Don't Read the Comments

by Eric Smith

  Shortly after, Rebekah moved out of the dorms to her hip studio near campus, and the dudes were supposed to be suspended while the investigation was ongoing. But it’s still ongoing, and those assholes are still on campus, taking their classes like nothing happened.

  Because that’s what happens.

  She’s been taking as many online courses as she can from the comfort of her apartment ever since, even though the college is practically down the block. I know she’s been seeing one of the school therapists at the Women’s Center on campus as well, but she doesn’t talk about their sessions very much.

  “You know I’m here for you, right?” I lean across the divide between us and nudge her, just barely making it back to my side in time to dodge an attack. “We can talk about stuff like that, not just games, or computers, and—”

  “Div, I know,” she says, turning to give me a look full of meaning. “You don’t have to ask.” She takes aim at the screen. “Just knowing you’re there is enough.”

  “I’ll always be there.”

  We both reload at the same time.

  And we fire away.

  * * *

  I wipe at some sweat on my forehead, still holding the Time Crisis light gun. It takes about an hour to beat the story. Well, if you’re good at the game, that is.

  And we are.

  “That is awesome,” I say, holstering the light gun and crossing my arms.

  “A thing of beauty, really,” Rebekah agrees, grinning as she pulls out her phone. I take mine out, too, and snap a few photos, our high scores right above one another—a happy accident, unlike our choice in high score names:

  TIME CRISIS 4: HIGH SCORES

  D1V

  D1V

  BEK

  D1V

  BAN

  MEN

  BEK

  ASS

  “I really wish that ‘ASS’ score wasn’t still on there, though,” Rebekah grumbles.

  “You can admit you did that, it’s okay.” I grin, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t judge.”

  “You’re the worst.” Rebekah smirks, giving me a side-eye.

  “That score is fucking crazy!” a familiar voice exclaims, rocketing me out of our moment. Walt—the guy who gave Rebekah the quarters earlier—is back, along with the dudes he walked in with. They’re all dressed pretty much the same, T-shirts and caps with the college’s logo on it, except for one guy, a Filipino dude wearing a shirt with some kind of cartoon burger on it, looking like an icon for a smartphone app. “You two are awesome gamers for girls.”

  Rebekah snorts and looks up at me, smirking. “For girls?” she asks. “Can you guys do any better? I don’t recall hearing the final battle for your X-Men game over here, and that end scene is pretty damn loud.”

  Two of the guys in the group look at each other, clearly irritated.

  “Eh, we were just playing for fun, anyway,” Walt huffs. “Hey, I was wondering, do you want to maybe play games together sometime? Could I get your number?”

  The dudes behind him jostle into one another like a group of friends in a sitcom commercial.

  My stomach sinks.

  “Oh no. Thank you, though, that’s nice of you,” Rebekah says, casually picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Her eyes meet mine for a moment, and I get it. I’m ready. It’s time to get out of here.

  Walt’s eyes narrow. “Why not?” he asks, his tone aggressive. “Something wrong with me?”

  “Walt, chill, it’s no big deal,” one of his friends says, and I notice it’s the burger-shirt guy. He grabs at Walt’s arm, but Walt promptly shakes him off.

  “Fuck off, Brian,” Walt snaps, then turns back at us. “Come on, I gave you some quarters for your game. I’m a nice guy, you should want to hang out with me.”

  “People don’t do nice things for one another expecting some kind of reward, asshole,” I snap, moving to shuffle Rebekah out of here and away from the group. I put my arm around her and turn to leave, when a hand grabs my shoulder.

  The grip is tight.

  Angry.

  I pull away and glare. Walt is there, looking at me with his eyes narrowed.

  And then I see it. That spark of recognition.

  My heart begins hammering on all cylinders.

  “Yo, Andrew, you were right,” Walt says, and I shift to stand in front of Rebekah, who I can feel shaking a little next to me. One of the guys behind Walt—Andrew, I’m guessing—pulls out his phone, and it looks like he’s taking pictures. I put my hand up to block his shots.

  “Yeah!” Walt exclaims. “She’s that streamer girl. You’re that girl, aren’t—”

  Walt moves to seize my arm again, and before I know it, I’ve slapped him across the face. The crack echoes loud and sharp in the arcade, which is still vacant save for the four guys, me, and Rebekah. I glance over to the counter, where the pizzas are, but the stoner on duty is nowhere to be seen.

  Walt glares at me, his eyes narrowed and teeth clenched.

  “You fucking bitch, who do you think—” I see his fists ball up as he takes a big step toward me and Rebekah, and I flinch back, covering her, when Walt suddenly tumbles backward.

  “Walt, what the fuck man, knock it off!” I look back to see that Brian guy pulling at Walt, then pushing him away from the two of us.

  “Brian, stay the fuck out of this, you—” Walt starts shouting.

  But I don’t stick around to hear the rest.

  I push through the heavy double doors and out of Quarter Slice Crisis, pulling Rebekah with me. The pizzeria-slash-arcade isn’t exactly located on a main street, so we bolt off down a side alley. Rebekah picks up speed, taking the lead. She doesn’t even have to say anything; I know what she’s doing. We’re heading toward the waterfront. Toward the public. Toward people.

