by Mia Archer
“Damn,” Craig breathed out. Then he got a look of determination on his face and started moving his hand across the touchpad on my laptop.
That was the funny thing about hacking. It never looked like all the furious typing you saw people doing on TV shows and in the movies. There was a lot more boring reading and moving the mouse around.
“Well there’s something we can do about this,” he said. “No one out there threatens my best friend and gets away with it.”
I felt a hand in mine and looked down in surprise. Then looked up to see Kylie smiling at me.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she said, the smile never leaving her face. I was starting to see why there were so many people out there who said she was the nicest girl in the school.
“I don’t know why I did,” I said.
“Sometimes you just need to tell people these things, and I’m glad you decided to trust me. And I want you to know I really am happy for what you did. Even if it sort of sucked at the time,” she said.
I smiled a goofy lopsided grin. There was something about this girl that made me trust her. There was also something about this girl that drove me wild, but I figured the less I said about that the better considering she was dating my friend.
But hey. I’m being totally honest here so you’re getting some total honesty even if it is a bit of awkward total honesty.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Kylie said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
I sighed. I wished I could believe her.
18
Disaster
Ashley Timmons says
So there was a lot of craziness going on in my life at this point. The sort of craziness that might make a normal person sit back and say it was time to take it easy. Maybe if I was an adult with a real job I’d take a vacation or something.
Probably not. I hear it’s pretty bad out there in the real world with not much in the way of vacation days. At least to hear my mom and dad talk about it. In between when they’re busy not talking to each other, that is.
But there was no rest for the wicked. Yes, the wicked. I did that on purpose. That’s a little something for all you vultures out there in the comments section who like to hang on my every word and try to twist it against me.
The point is I might’ve had a full plate what with all this discovering I was into girls, coming out to my childhood best friend, and knowing there was someone out there who thought they knew my big secret before I even realized it was a thing, but I still had business to attend to.
I was nothing if not a consummate businesswoman, and that meant I was going to mind the shop even if things were getting a little hairy in my personal life. That meant I was determined to figure out who the hell wanted Sandra and Sean broken up.
I was determined to figure out if there was a good reason for them to be broken up.
And I only had the one hint to go on. Valerie. I figured that meant one of my other friends knew something. The best way to get something out of someone if they knew something? Ask them!
You’d be surprised how often that works. Of course I had to be careful, and so this update picks up where I was pulling at that thread. Turns out it doesn’t matter at all because everything went to shit pretty soon after I started pulling at that thread, but whatever.
This is the point where the story that was going on behind the scenes starts to merge with the public story that everyone knows about, so get out your rumor threads on AnonBoards and compare notes. Maybe start a bingo game or something to see how close to the truth all the favorite conspiracy theories are.
It’s time to get to some of the good stuff, is the point I’m making here. And it all started with an awkward conversation with Valerie that had a hell of an explosive end I never saw coming.
“So…”
I stopped. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Usually I did a lot of my digging online. The problem with this case was I was already as close to Sandra as could be, online and off.
Besides, there was that tantalizing hint. Valerie.
She knew something. Or maybe she was the reason why they needed to be broken up. Either way I needed to feel her out on this. I felt like she was the key to figuring out whether or not Sandra needed to no longer be with her man.
“Something wrong?” Valerie asked, taking a drink from her school-issue milk.
“Just thinking about some things,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like Sandra and Sean,” I said. “I’ve heard people talking about them, but they always shut up when they realize I’m listening. I guess everyone knows we’re friends and they don’t want whatever they’re talking about to get back to her.”
I figured that was a nice and juicy piece of bait dangled in front of Valerie that didn’t get too close to the truth.
After all, I wanted her to give something up without letting on how I figured out that she knew something. That would end in disaster, and the last thing I needed in my life was more disaster.
She turned and gave me an odd look. A look that I couldn’t read, and I was usually pretty good about knowing what my friends were thinking.
“Oh yeah? You’ve heard people talking about them?”
“Well yeah,” I said. “Have you heard anything?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Are you sure that isn’t something you heard from the breakup artist?”
Again with that weird look. A look that almost made me wonder if she knew something. I’d cleared Craig and Kylie, I hadn’t realized Kylie was someone who even needed to be cleared, but that meant there was still an entire school full of people who might know who I really was.
It wasn’t a comforting thought. I couldn’t very well have heart-to-hearts with everyone in the school where I confessed that I was a lesbian and hoped they would come out and tell me if they were the person holding my secret.
I really hoped Craig came up with something with all the tech digging he was doing. He hadn’t gotten back to me yet, and I figured I still had to dig into the whole Sandra thing the old fashioned way.
“I don’t know why everyone is so obsessed with the breakup artist,” I said. “I don’t think the person is even real.”
