The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

  Seeing no new earrings, I ask her what’s up. She sits down too close to me and leans over to whisper, “Guess who I just saw!”

  “I’m going to guess several citizens of Copperidge and a few fellow visitors.”

  “I saw Mia!” she hisses.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I saw Mia! She really is here in Copperidge. That means she probably will meet up with Tucker tonight!”

  Oh no. “Jessica . . .” My brain starts racing. Mia is here, in the Sleepy Bear. The place isn’t that big. My first instinct is to put my head down or hide behind a pillar, but then I remember: Mia doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know who I am. Or what I’ve done.

  “She’s nice!” Jessica says. “I knew she was, and I’m vindicated.”

  “You talked to her?” I ask, heart in my throat. “What did you say?”

  “I told her I was a big fan,” my sister says happily. The happiest I’ve seen her, I realize, since her attempt. My heart squeezes. “I told her I’d been following her for years, even before she got really famous.”

  “What did she say?” I remind myself to be calm, but I don’t think I could do a breathing exercise right now even if I tried.

  “She said thank you, of course. She asked me what my username is, but I said I didn’t comment. I didn’t want her to know I was suicidal.”

  “Jessica,” I say, observing where the expression cold sweat comes from, “you’re wearing a sleeveless blouse.”

  She looks down at her arms, then her bandaged wrists. I refreshed those bandages myself this morning, following the nursing instructions, and I’m not that good at it. Suffice it to say they are attention getting.

  “Oh,” she says. “Rats. Well, anyway. I was an excellent sister. I knew you probably weren’t supposed to tell anyone what you were doing for her, so I acted like I didn’t know about any of that.”

  I suck in a breath of air. Just in the nick of time; I was getting light headed. “Good,” I say, calming. “That’s good.” I remind myself this is not life and death. Life and death is the young woman sitting next to me. At the moment, she’s choosing life.

  “I just told her I really loved her attitude and that it had helped me in the past, and she said thank you and she was so glad and it was the whole reason she used Pictey in the first place.” Jessica’s eyes start to well up. She takes my hand in hers, and the sensation is so unfamiliar that it takes me a moment to realize how good it feels. “Paige, she’s so kind.”

  I look down at Jessica’s hand. I could tell her the truth, that Mia started using Pictey for the reason everyone starts using Pictey: because it’s there. But I don’t.

  Even with all she knows, Jessica is still enamored of her internet idol, still believing @Mia&Mike is real, still touched by even the most insincere of influencer clichés. I wish I could relieve her of all that naivete somehow. It would take away so much of the hurt life will deliver at every opportunity. But it would also take away this moment of joy.

  So instead I smile at her. “You did good,” I say, breathing in slowly, one, two, three, four, feeling the warmth of my sister’s hand. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s gone,” says Jessica. “Out the front door. She was wearing a yellow Prana hoodie and Alo moto leggings with asymmetrical mesh.”

  I close my eyes, partly in relief and partly to make this wardrobe update stop. “But wait, you didn’t hear the best part,” she adds, dropping my hand in favor of gesturing excitedly. “I made you look good to your boss!”

  My chest gives a panicked thud.

  “I told her I loved her latest posts,” says Jessica. “I told her that her feed had only gotten better in the last week. That way she’ll think you’re doing an amazing job!”

  “Oh, Jessica,” I say. What else is there?

  She thinks I’m happy. “I’m a genius, right?”

  I inhale again slowly, noticing with some irony that I appear to be “focusing on my breath.” “You’re very smart,” I say to her. I think of how many lies I told Jessica, or how many omissions I’ve allowed, and how she’s taken each one at face value. “I hope I am not being hurtful when I say that you’re too naive for the word genius to apply, in all likelihood. I’d have to see your actual IQ results, but I feel confident based on our time together that your score would be sub–one fifty.”

  She laughs at me, even after I have delivered such a terribly harsh truth. It is the sound of the old Jessica, the one I remember from long ago. A soft rolling laugh that splashes over you, like a sprinkler on a hot day, joy and surprise and freedom all combined into one.

  I think of a day back then, when she was small, when she came along and made me have a reason, before life turned us into strangers. She loved an old rickety merry-go-round in an overgrown park near our home that hadn’t yet been improved with safe climbing structures and pinch-proof swings. But one day I wasn’t paying close attention. She laughed and laughed, and I kept spinning until I realized the platform was going too fast, and she wasn’t laughing anymore. She was crying, petrified, clutching the center bar and gritting her teeth in fear. I had no idea when one kind of squeal had turned to another, but I remember the look on her face. It was a look of betrayal.

  She trusted me then, and she trusts me now. Her bottomless trust is a terrible weakness or maybe a great strength, but either way, the most important thing now is that it’s not snuffed out today. Not by me.

  Now she turns toward me with a light in her eyes, betrayal a million miles from her mind. “I know you think I’m naive because I believe in Mia Bell. But I do believe in her, so much. I think she’s a good person who is trying to figure out how to live in a world that kind of sprang up around her slowly over time. I think she’s been graceful to her followers for years, in spite of the stuff you complain about after just one week of posting in her place. In spite of the mean comments and the constant demands, she just keeps posting, and her posts stay joyful and encouraging. She posts lovely things even when times are bad for her, like when she’s just been pretty much left at the altar, for example, because she’s trying to make the world feel like a good and happy place. She’s showing people how life can be worth living.”