  The side street is dark for a moment, then bursts into light as we reach the more populated areas. Out on the cobblestone streets and brick sidewalks, the cool air breezes off the Hudson and chills my forehead, which I only now realize is drenched in sweat.

  Rebekah hurries toward the railing by the water, her face pale, eyes enormous. She throws up, loudly and violently, over the edge, coughing and sputtering. I pat and rub her back, tucking loose strands of red-orange hair behind her ear.

  “It’s okay,” I say, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “You’re safe.”

  “Fucking assholes,” she chokes back.

  “They’re gone,” I continue. “They—”

  “Hey!” a breathless male voice shouts, and I spin around to spot Brian, the guy who held that Walt jerk back. He’s panting laboriously, bent over, one hand up in the air, the other on his knee. I ball up my fists and look around for someone, anyone. Not just for someone who might be able to help, but someone who might do more harm. His friends, or whoever they are.

  “Wait, wait...” he protests, gulping for air. “Don’t... I...” He holds something in the air and shakes it.

  It’s my phone.

  He looks up at me, and his face is red, eyes glistening. He’s got a horribly busted lip, already purple and pulsing, blood trickling down his chin.

  “Sorry,” he says, taking a step toward us. I shrink back and look around, searching for an escape. Rebekah is in no condition to run, and for a bizarre moment, I wonder if we can just jump into the water and swim to Manhattan, like we’re in an action movie where that’s possible.

  “Don’t...don’t bolt,” Brian pleads. “Here, just...” He moves closer, and it feels like my heart is crashing against my rib cage, like it’s about to jettison out of my chest and into the water. “Here.”

  He reaches out with my phone, holding it by the very end, like he’s trying to give a snack to a dangerous animal in a zoo. I take it from him quickly, snatching it away and burying it in my jacket.

/>   “I’m sorry,” he continues, stepping back, hands up. “Walt... His friends... They’re all a bunch of assholes. I’m just here checking out the school. Transfer student. Got stuck with them as my like, tour group for the week.”

  I stare at him.

  “Sorry, I’m...talking too much.” He clears his throat. “How can I help? I’m Brian—”

  “I gathered,” I say, clearing my throat and pausing for a beat. “Look, if you want to help, talk to your boy about how to treat women. And don’t let him go back there. That’s our place.”

  “Fuck that, not anymore.” Rebekah sniffles.

  “I’m not letting someone take that place from us,” I insist, turning around to face her. But Rebekah’s eyes are red and wet, and she looks up at me with a crushed expression that tells me they already have. I wrap an arm around her, feeling my heart break over the loss.

  Brian is still standing there, his hands in his pockets, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

  “Thanks for getting my phone back,” I say, holding my phone up. “Like I said...if you really want to help, educate your friends.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think they’re my friends anymore,” he says, rubbing at his face, wincing when his hand brushes against his bloody lip.

  “Good,” I tell him. “You don’t need friends like that. No one does.”

  I pull out my phone, a little crack in the screen, and move to dial.

  “Who...who are you calling?” Rebekah asks.

  “The cops.” I bring the phone up to my ear. “I’m not letting anyone get away with hurting you again.”

  Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application

  AARON: Hey! Up for some resource grinding tonight?

  D1V: Hey, not a good time right now.

  AARON: No worries. Is everything okay?

  D1V: That’s a tough question to answer. I’ll go with no for now.

  AARON: Do you want to talk about it?

  D1V: Not particularly, but thanks.

  D1V: Listen I feel like my world is about to go up in flames, so let’s talk later.

  AARON: Okay. I’m around though if you need a chat.

  D1V: K.

  8

  DIVYA

  It’s only a matter of hours before the news about Quarter Slice Crisis is all over the Internet, and the reports online are just awful.

  The comments, of course, are even worse.

  I glance over at the sign on my desk, in simple black letters on a print I ordered from Etsy.

  Don’t Read the Comments.

  Ah, little sign. If only it were that easy. If only every person who gave that advice, who claimed that they heeded that advice, actually took that advice.

  Everyone reads the comments.

  Every single one.

  It’s Rebekah’s attack all over again. The video, taken by one of the bros at the pizza place, filtering from social media to all the gaming blogs. A thing to be whispered and posted about, by swarms of people that won’t hear anything that we have to say about it.

  I think the wildest thing about all of this is that nothing is reported in the actual news. Like on television or the major local news outlets. There’s no report about two girls being assaulted and threatened in the middle of downtown Hoboken. Nothing about a popular hangout for college kids being unsafe. There’s a blip in a hyperlocal news blog, linking to the gaming blogs that are talking about it. But largely, the only people discussing the incident are the video game sites.

  And it’s there that the comments are worst—from the people in my community. Or supposedly my community, at least. There’s lots of talk about me “deserving” this or that because of my stream. But how does any of that make sense? How does playing a game and making videos make me deserving of any of this?

  I see it too often. People saying how putting myself out there this way, on the Internet, on streaming sites, on social media... Well, what do I expect to happen? That I should anticipate being some kind of victim, for finding joy in something.

