Fake

by Donna Cooner

  He knows what I’ve done.

  Everyone knows.

  I nod.

  “Tell me. I need to hear it all from you.”

  “I wanted to make Jesse understand what it felt like to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, so I created the perfect girl online and made him fall for her,” I say quickly. I’ve never admitted it out loud before. I exhale and look up at Owen.

  “Really, Maisie?” he asks quietly. “It doesn’t even sound like something you’d do.” It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him upset. Especially at me. His hands clench at his side into fists. His silence is like a knife in my chest.

  “I can explain,” I say, even though I really can’t.

  “Okay,” he says, waiting.

  “It wasn’t the same for you,” I tell him, my face flushing. “The whole Froot Loop thing? You just laughed it off. But I didn’t think it was funny. It only made me angrier and angrier. There was nowhere for that anger to go, except into this … plan.”

  “Plan,” Owen echoes, shaking his head.

  I sigh. “I just wanted to be normal …”

  “Normal?” Owen asks with a bite in his voice. “But we’re not normal, Maisie. We’ve never been normal. Don’t you get it? That’s what we’re good at. Not. Being. Normal.”

  Lexi’s voice echoes in my brain. Be yourself. Nobody else can.

  I think back to Claire and Jesse and Dezirea and all the people at the dance. Pointing at me and staring. I put my head in my hands and groan.

  “Everyone hates me now,” I say.

  Owen is silent, and I glance up at him.

  Owen tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. “Not everyone,” he says softly. “I don’t.”

  “You should.” My eyes fill up with tears. I don’t deserve him.

  “I know who you are inside and outside. And I like both.” He leans in to my shoulder just a tiny bit, but the slightest of touches means the world to me. “Even when you do really stupid things.”

  Relief floods over me. Owen is still here and he’s still going to tell me the truth. Somehow I didn’t screw this—our friendship—up. At least, I hope not.

  “Thank you,” I say, starting to sob so hard my shoulders shake.

  “You don’t need to cry,” Owen says. But he lets me. After a while, I can talk again.

  “Lexi Singh didn’t like my pictures,” I sniffle. “She said I need to dig deeper and be more honest.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Owen says dryly.

  “I can’t even draw myself.”

  “Because you don’t see yourself.”

  I wipe the tears away from my face. “Owen, listen. You know that I don’t fit into a world where girls have to look a certain way. I’ll never look like Sienna or Dezirea or Camila—or any of the other girls who everyone calls pretty.”

  Owen holds up a hand, interrupting me. “Wait. Who’s Sienna?”

  Right. I sort of assumed Owen would have heard her name amid the rumors. “She’s the girl I made up online. Using Claire’s photos.” Saying the words out loud makes my throat tighten.

  “Oh,” Owen says quietly. “Okay.”

  We’re silent for a minute and then Owen speaks again.

  “So maybe you don’t look like those girls,” he says, “but they will never see the world from your eyes. You have to show what you see to them, and everyone else. You’re the only one who can.”

  I nod.

  “I wanted to give you something.” Owen reaches into his pocket and pulls out a drawing. It’s a Froot Loops strip where he shape-shifts into a crow. He holds it out to me, but I can’t take it from him. He lets the slip of paper go and it drifts down to the ground like a tiny airplane. I watch it land and my eyes fill up again.

  “Why did you bring this tonight?” I ask.

  “It’s an amazing picture. I thought you might want to show it to Lexi.”

  “I showed her my drawings that looked most like her style—realistic, clean, and sophisticated. I didn’t show her this stuff.”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “You’re right,” I say, starting to tear up again. What would I do without Owen? I am so grateful that he didn’t give up on me after he found out what I did. “Our friendship is the best friendship I’ve ever had,” I blurt out, looking at him. “I can’t lose you.”

  “Just because we’re best friends doesn’t mean we can’t have more friends.” We both know he’s talking about Grace. “Gaining something doesn’t mean you have to lose something in return. Sometimes our hearts just get bigger.”

  “Where did you learn that?” I sniffle.

  “Hygge.”

  I bite my lower lip and shake my head in confusion. “What?”

  “It’s my next self-study,” Owen says.

  “Honestly, I’m glad we’re moving away from humor, but what is …” I don’t even know how to repeat the word. “That?”

  “It’s Danish and the word doesn’t transfer exactly into English, but it sort of means coziness,” Owen says. “It’s all about comfort, warmth, and togetherness.”

  “Then I need some hygge.” I lean my head on his shoulder.

  He pats the top of my head awkwardly with one hand. “We all do.”

  Owen is incredibly profound sometimes.

  As soon as I get home, I open ChitChat as Sienna and the response is overwhelming. The story of my deception not only spread throughout the dance, but also blasted through the internet with lightning speed. Sienna’s wall is covered with messages from random people I don’t even know.

  DON’T FOLLOW HER. SHE’S A FAKE!!!!

  I don’t want to keep looking, but I can’t stop.

  WARNING! THIS IS A FAKE ACCOUNT.

