And it does, for a while. But if the rate of followers slows down, even for a few minutes, it feels like rejection. I’m Vicky again, walking the halls alone. Huddling in the corner bathroom stall, eating my lunch on a toilet. Texting and texting and texting a friend who has better things to do, who thinks I’m pathetic, who can’t believe she wasted her life on me.
I scroll through the comments on my posts, looking for someone who understands. It’s not until I see a follower named Jenna that I realize I’m really looking for her. Hoping she’ll find me here and see me differently. But the Jenna I find isn’t my Jenna, whose Instagram was simply her name, jennaelizabethtanner. This Jenna is justjennafied. We start chatting back and forth on the picture I posted of the fuzzy sock cocoons.
justjennafied Why are you so #vicurious?
vicurious To get away.
justjennafied From what?
vicurious Myself.
justjennafied What’s wrong with you?
vicurious LOL. Everything.
justjennafied You’re so popular. And funny. Alive.
vicurious That’s not me.
justjennafied Who are you?
vicurious #nobody
justjennafied Not true. Who are you really?
vicurious #alone #lonely #sad #scared
justjennafied Me too.
I pause here, and wonder if she really feels this way, or if she’s just saying that to make me feel better. And then I start to see an echo of “me toos” pop up.
tanyazeebee Me too.
fauxfriendella Me too.
kookiestkimberly Me too.
ambivalentlessly Me too.
shriekingshackup Me too.
It goes on and on. So many, and yet we’ve found one another. I watch their names blip up with every new comment, their not-real names. Until I see one I recognize.
radhakrishnanraj Me too.
Selfie Raj? I click on his name to get to his page, and there he is. He follows me. Someone from my school has found me, and follows. I sit back in my chair, amazed.
I want to follow him back. Let him know he’s not #alone.
But I haven’t followed anyone yet, and for Raj to be my first? It could give me away. If someone connects me to Richardson High School, they might recognize me.
Has Raj recognized me?
My heart starts thumping. I search my posts to see if he’s left any other comments, any sign that he knows who I am. But all I find is that single, lonely “me too.”
It hits me harder than all the rest, somehow. Raj is real. I know my other followers are, too. But they are anonymous names and hidden faces. I see Raj every day. He walks the same halls, breathes the same air. I could touch him, if I wanted. Talk to him.
Except I can’t. I’m starting to sweat just thinking about it. But knowing someone as lonely as I am is right there, so close, makes me feel a little bit less alone.
16
MAKING IT THROUGH SCHOOL THE next day is like swimming upstream in a river of mud. Jenna’s texts are weighing me down, and every time I see Raj in the hall I stop breathing for a few seconds, worried he’ll recognize me. But he keeps moving along in his rhythmic, steady way, oblivious to the “me too” I am sending him telepathically. The fact that I can’t work up the nerve to speak to him only makes it worse. It takes all my energy to press forward, unable to focus on more than what’s directly in front of me. I keep stopping to duck into doorways and bathrooms and stairwells to catch my breath and steel myself for the next stretch of hallway.
I almost make it to world history but have to kneel down in an alcove and pretend to tie my shoe. That’s when I hear them. Lipton and Adam. They’ve stopped at Adam’s locker, which is just around the corner from where I’m crouched.
“. . . so I asked her if she wanted to come in and play Minecraft,” says Lipton.
“Dude,” says Adam. “You didn’t.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s so . . . Are you, like, twelve?”
“You play Minecraft. You’re not twelve.”
“Yeah, but I would never ask a girl to come over and play. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking she might like Minecraft!”
“Yeah, well. Maybe wait until you know for sure.”
“So, what should I ask her?”
Adam snorts and pushes his locker closed. “I don’t know. But not that. Something you’re sure she’s interested in.”
“I think maybe she likes my socks? She’s always looking at my ankles.”
“Oh, God. No.”
“I was joking,” says Lipton. Unconvincingly.
“Just try not to say anything stupid, okay?”
“I’ll try,” Lipton mumbles. “No Minecraft, no socks . . .”
They walk off toward class, and I am now paralyzed by the realization that Lipton maybe . . . likes me? Unless he asked more than one girl to play Minecraft this weekend. What are the chances of that?
I force myself to continue my swim upstream to Mr. Braxley’s classroom before the bell rings. Against all better judgment, I glance at Lipton as I sit down. He disarms me with his smile. I mean, literally. My arms stop working and I drop all my books. He leans over to help me. The perspiration is flowing down my sides like waterfalls.
“Hey.” He hands me the book that fell near his feet.
Speak to him speak to him speak to him speak to him. “Thanks!” I blurt, taking the book. “Thank you,” I say again, because once is apparently not enough. “Thank you very much.” Okay, stop.
“You’re welcome,” says Lipton. “You’re welcome. You’re welcome very much.”
My eyes widen at his reply.
He laughs.
I swallow. Gulp, really.
He smiles. Pushes the hair off his forehead. It flops back down.
Smile, Vicky. Smile. I pull my lips into a shape that reveals my teeth, but isn’t exactly a smile. It likely resembles the face I make in the dentist’s chair when the hygienist is taking X-rays. My eyes are watering, too. Because I keep forgetting to blink.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Lipton clears his throat, then leans toward my desk. “So, I was wondering if you’d like to come over to my house after school,” he says. “To, uh, pet my cat?”
On the other side of Lipton, Adam tips slowly forward, his head landing square on his desk with a loud thunk. He groans.
“I mean, we could do other things, too, of course,” Lipton stammers. “Whatever interests you.”
Say yes say yes say yes say yes. My brain is blaring the correct answer in my head! But do I listen?
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I’m, um, busy.”
Adam groans some more.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight.” Lipton shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “It could be, you know . . . whenever.”
My heart is pounding so hard now, and the roar in my ears is so loud, I’m not even sure what he just said or if I heard him right. I start flipping the words around in my head to make sense of them, until I’m fairly certain they went something like, “It’s tonight or never.” Which can’t be right.
He’s staring at me, waiting for my answer. His cheeks are getting blotchy. Oh, no. I’m embarrassing him. He’s starting to look like he might throw up. That’s not what I want.
“That’s not what I want at all.” It comes out almost a hiss. I smack my hand to my mouth.
“Oh.” Lipton looks like I just slapped him across the face. “Never mind.”
“Okay, class.” Mr. Braxley starts teaching. I would sincerely like to concentrate on what he’s saying, but I’m too busy trying to calm my heart rate and figure out what just happened.
Lipton asked me out.
Breathe.
He asked me to come to his house.
Breathe.
To pet his cat.