  I shake my head at her. “Even if all that is true,” I say, realizing as I do that it is, that my sister is right, “you cannot deny that she is a fake.”

  “She’s faking it right now,” says Jessica. “She’s in a tight spot. That’s not the same thing.”

  I grimace in frustration, trying to reconcile these impossible truths. “What if she were a reality TV star?” I ask Jessica. “Like the Real Housewives or the Bitch Bosses. Would you love her so much then? After all, she’s selling her privacy and integrity for advertising dollars. Is she really so different from any of them?”

  Jessica thinks for a moment, and when she answers, she says something so smart that for a moment I really do wonder if she might be the genius and I might be the one who’s been foolish all along.

  “If there were a reality show about Mia,” she says, “no one would watch it. Because she is the opposite of what those shows are all about. She has plenty of opportunities to create drama and pathos.” My sister’s eyes are as clear as the blue mountain skies this town delivers to us day in and day out. “But instead, all she creates is hope and optimism.” She pauses. “Hope, optimism, and a good living selling fancy yoga pants.”

  MIA

  Earlier today my manager called my mom’s landline to yell at her.

  An hour ago I had 4,200 emails.

  And now I am staring at the spot where a girl I’ve never met came up to me covered elbow to wrist in gauze and first aid tape. And I knew, in an instant, exactly who she was.

  I’ve thought of her more than once since I tossed my phone. When she commented, it was on the post I’d made after I’d found out Tucker was leaving me, or rather not joining me in Colorado. She said something vague, but I remember it felt dangerous, and I remember responding to her the best I could. But I a
lso remember drinking three fingers of bourbon and crying in a bathtub that night. I remember the oppressive cocktail of rejection mixed with humiliation. I don’t remember exactly what I said to her then, but I know it wasn’t the same as what I’d say to her now, a couple of weeks later, since I let go of the incessant chipper fakery that was my online persona. Today I would say, Dear Jessica, whoever you are, wherever you are, you did the right thing. You did the right thing reaching out for help, but you have to do it again; you have to find someone or something that makes you safe tonight. Someone there with you right now. Someone you can reach out and touch. Do nothing until you can talk to just one real person. Because this feed, this is not a real person.

  I would say: There is no one alive who deserves life more than you. No celebrity or billionaire or supermodel. You’ve shown great honesty. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re already a success.

  And then I would call 911. I don’t know what I would tell them, but who cares? I would still call.

  That’s not how I handled it that day, and I don’t know how it came to be that she and I were standing in the same coffee shop just now, but it is clear that she tried to hurt herself after our interaction, and yet somehow she still thinks I’m worth knowing. She still came up to me to thank me for something. And I took her hand, gave her a hug, and tried to tell her something—be safe, take care, I don’t know what—but what I do remember is what she said to me as we parted. She said, “I love your latest posts. The feed has only gotten better in the last week.”

  And now I cannot figure out which end is up.

  I walk out of the Sleepy Bear, looking for air and space and Dewey. Dewey, who makes sense, in real life, in real time. It’s such a short walk from the distillery; maybe I’ll head in that direction, and we’ll meet in the middle. It seems suddenly urgent that I find him so I can tell him all the strange things that have happened and he can help me figure out what’s going on. But the moment that I turn from the storefront of the coffee shop to walk down the sidewalk, I find myself looking into the eyes of the man I was supposed to marry.

  Weirder still, the man I was supposed to marry is smiling at me and trying to give me a hug.

  “Mia!” Tucker looks breathless.

  “Tucker?” I say, swatting him away. “What are you doing here?”

  “I went to your mom’s house, but a girl walking a chicken on a leash told me you were in town teaching yoga.”

  Azalea, I think. I know she was planning on spending the evening with my mom hunting for frogs. Sounds like she found a toad. “What were you doing at my mom’s house?” I ask, because I’m not exactly sure where else to start.

  “Looking for you,” he says. “Did you see my DM?”

  “What DM?” I ask. “No,” I say before he answers. “I haven’t seen any DMs in a while,” I add. “What’s going on? What are you doing here? How soon can you leave?”

  “I saw your posts, Mia,” he says, and I see he is trying to figure out where to stand, how to reach me, though I am backing away with every step he takes. “I made a terrible mistake.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Several.” I square my shoulders. The first couple of days after he dumped me, I spent a lot of time fantasizing about him coming to his senses and rushing to my side, but now that he’s here, Tucker seems suddenly very tiresome. It’s like I have sudden-onset PMS, if you could focus all that impatient energy at just one person, and that person is wearing stupid hipster glasses he doesn’t need.

  “I want to make things right,” he goes on. “I am so, so sorry for what I did. I want to make it up to you. I miss you constantly, Mia. I took you for granted, and I didn’t understand your timetable, and I didn’t give you enough credit. I’m so sorry. Things are going to be different in the future.”

