mortified. I told her it couldn’t actually be you and that you’re going to sue Buzzfeed. Just—tell me you didn’t do that. You didn’t say that.”
Megan’s second message began slightly more measuredly. “I appreciate that you didn’t sleep with Alex,” she began. “But is that really what you think of me? I come across like such a raging bitch and you don’t even begin to address that you might have done anything wrong in this situation? You aren’t exactly a saint here. Plus Tim’s sister says she’s not going to be in the wedding anymore if you are, which maybe I should thank you for, but it’s still a mess I have to clean up. And seriously? Why haven’t you called me back?”
I took the phone away from my ear and switched to the text messages.
Becca had texted asking where I was, but I skipped over that thread. There was one message from Alex. My heart in my throat, I clicked it.
After all of this, you slept with Justin? You got a couple things wrong though: I’m not perfect, and I definitely don’t know who you are.
A sob rose up in my throat. I deserved everything I got from my friends and then some, but this? Alex was the last person I wanted to hurt and now—well, now he was gone.
But oh God, he wasn’t. I still had to see all of these people again. Assuming any of them still wanted me at their weddings, let alone in them.
I went back to my computer. There had to be an option to delete the blog. There it was, under settings. I clicked “Delete Blog” and got a prompt asking me to type in my password to confirm the deletion. I hesitated a moment—the text in the box said this was permanent and the material could not be recovered if I deleted it.
I had enjoyed the blog more than any other hobby I had ever picked up. True, I was the worst version of myself on there, but I was also writing. Really writing. For the first time since college. And it had felt like—like I had found myself for the first time. Even if I was being horrible, just the act of putting those words into the world had been a rebirth of sorts. Could I really just throw that all away?