Audra took a lipstick out of her purse, straddled me, and wrote INNOCENT boldly across my neckline.
“I love my friends.” The words burbled out of me. “Group pic.”
With Audra on top of me, I couldn’t reach my Doc, so I dug into my shoulder bag, grasping for my school tablet instead. When I pulled it out, a bunch of papers came with it.
Fawn’s face paled. “Where did those come from?”
At first I thought she simply meant because it was paper, and other than, like, Fawn’s mom and similar crunchy granola eaters, no one used paper anymore. But then I saw what made Fawn’s curls droop. There was something written on the papers. My name. Over and over and over again.
Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Kyle.
Front and back. Written thousands of times in all different styles of handwriting.
“I have no idea,” I said.
Someone must have shoved them into my bag when I wasn’t looking. But when? When was the last time I looked in my bag? Last night after I got back from Mac’s? Yesterday afternoon when I left Ms. Tompkins in the library? I carried it everywhere but barely used it. At school it sat in my cubby all day. My wide-open, unlockable cubby.
Fawn and Audra exchanged a look I couldn’t read; then Audra grabbed the papers out of my hand, crumpled them up, and tossed them in my trash can. I knew it was as creepy as it felt because Fawn set down her egg sandwich.
“Someone’s just trying to scare you…” Audra said.
“More,” Sharma added.
“But who?” Fawn asked.
That was the problem. I didn’t know.
I txted my hater as the girls and I climbed the steps to school.
moi Congratulations, the video just hit a million views. We’re famous.
I refused to ask about the papers. As if I were dealing with a child, I didn’t think bad behavior should be rewarded with attention.
Just in time for Christmas. And no. Only you’re famous. And maybe it’s time you stopped tracking the count.
moi Can’t help it. Obsessive-compulsive like that.
Or just self-obsessed.
moi Touché.
Though, look who was talking? I wasn’t the only one who was Kyle Cheng–obsessed. Who else would have made those sheets other than my hater? AnyLies sent me an emote of a devil face blowing a kiss. The last thing I wanted was to piss my hater off.
“Earth to Kyle,” Audra said as we fell in line to commence the Walk. “So to make up for the whole we-think-you’re-a-big-fat—”
Fawn loudly cleared her throat.
“Sorry, Fawnie,” Audra said. “To make up for the whole we-think-you’re-a-big-plus-sized-liar thing, we’ve belatedly done a little work.”
“First,” Fawn said, “you can thank Jessie Rosenthal for that flash mob in the hall yesterday morning. Ashe Yung told me @JessieRosenthal invited the entire school—minus the four best ones—to participate via Regrets Only. Then she filmed it and posted the whole thing on YurTube. The title is ‘How the mighty shall Fall.’ Capital F.”
“Leave it to an art major to capitalize a season,” I said. Only Sharma snickered at my grammar joke. “Does that move Jessie to the top spot of AnyLies possibilities?”
“Her fam def has the neces dollar signs for a techie hater campaign this big,” Sharma said in a display of staccato abbreviation that was impressive even for her.
“And girl equals twisted,” Fawn said. “Did you see her junior spring show?”
I did. They were paintings of beautiful girls in idyllic environments. Only problem was all the girls were dead. Some had been strangled. Others had track marks up their arms. Some had split wrists. Graff had made Jessie put up a parental-advisory notice at the entrance to the student gallery.
“I liked it,” Audra said. “What? I did. It was dark. And kind of sad. But why would Jessie go through all this effort? I mean, she def has reason to despise you, Kyle, but you can’t tell me this is about valedic.”
“‘Despise’ is a slightly strong word choice, don’t you think, Audy?” I asked.
But she was right: with my razzing, I had given Jessie reason to dislike me. But was it enough motivation to turn me into one of her little projects Ailey told me about? AnyLies had thoroughly infiltrated my life. And yet ten seconds talking to Jessie and I wanted to punch myself in the face. Mom would love her, the girl absolutely spewed angst, and deepness, and significance. But as weird as it was to say, my hater didn’t seem annoying. My hater seemed like me. Granted, the most I’d heard Jessie actually speak was in the monotone voice-over she’d done for her video about the final extinction of the polar bears.
Cleo Bradley coughed “slut” as we walked past, amid her friends’ laughter. Audra coughed back “ugly.” No laughter now.
“Has anyone noticed Jessie’s been hanging out with Ellie Cyr lately?” Fawn asked. “Doesn’t that seem weird? What do those two have in common? Answer: nothing.”
Sharma swiped at her Doc. “Either way, added subtle mustache to Jessie’s Quip pic. Also, a thought. Came to me yest when you were talking to Eden hacker. Kylie, you equal natural-caught tuna. You’re the real deal. It’s your face but not your chest in the vid. Might be a slim chance the vid doesn’t have anti-Woofer filter on it.”
“How’d you know Ivy and I’d talked about lab tuna?” I asked.
“Tech reply,” Sharma said. “Plus, didn’t think it was right, you meeting that hacker alone. So, well, you didn’t. My avat was signed in on your Doc.”
“How is it everyone keeps hacking into my Doc?” I asked, feeling warmly violated and loved all at the same time.
“You never change your password” came the same reply in three different voices.
“And sorry,” Fawn said. “What’s an anti-Woofer filter?”
Audra gave her a three-second-long sigh. “How do you think the B&P chick conceals her identity? Anti-Woofer filter, Curly Locks. Otherwise anyone could download a pic and run it through Woofer. Already had that thought, Sharmie. Unhappily, there is an anti-Woofer filter on the video.”
“So the conclusion you’ve all come to is that everything continues to suck.”
“All-caps B-U-T…” Sharma said.
“Huge butts?” Fawn teased. “Sharmie, I like it.”
Sharma’s eye roll said, Remind me why I form RL bonds. “B-U-T got the IP address the vid posted from. Traded the Sword of Light and Dark for one huge favor to speed things up.”
Fawn flat-out stopped walking. Sharma had been talking about the Sword of Light and Dark since freshman year. She’d finally acquired it this summer after spending an all-nighter battling the same damn zombie in ESSO, the world’s longest-running MMO, which, as Sharma always liked to point out, had a larger economy than most countries.
“Sharmie, that’s about the biggest sacrifice anyone has ever made for me,” I said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”