“Don’t call her that. And I’ll only be two seconds.” After Kyle left, I swiped my screen to accept. “Gaudy Audy, I need hugs.”
Only I was staring at a closet door. Audra’s Doc was docked. I hated when she did this. Why FaceAlert and then make me stare at her steering wheel or, like, her feet while she got a pedicure? From somewhere on the other side of the screen she called, “Saw the fight. What you need are boxing lessons. Check your mail. I gifted them to you for Christmas. Your right hook needs serious help. It was like watching a kitten fight a lamppost.”
“I’m only good at verbal jousting,” I said, patting my eye.
Sharma piped in. “I’ll tell Jessie if she doesn’t remove vid, I’ll sign her up for the KKK e-letter. Goes right to the top of your G-File, flags your whole page red. And B-T-W Jessie, Ellie Cyr, and Brittany Mulligan all have Brooklyn library cards plus NYPL access.”
It was perfectly normal that Sharma and Audra were hanging out together, but a nasty little voice in my head wondered why I wasn’t there too.
“How’d you find that out so fast?”
“Simple. I messaged them.”
“Thanks, Sharms, you charge my Doc like nobody else. But how did you get Jessie’s contact? Up until this fight an hour ago, I couldn’t find her anywhere. And I still can’t connect to her.”
With the exception of the fight video, Jessie’s CB account had to be hard-core private, which I guess explained why I couldn’t find her at Ailey’s no matter how many of her friends-of-friends’ connects I quickly searched. Her G-File was still almost nonexistent. It was almost like she had her face Pulled and her G-File swept on a daily basis. Because other than her uber-elitist Quip stream, the video of the flash mob at school, and now the fight video, she still equaled almost zero online presence. Which in essence meant that two-thirds of what was online about her was actually about me.
“We overlap on a few games. Her call is @DarkEnchantress. You can message her through that.”
“Awesome. Gracias.”
It was then I realized it wasn’t Audra’s closet door I was staring at. Hers was painted white and always open and bursting with clothes. This door was varnished maple. Had Fawn been lying? Were they all at her house? But why would she lie?
“Are you guys over at Fawn’s?”
“Nope,” Audra said, and left it at that.
“Sharmie,” I said. “What did you think of the Ellie video?”
“What Ellie video?”
In the background, Audra gasped and said, “Oh SHT, I totes forgot to tell her.”
Now I was glad for the docked Doc. Was Audra trying to stop me from figuring this out? As calmly as possible, I explained about the source video coming from Ellie’s account. No sooner had I finished than Sharma said, “Kyle, tell me you downloaded it.”
“Not yet, why?”
Please, no. My stomach was already in revolt. No matter how angry Ellie was, no matter that we just got into a knock-down fight, Ellie had to know that that video was my one way—so far my only way—of proving my innocence. She wouldn’t be so cruel as to delete the video. Ellie Cyr was nice.
“Yep,” Sharma said tightly. “It’s gone.”
“I F’d up, didn’t I?” Audra said after a moment of dead silence.
It wasn’t Audra’s fault. It was mine for not immediately downloading the Woofer video. I’d been so caught up in getting to Ellie that I hadn’t wanted to waste the three seconds it would have taken me. It isn’t Audra’s fault, I repeated to myself. It’s mine.
But come on. If Audra had told me she’d found a way to prove she wasn’t in the sex video that was stalking her, I’d have relayed that info to Sharma the moment she walked through my door.
When no one responded, Audra cleared her throat, then trilled, “In happier news, the B&P goddess did another piece about you.”
“Audra,” I exploded, “I don’t want to hear it. Not right now. Hello, college admissions boards. My name’s Kyla Cheng. This is my sex video, and here are all the related links on this teenager’s porn page.”
“It’s not like that.” The Doc violently swung around as Audra grabbed it. “She’s trying to get two million views on the post so it knocks the Mr. E. video from the first spot on your G-File. The post is about how if this happened to a boy, no one would care. How he’d benefit socially from it. How Parkside Prep would be working harder to take it down. It ties it together with how our culture only slut-shames girls. It’s saying all the things you should be saying and is all-caps FE-MI-NIST. There’s fifty thousand likes already.”
“And let me guess, this deep piece of writing is accompanied by the Bra&Panties slut in her barely theres? Auds, if it’s on B&P, it’s not fe-mi-anything. What I’d like is for the BTCH to leave me alone and stop using my misfortune to get herself more views.”
When Audra txted me a link to the B&P slut’s new and improved site over the summer, it was all-caps DISLIKE at first click. Since I made a point of not hating on other girls—the world did that enough for us—I kept my comments about the content of the pics to myself, but under all the posts I pasted links to volunteering organizations, articles about self-esteem, and links to the sites of famous women authors, scientists, and politicians.
Audra had instantly FaceAlerted me, her face bright pink with anger.
“Why would you do that? You’re trolling her!”
“Oh no,” I said, mortified. “I thought you sent the link because it was ridiculous. I mean, Die-For-Worthy? They’re rain boots.”
“Made out of recycled rubber. I sent the link because I thought you’d think this was cool. I think it’s cool.”
“We don’t have to like the same thing all the time, Auds.”
Now Audra held the Doc a little farther away from her face. Her hair was pressed against her head as if she’d taken off a tight cap.
“What do you mean if it’s on B&P it isn’t fe-mi-anything? Don’t you listen to me at all? My whole point in trying to get you to follow her is to prove that just because a girl is sexual it doesn’t mean she’s antiwoman or a slut. Fifty percent of her followers are women.”
“Agree to disagree, ladies,” Sharma called out.
The captain of the debate team? Not likely.
“Half the slut’s viewers are girls, not women. Girls, Audra. What example is that setting?”
“What example are you setting? Maybe stop calling her a slut so much. That ‘slut’ was approached to do a running post for Vogue.com. I think the lesson there is that enough gumption gets you what you want. Maybe she’s not your perfect President Malin with her immigrant parents and public-school education, but I find her hugely inspiring and you’re making an argument that you know nothing about. You’d never let yourself be this uninformed in debate. Never mind that you’re unfairly persecuting her for the exact reasons you’re being unfairly persecuted. But fine, agree to totally all-caps DISAGREE. Kissy face.”
The FaceAlert screen went end over end.