“The person?” she asked.
“Well yeah. No one seems to know if this person is a guy or a girl. Gender neutral until they figure that out,” I said.
Again with one of those weird knowing smiles. The sort of smile that had me nervous. The sort of smile that said she might know something, and I couldn’t help but think that would be a very bad thing considering she liked to consider herself the central gossip repository for the whole damn school.
I know it must really chap your ass that this little site has become that central gossip repository you always wanted to be Valerie. I know you're reading this.
Well don’t worry. We’re getting into the downslope on this story and I’m sure after this is all done everyone will move onto something else and you can go back to gossiping about other people, you crazy bitch.
Pardon my French, but this is the Internet and I figure if you’re going to swear anywhere why not here?
“You never know,” Valerie said. “When someone like that is out there working in the shadows they’re going to make a mistake eventually. Something’s going to happen and we’ll figure out who she is.”
I frowned. I really didn’t like the sound of that. Then again I knew I’d been really good about covering my tracks. Like I’d been obsessive about it almost since I started all this business because I figured something like this could happen down the line.
But it was a little awkward to have Valerie sitting there telling me someone was going to track me down. It was uncomfortable having her so sure that something was going to happen to bring me down.
Damn it.
I opened my mouth to tell her she might be surprised, my professional pride was wounded and I wanted to give her a piece of my mind, but thankfully an explosion a
t the other end of the quad stopped me from saying anything stupid that would go a long way towards giving myself away.
“I can’t believe you!”
That was Sandra, and she sounded more angry than I think I’ve ever heard her before.
I zeroed in on the sound. That was the sound of a couple in the middle of one hell of a fight. I’d become something of an expert on the subject considering some of the things I got up to in a professional capacity, and I wondered what the hell could cause them to argue like that when they’d seemed so happy before.
They were walking across the grass shouting at each other and neither one of them seemed to have a care in the world that there were a bunch of people turning to stare.
No, they went right on shouting even though they were making spectacles of themselves. Which said a lot about how angry they must be.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d thought they were so perfect for each other. He always seemed so devoted to her, and she always seemed like she couldn’t believe she was with a guy like him.
And yet there they were screaming at each other like they hated each other. Like they were just a couple of breaths away from getting physical.
They got closer. It’s not like they were moving towards us. More like they were a storm that was moving wherever the hell it pleased and right now the storm was coming closer to us.
“…Telling you for like the hundredth time I don’t know how that got on my phone!” Sandra screeched.
Sean rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You think I’m supposed to believe that? You know he’s on the market, and he was cheating with a bunch of girls before. I just never thought one of those girls would be you!”
This was getting interesting. It was starting to look like I’d been wrong about their relationship, though I never in a million years would’ve thought that the one to screw everything up would be Sandra.
Was she seriously cheating on Sean? All those times she went on about how perfect he was and she was going out with some other guy?
And speaking of other guys. It sounded an awful lot like…
“I can’t believe you’d think I would get with Thomas!” Sandra shrieked.
That caught everyone’s attention. Everyone stared.
“Oh yeah?” Sean yelled. “Well then explain those pictures on your phone!”
“I don’t know how they got there!” she said. “I don’t know how any of that got there! I’ve never even talked to him before!”
People had their phones up now and they were recording everything. This was going to be viral as hell. It was going to be all over everything in no time. This was the kind of juicy drama that no one could resist.
I felt so bad for Sandra. I’m not sure why. After all, she was the one who’d been exposed as a cheater and it looked like she’d been cheating with Thomas of all people. There really was no accounting for taste.
“We’re over Sandra,” Sean said.
He was quiet this time, no more shouting, but it’s not like he needed to shout. Aside from the sounds of the city in the distance you could hear a pin drop.
Well, you wouldn’t hear a pin drop because it’d be dropping on grass, but you know what I mean.
Sandra burst into tears. She looked more miserable than I’d ever seen her before. My heart went out to her and I wanted to go up and give her a hug, comfort her, tell her everything was going to be okay, but Sean was still standing right there and something told me he wasn’t going to appreciate me telling Sandra all that when he was in the middle of breaking up with her.
Still, my heart broke for her. I’d seen enough people breaking up that I could tell when someone was genuinely upset that they were breaking up.
Sandra was the real deal. Which left me wondering what the hell was going on here. My sense was telling me she was genuinely surprised and upset that this breakup was happening, but if she’d really been cheating with Thomas then she had to know, even if it was in the back of her mind, that there was always a chance she’d get caught and something like this would happen.
Had my relationship sense really gone that wonky? Was I really that bad at figuring people out that I’d read my best friend’s relationship totally wrong all this time?
“Wow,” Valerie said. “Sandra cheated on Sean. That’s a surprise.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I said.
