The Takedown by Corrie Wang
To my mama,
for always answering
I’ll warn you in advance.
You’re probably not gonna like me.
No matter what I write, you’ll think I got what I deserved. So I won’t bother sugarcoating my story or trying to pretend I’m someone I’m not. I mean, you don’t get over five hundred million views and care what people think anymore. Fine. Maybe you care a little. Contrary to what it might seem, I’m not some soulless vampire. But I did always say there were only two ways to emerge from high school.
Scarred or Worshipped.
And ever since freshman year it wasn’t hard to guess which track I was on.
Before I begin, I should mention that I’m not like other girls you read about. Never once have I adorably collided with a large stationary object. I mean, come on; I have eyes. And since being debate-team captain kind of obligated me to come up with the exact words I needed exactly when I needed them, I don’t bumble my sentences around cute boys. Or anyone else, for that matter. And thanks to French-meets-Chinese genetic dumb luck—merci and xièxie, Mom and Dad!—I ended up prettier than almost everyone else at school. And I was never the girl who says, “Oh, I’m okay,” when she knows she’s gorgeous. Who are you kidding, poser?
Remember. I forewarned you that empathy would not be issuing forth.
So never mind that on top of all these things I also tried to be a good daughter, a protective sister, and a loyal friend. Never mind that I was on friendly terms with almost all my classmates. When the video dropped, all anyone saw, all you’ll see, was that I was one of a group of four in that nefarious high school species known as Popular.
(Why we equate “popular” with being liked, I still don’t know. Maybe “popular” always meant most-viewed. In which case, I was undeniably the most popular teenager in the entire world last year.)
But I parenthesize.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I get it. I get the backlash. After all, the girls and I took the lucky gifts we’d been given and we flaunted them. We flaunted our bodies and hair and friendship and fashion sense, and let’s not leave out intellect. Because I think we all knew that if we didn’t embrace our good fortune, we would spend our high school years hiding in our houses every weekend, eating junk food, and waiting for something important to happen.
Still, I maintain that I didn’t deserve it. Because did I ever cyberbully anyone? No. Did girls go home in tears because of me or dread the classes we were in together? No. Did I ever deliberately make anyone’s life hell? No.
Why would I need to? I was on the worshipped track.
Notice the past tense. Turns out, there’s only one way to emerge from high school.
Looking back, the video’s launch day was evil from the start. It had snowed two feet by six a.m. Then I overslept and missed my time slot in the bathroom. Then my brother proceeded to take forever getting his mussed look just right. And then, making matters the worst, my rushing meant I hadn’t contributed at all to the morning massive group txt-athon with the girls. Thereby, at only eight a.m., Audra was probably already pissed at me.
So as I hurried out of the house, I barely glanced at the first txt I received from the creepy no-name sender.
[ ] T minus ten, nine…
I figured it was a countdown app from one of the twenty universities I was applying to. My top ten schools all had January 1 deadlines, and I hadn’t hit submit on any of them. But fifteen minutes later, wading up the snowdrift that equaled the steps of school, I had bigger issues than my unfinished college essays. I was flustered, hot, and seven minutes late for the Walk.
Oh, the innocent worries of an unruined life.
School, by the way, was Parkside Preparatory, a three-story white stone sprawl of turrets and stained-glass windows on the border of Prospect Park. If you’ve never been to Brooklyn, think Central Park but quainter with a few more sketchy parts. And if you’ve never been to New York City…txt me; we need to get you out more.
Inside, frayed oriental rugs coated the floors. Instead of trophy cases in the hallways, there were wall hangings from the 1800s. Was it off-putting going to school in a mansion? Sí. Some days I felt like I’d get expelled if I so much as burped. But most days I loved it. Park Prep exuded an almost British air of higher learning, as if Austen or Dickens or Rowling could have studied there.
Slipping in through the two-hundred-year-old solid-oak doors, I clutched my Doc to my stomach like a security blanket. Cálmate, I told myself. I was only seven minutes late. Audra wouldn’t lose her SHT over seven minutes. I quickly tossed my coat in my cubby (because what two-hundred-year-old mansion has lockers?), smoothed back my hair, inhaled, and began.
Fawn was immediately at my side. Poor Fawnie had gotten stuck with a cub on the third floor near the art room, so every day she had to try to look busy until the Walk without a first-floor cubby to use as a prop. Lucky for her, there was usually a boy more than willing to help her stall. She left one now, midsentence, to fall in next to me. Her arm linked around my waist. Our hips swayed side to side in perfect time. Heads turned.
“You’re late. Ooh, cute red bow tie.” Fawn’s fingers danced at my throat. A moment later, her hands were lightly patting my braids. Nothing existed for Fawn unless she touched it. “And I all-caps LOVE your hair.”
If any parent set deserved an A-plus for naming their child, it was Fawn Salita’s. Half–Irish-Filipino, and half-Iranian, the result was Bambi mixed with old-skool Disney princess: perfect oval face; eyes that were huge and doe-y; cascading spiral curls—that was Fawn. Currently in a hippie phase, she wore a tight cropped tee under a red minivest with a flowing skirt that sat low on her hips so you could just see tummy pudge and her jeweled belly-button ring. One of Fawn’s life goals was to eat at every restaurant along Flushing Boulevard in Queens. “Seventy different countries all repped within, like, two blocks. It’s a chubby’s dream.” If Fawn had her way, she’d be working on a farm in Peru come summer. If Fawn’s mom had her way, she’d be enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan.
“Love the vest,” I said to Fawn. “It’s so…”
“Eye-searingly red?” She laughed.
Red. That was Sharma’s theme of the day, because Sharma always cut right to the chase. Just as she did as she broke away from Sir Joan—what we called the coat of arms that was next to her cubby—and fell in line with us.
“Late,” Sharma said. “Also, president signed new jobs act and creep congressman stepped down re chat sex scandal. Special elections ASAP.”