I click open the Photo Booth on my computer and position myself in front of it just as Jenna is positioned in the bus selfie. Then I smile like I’m having the time of my life and snap the photo. It takes a few tries to get it right—looking straight into the lens, smiling but not too much, and with my blank wall in the background instead of my cluttered bookshelves.
Then I carefully drop my own image on top of Jenna’s so she disappears and I take her place. I use the brush tool to blend it in. And it looks . . . like an obvious fake. Too flat. The lighting’s all wrong. In the original photo there’s sunshine from the bus window hitting the side of Jenna’s face. She’s squinting a little bit, and there are shadows.
I try again. I open my curtains and position objects from my room so they cast dark shapes across my chest and shoulders just like in the photo. Kat keeps trying to crawl on my lap. I throw her on the bed a few times and she finally gets the hint and massages my pillow to death before lying down to sleep.
By dinnertime, I’ve got a photo of myself with Jenna’s new friends that—if viewed on my small phone screen—should fool my mother. If she doesn’t look too close. Or zoom in too much.
“Here,” I say, placing the phone on the kitchen counter as I start setting the table.
She lifts it to her face, and her eyes widen. “Who’s this?”
“Some new kids on my bus,” I say, taking my phone back before she can inspect it further.
Mom tries to get another look. I flash it at her again.
“Was that today?” She glances down at my sweatshirt. Same as in the photo.
“Yeah. One of them just emailed it to me.”
“Well,” she says. “They look very nice.”
My dad walks in from work then, and asks who looks very nice.
“Nobody,” I say.
He doesn’t press me for answers like my mother usually does, just shrugs and smiles. We sit down to eat, and it’s the best time I’ve had all day. Mom doesn’t think I’m a complete loser for once, and Dad’s just happy that Mom’s happy.
Even though I know the picture’s a fake, seeing myself surrounded by new friends like that? It feels good.
3
THE ALARM ON MY PHONE buzzes and I grope around on my nightstand to swipe it off. I check Instagram when I wake up, even before I turn on my light, to see what manner of selfie Jenna posted the night before.
She used to send me a close-up selfie as soon as she woke up—squinting out of one eye, or yawning, or making some hilarious face. Now she posts them on Instagram before she goes to bed so I can see them in the morning. I don’t have an account in my own name so I log on as katthecurriouscat, aka Kat.
But today, it’s not one of her usual goofy faces. It’s a sexy face.
Dewy lips. Smoky eyes. Loose tendrils of hair perfectly framing her face. This selfie is clearly not for me.
I type “What the . . . ?” in the comment window, then delete it and click the heart instead. I am not the first like. The first like is from tristanistanagram, who I assume is “Tristan from the Bus.” I click over to his page but it’s private, and there’s no way I’m going to request to follow. So, I go back to Jenna’s post and try to convince myself it’s not meant to be a sexy photo. That she was trying some new makeup and hairstyle she wanted me to see, or was running out of facial expressions so felt the need to try “pouty” or something. I even scroll back over her previous posts to confirm the absence of pouty faces and thus explain the need for one.
That’s when I notice something else that’s missing, which is all of the goofiest selfies she ever posted. I sit bolt upright in bed, heart thumping, swiping my finger frantically up and down. Where’s her zombie face? The pig-nose, eyes-rolled-back face? The just-ate-a-blue-lollipop, tongue-wagging face? The ones that made me LOL, I mean really laugh out loud, are gone.
Because she didn’t want Tristan or her new friends to see them?
I write “WTH” in the comment window again and again and again so it’s a big, long stream of WTHs.
And delete it.
I thought I was losing her yesterday, but when she texted that she missed me I convinced myself it was all my imagination, that we were as solid as ever. Now I’m not so sure.
I get dressed and brush my hair and wash my face and eat three bites of the omelet my mother makes and say “good morning” and “fine” and “bye” and board the bus and go to school.
I try again to convince myself I’m not losing my best friend, mostly because I don’t know if I can handle it. The photos she deleted were pretty embarrassing, after all. I’d be mortified if anyone saw me making those faces. I never would’ve posted them in the first place, so I’m kind of a hypocrite to be mad at her for taking them down.
I decide it’s okay. It’s fine. Move along. Nothing to see here.
I hurry to get to world history before Dracula or the werewolf arrive. I don’t even stop at my locker. When I slide into my seat, Lipton is there already having a hushed conversation with Adam Shenkman, who sits in front of him. It thankfully does not involve Frankenstein.
“We need to isolate our stuff,” says Lipton. “Go into the wild.”
Adam huddles low and does shifty eyes. “Set a warp?”
“Yeah. And whatever you do, don’t let that jerk into our faction again. I can’t believe he griefed our base.”
“Sorry, dude. I thought he was cool, I didn’t . . .” Adam stops talking suddenly and nods toward me.
“Don’t worry. She’s cool,” says Lipton. Then he winks at me.
I swear I glanced over at them for maybe a second and now they think I was eavesdropping. Worse, I’ve been approved to share in their secrets via wink.
“I, uh . . . wasn’t . . .” I shake my head. Why am I talking? I’m causing unnecessary sweating here. But words keep coming out. “I have no idea what you were even talking about.”
“Minecraft,” says Lipton. “You play?”
I shake my head again.
Lipton looks genuinely disappointed. “It’s not just for little kids, you know.”
“I didn’t think that,” I mumble.
“Good.” He smiles. “It’s really complex, and the multiplayer servers—”
“Dude.” Adam bulges his eyes at Lipton, then stage whispers, “She’s not interested.”
Lipton glances at me, blushing. “Oh. Sorry. Never mind.”
I resume my face-forward-eyes-down stance as our regular teacher, Mr. Braxley, calls the class to order. Jeremy Everling (aka Dracula), of the Everling family my mother is so keen to invite to our house for badminton, raises his hand. “Aren’t you going to take attendance?”
He darts a glance at me and snickers.
Braxley ignores him and carries on. Class is going fine—status quo, just the way I like it, until twenty minutes before the end. That’s when Mr. Braxley starts clapping to get our attention, since half the class has dozed off.
“Time to choose topics for your group projects!” he declares.
I groan inwardly while the rest of the class groans aloud.
“Up to four students per group. You may choose your own group, but choose wisely,” he continues.