“Rachel, I mean it! Get a move on!”
I swallowed hard and dropped the yearbook. I thought about leaving the phone upstairs, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I’d just see how many notifications were coming through.
I slid into my usual seat at our tiny kitchen table, wedged into the corner next to the door to the backyard we left permanently deadbolted. Jonathan sat across from me, fanning Pokémon cards across his place mat and squinting at them through his wire-rimmed glasses.
He frowned, rearranging his card fiefdom, then grinned, nodded, and swept them together to stuff them into the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt. His Pikachu sweatshirt. God, the kid was hopeless, but I loved him for it. I wouldn’t have known how to handle a little brother who cared about seeming cool. People like that confused me—Jessie confused me.
Maybe I should have spent more time trying to decode her.
My phone buzzed right as Mom set the salad bowl on the table. I pulled it out to look at the screen.
592 notifications
My stomach pirouetted. Even Jessie didn’t have that many followers. Who else was talking about me?
“Rachel, phone away,” Mom said automatically, turning to the counter to load plates with lasagna. “Dinner is a technology-free zone.”
I slipped it into my pocket, tapping my toe against the ground as Dad sat down at my left. They were probably mostly luvs. That wasn’t so bad, right?
I hadn’t even made it through a bite of lasagna before the phone buzzed again. I breathed in deep, stuffed my fork into my mouth, and swallowed as fast as I could. The still-molten cheese burned the roof of my mouth, making me tear up a little.
“Jonathan, tell me one way you expressed yourself today.” Mom stabbed her salad precisely until she’d speared one of every element.
Jonathan squinted thoughtfully.
“I finished my vocabulary test early, so I drew pictures of the words around the edges.”
“I’m glad you added more beauty to the world.”
This was how they talked to us at dinner. I’d only realized in middle school that most people’s parents weren’t total hippies, but I didn’t mind that mine were. They’d always made us feel like what we were doing mattered. It was nice—and dorky—but today it made me want to spit acid.
My phone buzzed again as Mom asked him about Odyssey of the Mind. She was focused on Jonathan; I could sneak a peek.
1,385 notifications
I almost choked on my cherry tomato. That was more people than all of Apple Prairie High. Without thinking I clicked the screen; I had to know what they were saying.
“Rachel.” Dad tilted his head down to peer at me over the top of his glasses. They were identical to Jonathan’s—he was Dad’s doppelg?nger, wiry and myopic and narrow-faced, while I looked like a darker version of Mom, with her frizzy hair, single dimple, and permanent extra ten pounds. “Active listening shows respect.”
“Okay.” I dropped the phone into my lap. I could feel its heat radiating into me like a burning brand. L, maybe, for loser. Or TP, for total pariah. “Monique’s been texting about homework,” I added. She had been a few hours back, so it wasn’t totally untrue.
Dad frowned in a way he thought was menacing. He couldn’t pull off menacing.
“Well, tell me something new you learned today, Rachel.”
“How to apply a majolica glaze,” I squeezed out. I stuffed as big a bite of lasagna into my mouth as I thought could fit. Swallowing was becoming harder and harder—my stomach felt like a knotted garden hose, tangled and twisted and unwilling to take anything in—but I had to make a dent in the food or they’d never let me leave the table. “It was harder than I thought.” I’d also learned how to commit social seppuku, but opted not to mention that.
“Jonathan,” Dad said, “what’s a difficult problem you overcame today?”
Jonathan sat, thinking hard. He was still young enough to enjoy my parents’ earnest . . . well, probing. The phone buzzed again. Mom and Dad were both turned toward Jonathan. Surreptitiously I dropped my hand under the table, clicking it to life.
1,529 notifications
The most recent ones showed up below:
@RickiTicki_TAVI mentioned you in a flit:
@attackoftherach_face goes to APHS? where’d
she come from? i’ve nvr seen her before
#idlikefrieswithTHAT
I exhaled. That wasn’t so bad. But there were more:
@GabiBaby mentioned you in a flit: Ugh, cld
@attackoftherach_face be any more pathetic?
She was always weird but this is just sad.
It was Gabi Ruiz, from ceramics club. I’d assumed my weird-kid activities were safe. She was low on the social totem pole, but clearly angling for more.
@BethaneEeeEEE mentioned you in a flit: Found
another middle school gem of
@attackoftherach_face. Awkward phase much?
#idlikefrieswithTHAT
@chzfries mentioned you in a flit:
@BethaneEeeEEE @attackoftherach_face
she looks like one of those loner serial killer
types. @YourBoyKyle_B shld slepe w/1 eye