  “Tucker, I’m going to stop you here,” I say. “I can’t let you do some big apology and presentation with PowerPoint slides. There is literally no universe, none, in which I get back together with you.” I pause and think about how far I’ve come. The time for smiling and faking it has passed.

  He looks gobsmacked. “You can’t mean that,” he says.

  “I don’t want to be harsh here,” I say. “But also I kind of do. Let me explain the roller coaster I’ve been on over you since we met less than a year ago: I have felt attracted, then in lust, then less amazed, then, though I did not acknowledge it until just now, generally stuck with you. Then, thank my lucky stars, you dumped me. Then I felt hurt, then furious, then I forgot you existed for a couple days there, and now we’re hovering around annoyed indifference.”

  “You don’t mean that. You’re angry,” he tries. “I know I let you down.”

  I shake my head. “Angry is too exciting a term. I am closer to moderately irritated. Irked, I would say. I have a yoga class to teach tonight, and I was planning to meet up with a friend for a quick bite first, and a few strange things have happened to me today, and you, Tucker, are the last one of those I will tolerate.

  “You’re uninvited and largely unwelcome, and I am not taking you back. Can we skip so much drama right now and, like, high-five and go our separate ways?”

  “You’re teaching yoga again?” he asks, excitement in his voice.

  “I am. As you surely know, I’m taking time off work. I need to do something with purpose in my downtime.”

  “What do you mean, taking time off? Is that why you put up that post?”

  “That’s exactly why I put up that post,” I say. “I wanted everyone to know I was fine and that I’d be away from my account for a while to recharge. It was pretty self-explanatory.”

  “Not that post,” he says. “I’m talking about the one from this morning.”

  I look at him flatly. Has everyone gone around the bend?

  “The one where you tell everyone to go to hell, basically.”

  I stare at Tucker for a long time. My brain is stumbling through a lot of thoughts, and none of them are related to one another. Marty’s phone call, my email inbox, the girl with the bandages, Tucker’s arrival, and now the second mention today of a recent post. These facts are colliding in my skull like pinballs, with nothing connecting or landing where it belongs. I try to figure out which piece of information is the most important. Tucker wants me back—that feels urgent but not good. I don’t want to handle that one any more than I already have. So instead I say, “Can I see your phone?”

  “What for?”

  I don’t even answer him, just hold out my hand. After a moment he places his unlocked phone into it. I open Pictey and click my own picture. My feed, that carefully cultivated mix of airbrushing, Photoshop, hashtags, and nonsense, comes up on the screen. I read.

  . . . Rather than sit and do nothing like you entitled nitwits, I’m going to try some more practical ways of pursuing my goals, such as working harder instead of killing hours of every workday on social media, saving money instead of buying everything I see advertised on some influencer’s feed, and being alone with my thoughts instead of forcing someone else to create constant sources of entertainment for me in every second of my day.

  Consider this: maybe if your relationship with technology requires you to sit prone in a mindless trance for forty-five minutes per day to recover, you should just get off of social media for pity’s sake and go take a nice walk!

  Of all the words in the entire post, it’s the last sentence, specifically for pity’s sake, that makes me stumble the most. “For pity’s sake?” I repeat, mystified. “What is this?” I ask him. “Who wrote this? You?”

  Tucker looks like I hit him. “You didn’t write this?” he asks.

  “Did you read this? Of course I didn’t write it. I would never talk to people that way. It’s supercilious and insulting. No one on my feed has done anything to deserve this, besides the usual trolls, and the hell with them. And why would I disrespect the idea of meditation? I love meditation.”

  “I thought . . . ,” he starts. “I thought you’d done a one-eighty. I thought yo
u’d decided to push back against the social media machine.”

  “I did! I did a one-eighty; I did decide to push back,” I say. “I haven’t posted since just after you dumped me. All of this is . . .” I scroll and see pictures that do look like they could be mine, and I scan captions that sound exactly like me . . . “Fraud,” I say. My stomach falls as the pieces of a terrible puzzle begin to slide into place. “There must be fifty bogus posts.” My mind starts to reel. The first one is from the same day I threw away my phone.

  Around us, a small crowd is gathering, people pretending not to look. A few with phones out. I realize my voice has gotten loud. My face is hot, my hands gripping Tucker’s phone for dear life. I scroll and scroll and see how my cyberself, a persona I created so carefully and intentionally, has been online the entire time I’ve been off. Everything I’ve done to free myself from the social juggernaut has been pointless. @Mia&Mike is more real, it seems, than I’ve ever been.

  Helplessly, I gesture to Tucker. “Tucker, we may not be close anymore, but surely you have to know I would never post this.”

  He deflates. “I just hoped . . .” His voice trickles away. “I don’t know.”

  “Hoped that I’d decided to be unkind to all the people who have given me their precious time and attention?” I ask, thinking of the countless people who have told their stories, found their tribe, made their connections through the comments of my feed. “No. It was hard enough for me to step away in the first place. I felt like I had to choose between all of them and myself. And now look. I spent the last year living my life for the benefit of a social media identity that doesn’t even need me to run,” I say, my voice cracking. “Because it was all I had left after Mike.”

  Tucker’s expression crumples. “You had me.”