“How was the concert?”
“Great.” This is not a lie, because it was by all reports a great concert. I don’t know why I’m keeping the bowling secret, except that it feels like a special thing between Lipton and me, and sharing it might ruin that.
“Did you see anyone else you know?”
“Raj Radhakrishnan,” I say. If she goes searching for him, she’ll likely find photographic evidence that I was there.
I manage to extricate myself after just three questions by claiming exhaustion, though I’ve never been more exhilarated in my life. Mom hugs me and Dad says, “Night, sweetie,” and I can’t wait to get to my room and lie on my bed. Not to rest, but to feel:
One hand warmer than the other.
Lips tingling.
Skin like memory foam, imprinted with his touch.
Heart buoyant, not thudding in my chest but bouncing there.
Breath light and fast in my throat until I slowly force it to go calm and deep.
The only thing missing is that I can’t tell my best friend about my first date or my first kiss or even my first time bowling. It makes me wonder if Jenna is having firsts of her own without me, and if she has anyone to tell.
It’s four o’clock in the morning when I wake up in my clothes. I change into pajamas and try to go back to sleep, but can’t. I would lie in bed with my phone if it wasn’t still hidden away in my mother’s room, battery most certainly dead. I toss, try to recover the feeling I had when I got home from my date, but a stronger one is nudging me. Not curiosity, exactly. It’s more a sensation of missing something. Or missing out. People are talking, things are happening, without me.
Vicurious is calling, and I can’t resist.
I climb out of bed and sit at my desk, stare into the computer’s dark screen before touching the keyboard to bring it to life. I wonder if they will someday discover that an addictive substance was somehow engineered into the internet, just like with cigarettes. How else does it keep drawing us in the way it does? It can’t only be the worry of being left out. Can it?
Because the lure has become a physical one. A fidgety restlessness. I need to know.
I click open Instagram and type in my password. The post about Adrian’s gig fills the screen. I scroll through hundreds of new comments, which fall into two categories: complaints from those who couldn’t get in and celebration from those who did.
Some thank me for letting them know about the concert; others blame me for telling too many people about the concert. They clearly don’t need me to continue their conversation. Their comments are still coming in, and have been for hours now without a word from Vicurious. They could just as easily gather on East 48’s page, or the Foo Fighters’, or Neil deGrasse Tyson’s, or whoever else strikes their fandom.
Again, I am tempted to delete the whole account and commit to living my own, real life. Not a vicarious one. I may never surf a mosh pit, or walk the red carpet, or explore the cosmos again. But I will hold hands with Lipton Gregory. I will be kissed in bowling alleys. And I will feel alive.
I will live.
I slide the cursor to “edit profile” and click on the “temporarily disable” link. But Instagram does not want me to make any rash decisions. I may regret seizing this rare moment of bravery. Everything will be hidden, they tell me, but I can bring it all back to life simply by logging in. Better yet, I could set my posts to private, or block people.
Instagram does not understand that I am the one who needs blocking.
I click through the reasons I must choose from to explain why I wish to disable my account:
Just need a break
Trouble getting started
Created a second account
Privacy concerns
Want to remove something
Too busy/too distracting
Can’t find people to follow
Too many ads
But my reasons aren’t there. There’s no “Need to get a real life” or “Can’t hide here forever” or “An actual smile is way better than a picture of one” or even “I’ve been keeping this thing a secret for way too long and really need to get rid of it before anyone finds out.”
There’s that final, catch-all “Something else” choice so I click on that and I plug in my password. The arrow is hovering over the “submit” button when I think of why I started Vicurious in the first place. To be seen . . . by Jenna. What if she does see me? What if she tries to send me a message? What if I miss it? What if I already have?
I decide to look for her just one more time before I shut Vicurious down, in the last place justjennafied made contact. It was the photo of Kat. I go there and scan the comments that followed, but don’t find her. The only other place I think to check is the fuzzy sock cocoon, where justjennafied left a “me too.” I click to the photo and start scrolling. Interspersed between oohs and ahhs of fuzzy-sock-loving fans are the tiny voices of those who kept me from deleting my account the last time. I didn’t see them in the comments of the East 48 post, but they’re still here, hurting and alone:
exitstagebeth Nobody cares about me.
ihateme2ew I don’t know why I’m even here.
problxems My teacher told me I’m a waste of space.
sadlyghostly All I want to do is sleep.
There’s more. One girl writes a long paragraph in the comments, about a group of boys at her school who rate girls on a hotness scale of one to ten. She doesn’t care if they give her a ten or a two, either way it makes her feel worthless.
Another writes that she’s been eating pears lately. That she can’t stop. It seems a harmless addiction until she adds, “I’m allergic to pears.” And a few more lines down she elaborates, “Like, rush-to-the-hospital, EpiPen allergic.”
I sit back, staring at the screen. I was ready to let Vicurious go. Really, I was. But my followers are not. They need me. No, they need her. So I start replying. I offer the hand they are reaching out for, the shoulder they need to cry on.
I tell the girl who is being rated on her looks to ignore them. Her body is not for boys to judge and their ratings do not decide her worth. I make the pear-eating girl promise she’ll never do that again. I try to respond to everyone who believes they are unloved or unwanted or uncared for.
I care, @exitstagebeth
@ihateme2ew You’re here to find your people. We are your people! And we care.
Hey, @problxems—your teacher is a jerk. Don’t listen!
@sadlyghostly I feel the same way sometimes.
I’m not sure what advice to give to someone who sounds depressed, like sadlyghostly. I don’t want to say something totally useless like “cheer up!” because I know it’s not that easy. I search online for a hotline or something, but there are so many, and I have no idea where she lives.