  How dare you, their voices say, without directly saying it.

  I close out all the blogs and my social feeds on my computer just as the doorbell to our apartment rings. I peer out the windows of my bedroom to the street below. There’s a black car with dark windows across the way that I’ve never seen before, and down near the door to our building, a woman in a suit, looking around impatiently. She rings the doorbell again.

  I slip on some shoes and hustle down the two floors to the front door, silently wishing we had a fancy intercom system so I could buzz people in from upstairs. I peer through the peephole to get a closer look at the woman and pull back with a gasp as I notice the belt around her waist, the black pistol hanging from it.

  She’s a police officer. We’d made a statement at the station near campus yesterday right after I got off the phone, but I didn’t expect someone to actually show up.

  The woman’s black hair bounces a little with every movement she makes, and she looks a lot like Misty Knight from the comics and the Luke Cage Netflix show—minus the kick-ass robotic arm—which makes me smile and feel way more at ease about her being here. She knocks on the door again, hard, making me step back a bit.

  “Hello?” she calls, her voice authoritative. I hear her grumble something else under her breath.

  I open the front door a crack, peering at her from behind the fraying screen door.

  “Can I help you?” I ask. She squints at me for a moment.

  “I’m Detective Nikki Watts,” she says, pulling a badge out from inside her jacket. “I’m looking for Divya Sharma—is she here?” She stares at me, as though she’s trying to figure out if I’m the person she’s looking for.

  “That’s, um...me,” I stammer.

  “I got the report from the station about the assault at...” She closes her eyes, like it hurts to say the name of the place. “Quarter Slice Crisis.”

  “Yeah.” I swallow nervously. “We filed that report yesterday. Is everything okay?”

  “Save for the exception that I hate puns? Yes. I understand you’re friends with Rebekah...” She pulls a notebook out and flips it open quickly, then looks back up at me, her dark brown eyes strangely warm and piercing at the same time. “Rebekah Cole? You do that video game stream together, yes?”

  “Oh God, did something happen to her?” I ask, anxiety billowing up in my chest.

  “Well, yes and no. I mean, she’s fine, your friend is fine,” she adds hastily, likely in response to the panicked expression I’m sure is on my face. “Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk about what happened at Quarter...” She shakes her head. “You know what, I’m not even going to say the name of that place. It’s so ridiculous. The bad pizza place in Hoboken with the old games. I’m the officer investigating the incident.”

  A little smile escapes her lips.

  “D-1-V,” she says, enunciating the letter, number, letter. “My niece really likes your videos, you know.”

  “No way.” I grin. “That’s really cool.”

  “Maybe we can take a selfie after we talk?” she ventures. “Mind if I come in?”

  * * *

  “We’re investigating the online harassment that’s plaguing a lot of girls in the region,” Detective Watts says as I make my way into my kitchen to fetch some water for both of us. I grab a glass, fumbling with it a bit, my nerves jostling about inside me. How does she know my gamer tag? “There’s been a serious uptick around the area, at least what’s being reported, and we think it’s organized. Particularly where you and your friend were yesterday, in Hoboken, and here in Jersey City.”

  “Hoboken. Do you think it’s coming from one of the colleges?” I ask from the kitchen, my voice echoing off the tiles. The idea that some of the harassers might go to the same school as Rebekah is enough to send my heart hammering even more. It’s
bad enough those guys from the elevator are still floating around campus someplace, without a care in the world.

  “Maybe,” Detective Watts says as I return to the living room and hand her a glass of water. She moves to sit down on the couch, and consequently sinks into it way too quickly, some of the water splashing onto her jacket.

  “Uh, sorry about that,” I say, setting down my own glass on a side table and running to grab some paper towels. She mumbles her thanks and dabs at the water spots while I grab the desk chair from my bedroom and wheel it in, feeling weird about the idea of sitting right next to her on the sofa.

  I spin the chair around to face her and sit down. “We really need to replace that couch.”

  Detective Watts looks like she’s about to disappear into the pillows. “It’s um...cozy.” She smiles awkwardly and leans forward. She’s weirdly positioned, far down and sunken into the couch, while I’m up high on my desk chair. I fuss with the lever underneath my seat to lower myself a bit, but it doesn’t help much.

  “I have to be honest here,” I say, giving up and crossing my arms. “Why are you investigating this? I’ve always been under the impression that this sort of stuff... Well, that no one cared. It’s just the Internet or whatever. Which, obviously, I don’t believe, but...that seems to be the general consensus.”

  Not to mention this is the second damn time Rebekah’s been harassed in person, and the outcome of the first time was that she had to move in order to feel even somewhat safe again.

  “Yeah.” Detective Watts sounds exhausted as she rubs the bridge of her nose. “I know. I’m trying to change that in a big way. We’re putting together a new task force with the state police and the colleges in the area—Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark, Union, and all. Trying to loop in New Brunswick. Online harassment is actual harassment. Don’t let anyone, any article or blog or nonsense anonymous person on the Internet, tell you otherwise.” She stares at me intensely. “Okay?”

  I nod. I believe her, of course. But does anyone else? It doesn’t feel like it, especially when trolls so often go unpunished.