I wasn’t sure what to do next, wasn’t sure where this left us, but Emma put her hands on my shoulders, stretched up on tiptoe, and kissed me softly at the side of the mouth. Just as I was leaning into it she pulled away, smiled, and dashed off toward her car.
I would never understand girls.
chapter thirteen
RACHEL
WEDNESDAY, 4:15 P.M.
“I think you’re making the wrong decision.”
Monique leaned over from where she was sitting—at the rickety, scuffed antique desk Mom bought me in the fourth grade—to reach the box of cupcakes she’d put on my equally rickety, spindly-legged nightstand. They were her way of saying sorry for being so pushy at lunch. Monique wasn’t big on apologies—in fact, I don’t think I’d ever heard a “sorry” from her that didn’t have a “but” right behind—but she was good at knowing when to do something like show up unexpected, bearing cupcakes.
Her long, slim fingers circled slowly over the box for a few seconds, conjuring mysteries from the depths of the glossy white cardboard. Then, with a darting movement, like a snake attacking prey, she plucked out a red velvet with a half-baseball-sized mountain of cream cheese frosting.
“Fine. Give me one of your pro/cons for why I shouldn’t delete my Flit account,” I said. I was sprawled out on the bed, head facing the bottom, so I wouldn’t be able to reach the cupcakes easily. I really, really wanted one. Maybe three—they were from Sweet Tooth, the chichi bakery tucked into a half-sized storefront in Apple Prairie’s “downtown” area. But I still couldn’t get all the “fat” comments out of my head.
“Okay, pros are for keeping the account, cons are for deleting it,” Monique said, setting the cupcake on the desk so she could tick off her arguments on her fingers. “Pro number one: the Budding Playwrights application. I still think you could leverage this to get us in, which is what we both want more than anything.”
“Con: I’ve only got maybe a hundred followers right now, so I’d have to do something pretty crazy for this to do us any good.”
“All you’d have to do is write an article about it. Maybe even about how mean people were right away? Feminist websites would love that.” I glared until she rolled her eyes, sighing loudly. “Fine, pro: you’ll be able to see what’s happening with the picture, and Kyle, and what develops.”
“Con: the only things that have developed are more people swooning over him and piling onto me. And my locker. And my car.”
Monique pursed her lips. I took that as a sign I’d made a decent rebuttal.
“Okay, yes, that sucked, but people at school are not what we’re pro/conning. For better or worse, they already know you exist.” I rolled my eyes, but Mo ignored me. “All right, pro: you have a serious crush, and Kyle actually followed you back and responded to your PF. Flit is the best link you have to him.”
“Con: I never actually had a chance, and now he thinks of me as some pathetic kid with a crush. At best.”
Monique twisted her mouth off to the side, thinking.
“Pro: if you delete your social media accounts, you may as well not exist.”
“No way, that’s totally con: if I delete it, people might finally be able to forget I exist.”
“But why let them do that to you?” Monique leaned forward, forehead crumpling in concern. “Listen, Rachel. I know it sucked seeing all that stuff. Having Jessie and people get mean about your pictures. People are terrible. That’s a given, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s already petering out.”
She had a point, at least about the online stuff. In the last few hours only a couple of dozen notifications had come in. Most were just late-to-the-party luvs and reflits.
“Yeah, but Mo, they were vicious. I didn’t even tell you some of the worst ones, you have no idea how nasty it got.”
“I have no idea?” Monique sat back, raising an accusatory eyebrow. “I know it’s easy to forget in Apple Prairie, since I’m one of maybe five in the entire school, but I’m actually a black girl?” She lifted her forehead in feigned surprise. “‘Mixed’ doesn’t change anything for trolls. Trust me, I know exactly how awful people get.”
I jerked my head back involuntarily. She was right, it was easy to forget. It never really occurred to me that Monique had to deal with that—no one I knew treated her any differently. Did I actually know that, though?
“I’m sorry, Mo, I didn’t mean . . .”
“I know you didn’t. But . . .” She shook her head, squeezing her eyes tight. “Look, you can’t let it get to you. That’s all. People can be terrible, but letting that affect how you live your life? That’s just . . .” She tilted her head back until she was talking to the ceiling. “Don’t let them win, Rachel, okay?”
“Okay,” I murmured.