The video resumes, and Lipton’s deep narrator voice says, “The Greeks fought valiantly, holding off the much larger Persian army for two days, until . . .”
I do my best to ignore the fact that everyone is squirming visibly, trying to keep from laughing. The video is actually really impressive once you get past the funny sounds of the swords clashing and the chunks of body parts flying around. It must’ve taken hours to create a geographically accurate landscape around Thermopylae, and generate all those little soldiers and swords and arrows.
The whole thing comes to a dramatic conclusion when a traitor to the Greeks reveals a secret passage, allowing the Persians to enter the city. Lipton’s voice gets more and more animated. Our classmates wrap arms and hands around their mouths to keep from laughing as Leonidas and the last few Spartans are slaughtered by tiny arrows that hail down on them from the cliffs above.
The video ends. The bell rings. The class rushes out so they can release the laughter they’ve been holding in. I remain at my desk, Lipton somewhere behind me. Silent. Adam lifts his head from the podium.
“Told you,” he says.
Lipton doesn’t try to catch my eye as he packs up his computer. I shuffle out. That’s what I would want, if it were me. To be left alone. To not have to speak of it, or have it spoken of, or even share facial expressions that acknowledge its existence at all.
Kids are still making fun of the presentation in the hall, and I’m almost overtaken by an urge to run at them, bring my arms down on theirs and make them stop. It’s a new feeling, wanting to confront the humiliation. To stop it. When it happens to me, I only want to hide.
I make it through my next two classes, then slip into the girls’ bathroom at the beginning of lunch period instead of heading directly to yearbook. My usual stall in the corner is empty, so I lock myself in and pull out my phone. Even before opening the screen, I can see Vicurious has been busy today. I navigate to my notifications and scroll through them.
Half are people named Jen or Jenna thanking me for following them. The other half are people not named Jen or Jenna, begging me to follow them.
And there’s one from justjennafied, a comment on the image of Kat in the Vicurious wig, which says, simply:
Nice cat.
It makes me catch my breath, because that’s what Jenna—my Jenna—always used to say whenever Kat would hiss at her or refuse to be petted by anyone but me. I click over to justjennafied’s page to see if there’s any sign she’s my former best friend. But she’s only been there for a couple of weeks, and hasn’t posted much. No selfies. There’s a view out a dirty bus window, the scenery blurred. A photo looking straight up at the sky through a canopy of trees. Another pointing down at a leaf-clogged gutter. She puts a single tag on her photos: #lost or #sad or #dirty.
It can’t be her.
Just in case, though, I comment to justjennafied the way I always used to reply to Jenna.
She knows who feeds her.
I tag justjennafied to make sure she sees it among the hundreds of comments on that post, and am about to leave my bathroom stall when two girls walk in. I hug my backpack to my chest and lean against the wall to wait them out.
It’s excruciating. They’re talking about what they’re going to wear to a friend’s party on Saturday. It’s a strange dance in which one girl’s wardrobe must not outshine the other’s. They must complement each other, but without being matchy-matchy. In the end, they pick essentially the same outfit in slightly different colors.
I hope they’re done because I really have to leave for class, and I’ve been quiet way too long to all of a sudden walk out of the stall.
“Let me just check my Instagram,” one says.
I suppress a groan.
“How many followers are you up to?” the other asks.
“Two hundred fifteen.”
“Following?”
“Three twenty-eight.”
“I’m two thirty-seven, and four eighty-five. I need to stop following people who don’t follow me back.”
“Like Vicurious?”
I suck in my breath, but the sound is covered by the other girl’s laughter. “Yeah,” she says. “Or change my name to Jen.”
“Maybe call yourself JenJennaJennyJenniferJenniest.”
“It wouldn’t work. She hasn’t followed anyone new since the weekend. Not even the ones who changed their names.”
“Whatever. I still love her.”
“Me too.”
“Me too. Me too. Me too!”
My eyes widen at their repetition of “me too.” Like it’s a thing.
I am so focused on their conversation that I forget I’m holding my backpack, and it slips. It doesn’t hit the floor, but the sound of me struggling with it is enough to stop the girls from talking.
“I didn’t know anyone was in there,” one says quietly.
“Me either.”
“Who’s in there?”
I want so badly to say, “It’s me, Vicurious!” But I gather my things and unlock the stall instead. I shuffle out to a sink.
“Eavesdrop much?” It’s Mallory, from biology. The one who thinks Hallie Bryce isn’t human.
I close my eyes. Pretend I’m three years old again and if I can’t see them, they can’t see me.
The other girl says, “It doesn’t matter. She’s . . .”
I can’t hear what she says I am, or if she says anything. But it’s easy enough to fill in the blank. Maybe she made the international crazy gesture, twirling her finger at the side of her head. Or mouthed something, like “nobody.”
They leave, and I stare at myself in the mirror.
How can they love Vicurious and be so dismissive of me? Of anyone? They’re just like the kids in class who took Lipton down without a thought as to how that made him feel. Knowing I have followers like that makes me want to hurl. Or shout “YOU SUCK!” really loud.
Instead, I swallow it down, like I always do. Take a deep breath. And stomp (as quietly as possible) to class.
21
ON THE BUS, I CHECK Jenna’s Instagram. My Jenna, jennaelizabethtanner. She hasn’t posted anything in more than two weeks. Nothing since that last photo of her with Tristan. I switch to justjennafied’s page. Her first post was a little over two weeks ago. I toggle between them. Jennaelizabethtanner stopped posting about the same day that justjennafied started.
The annoying little voice in my head says Why do you even care what Jenna does after the way she treated you? And I don’t have an answer, except that I’ve tried to stop caring about Jenna and obviously, I can’t. It’s not a switch that turns off that easily. She was my best friend for twelve years.
Mom is waiting with a smoothie when I get home. “Apple, strawberry, mango, and a little spinach,” she says.
I sit. Stare at it. The spinach and strawberry combo does not make for a particularly pleasing color.
“You’re not hungry?” my mother asks when I don’t pop the straw in my mouth immediately.
The thing is, I’m never hungry when I get home. My stomach is still unclenching from the day. But Mom always insists I eat something, and I do it so she won’t think something’s wrong.
But not today. I’m smoothied out.
“Actually, I hate smoothies,” I say.