“Though I guess that means Sean’s going to be on the market soon.”
I turned and stared at her, and as I stared at her I saw a part of her that I’d never seen before. I saw my first true glimpse of the girl that I would come to hate before this was all said and done. The girl who was willing to do and say whatever she could to get ahead in this world.
It was a surprise then. We’d been friends, after all, even if she and Sandra had always been closer. Then again Sandra was close with everyone in our little group.
“I can’t believe you’d say that about Sandra’s boyfriend,” I said.
It was hard to keep the disbelief from my voice. I really couldn’t believe she’d talk about her best friend’s boyfriend like that. I couldn’t believe she’d take Sandra’s moment of pain and use that to her advantage.
But as I looked at her it was like I was looking at a completely different person, and I was starting to wonder about that email I got. When I saw her name I assumed that meant she knew something, but what if it was something else? What if she was the person I was supposed to be looking into because she might be the problem?
“Well then fuck you too Sean!” Sandra screamed, pulling my thoughts away from Valerie and whatever the hell was going on with her. “If you’re going to be like this, if you’re not going to believe me, then maybe I shouldn’t have ever been with you to begin with!”
Wow. That language was salty. And it looked like that was the end of Sandra’s and Sean’s relationship. Without any intervention on my part no matter what the rumors say.
I’ll admit that I briefly wondered if I could maybe contact the person who’d been so hot and bothered about breaking these two up and see if I could collect my fee regardless of whether or not I’d had anything to do with it, but I quickly squashed that idea.
Looking at Sandra’s face, at the genuine rage and sorrow there, was enough to tell me I didn’t want anything to do with this. It was enough to make me reconsider being in this whole damn business in the first place.
Not that I was left with those thoughts for long. No, Sandra and Sean arguing had been explosive, but that was nothing compared to what happened next, and it all started with Darrell walking across the grass towards a sobbing lonely Sandra.
I stood, but I could already tell I was going to be too late to stop him from being his usual tone deaf socially inept self.
19
More Disaster
Ashley Timmons says
Y’know how there’s that moment when you know everything’s gone to shit? When you realize you might’ve thought things were bad before, but suddenly you wish you could go back to things being as “bad” as they were before they really went to hell?
Yeah, I had one of those moments as I was looking at Darrell walking across the grass, and it was one of those moments that only got worse and worse as I realized exactly what he was doing.
Darrell. My man. Let’s talk. I know you're reading.
I know I’ve been hard on you before. I know I’ve insinuated that you’re a socially maladjusted nerd who has no skills when it comes to talking to the fairer sex, particularly when you’re trying to convince that fairer sex to do something that might result in sex with you at some point.
I might've come off as mean, but I was absolutely right about everything I’ve ever said about you, you fucking idiot.
I mean seriously. What kind of asshole goes up to hit on a girl when she’s clearly sobbing because she just broke up with her boyfriend? What kind of prick thinks that’s the perfect time to make his move?
I’ll
tell you who. The kind of idiot who gets all his dating advice from a bunch of neckbearded forever alone virgins on stupid online forums trading advice about how you need to make women emotionally vulnerable before they’ll gift you with the magic between their legs.
It doesn’t work like that. At least not with a healthy relationship. Not with a girl like Sandra. You’re going to go through life deluding yourself that you didn’t get that date because Sandra was stuck on her asshole boyfriend, but the only asshole there that day was you.
Right. Sorry for getting a little ranty there. It’s just that thinking back on that day is enough to get my blood boiling. Particularly when I think about what Darrell did that day.
Also, allow me to repeat myself here just to make this point absolutely clear for you mouth breathing naysayer trolls in the comments. I didn’t have anything to do with this breakup. I know all the rumors were saying I had to be the one who broke up the happy couple, but that was all bullshit. That’s a big part of the reason why I’m telling this here to set the record straight.
As soon as you’ve picked your jaw up off of your keyboard you can go ahead and read all about how the number one crime everyone thinks I’m guilty of is the one thing I didn’t actually do, though the person responsible was sitting right next to me the entire time doing her sneaky bitch thing.
Yeah, that’s right Valerie. Come at me. Still mad I’m more popular than you? I figure that’s the best revenge I can get, so let’s get on with the story so I can keep pulling eyeballs away from your shitty online school gossip rag.
I’m still mad about what happened that day. Now you get to find out why. It starts with a simple question.
“What the hell is he doing?”
“Let’s wait and see,” Valerie said.
Again there was something to her tone. Something that said she had an idea of what the hell was going on here. Something that told me she knew more than she was letting on.
I didn’t like not knowing things. That wasn’t my style. I might seem like this nefarious evil genius to all you idiots out there hanging on every word I type, but I’m only a nefarious evil genius when I’m working.