  But it gets worse. Now the notices are on my own account, too. People have connected Sienna to me and they are blasting the news to anyone who will listen.

  THIS GIRL IS A CREEPER! DON’T FOLLOW HER.

  GET YOUR OWN LIFE AND STOP TRYING TO STEAL OTHER PEOPLE’S YOU FAT COW.

  My throat constricts. I feel every comment like a cut across my skin. Especially the ones from the people I know.

  CAMILA: YOU ARE SO SAD. DO YOU HATE YOURSELF THAT MUCH?

  BELLA: SHE’S JUST A LONELY LOSER. SO CRAZY SHE HAS TO FAKE HER OWN FACE!

  I make myself click over to Claire’s profile. She’s just posted something new.

  CLAIRE: PLEASE READ! DON’T CONTACT OR COMMUNICATE WITH SIENNA MARAS. SHE IS PRETENDING TO BE ME!! SHE IS A LIAR.

  I can’t blame her. She’s right. I am a liar. I keep reading. It is my punishment, and I deserve every word.

  CLAIRE: SHE EVEN SAID I WAS IN A CAR ACCIDENT! SO SICK.

  Immediately, people rally to Claire’s side.

  OMG! THIS IS SOOOOOOO WEIRD! YOU SHOULD REPORT HER. SHARING RIGHT NOW!

  YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS! I’M SO SORRY THIS IS HAPPENING TO YOU.

  There are no comments or updates from Dezirea, or from Jesse. I don’t know if I feel relieved or sad about that.

  Sienna is gone. I deleted her profile from ChitChat, but not before the comments started pouring in. After I finish reading through them all, I cry. Sobbing, gasping, wrenching crying like I haven’t done since I was a child. The kind of crying that leaves me gasping for breath. When the tears eventually slow, my head aches.

  Finally, I can’t cry anymore. I curl into a tight circle and pull up the covers. Katy Purry tucks tightly into the crook of my knee and I reach for my sketchbook. I draw a square on the paper—a frame. I imagine putting my bitterness, anger, and hatred of myself into that frame. The pencil flies across the page as I scribble black lines circling down down down into the blackness of the box. I close my eyes. When I open them again, I turn the pencil over and I erase everything. I let it go. The blankness of the paper is still marked with a faint shadow and indentations that will not fade away completely. But I am free now to draw something new and different.

  I draw and draw, scattering pages around me like petals droppin
g off a dying flower. I draw stories. Stories that are only important to me. I draw with abandon. The images scream off my fingers and dance across the page like a slow and sad song. Slightly skewed and imperfect characters living in an unfair world. They look nothing like Lexi Singh’s highly styled world of beautiful people. When I copied her style, it wasn’t just about leaving myself out of my art. It was also about how I couldn’t let myself fully live within it. Now I struggle to capture the pain of every rejection I’ve ever experienced.

  For the first time, I actually want to share my truth. Not just draw it, but share it. With other people. The risk makes my hands shake and my heart pound. If I share The Froot Loops with the world, my insides will be turned out. Nothing will be hidden from view.

  What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like me?

  But then again, they don’t like me now, so maybe it doesn’t matter. I have nothing to lose.

  The papers full of my pictures scatter across the bed. The last one, still on my pad, stares back up at me. The main character is no longer blank. She’s there, without a mask, fighting injustice and cruelty. It’s a picture of a girl with beautiful black hair and dark, intelligent eyes. Her face and body are round, her legs thick and short. She has a look in her eyes that says she has a past and a future. I’ve finally drawn me. The real me.

  But nobody understands how much real hurts. I curl up on my side in the middle of the papers, closing my eyes. Real is waiting in my Froot Loop drawings, in all their heart-ripping truth. Real tears me open and shows the ugly side of being a high school misfit.

  I have to be honest with myself. I can’t blame everything that’s happened on bullies, or my being fat. So much of it is my fault. I ruled people and things out of my life before I even gave them a chance. I thought I was the one rejected, but maybe it was the opposite. I rejected everyone and everything before they had a chance to show me their true selves. Creating Sienna wasn’t about tricking Jesse. Not really. It was about me wanting to look like someone else. There was no grander motive behind it. I wanted to step outside the walls of my skin for a day … an hour. And somehow, by becoming someone else, I learned that other people have walls, too. They may not be on the outside like mine, but they are just as hard to break down. Grace isn’t a flake. Jesse’s not the bully I thought he was, and Dezirea’s not a vain diva. We’re all so much more than others’ narrow perceptions.

  I look down at the drawing I just finished. On the page is a school scene, but one where Froot Loops reign. The lines are raw and the colors bold. Owen and Grace are on either side of me as I walk down the middle of the hallway. Owen wears an old, wrinkled Star Trek T-shirt and his hair is a tousled mass of orange curls that looks like it hasn’t been combed in days. Grace wears purple flip-flops and her pink floral backpack. Her T-shirt says “Froot Loops” on the front in big black block letters, and I can imagine her smile in real life, when she sees what I’ve done.

  I wear white—a color I always avoid because of my size—and a bright blue cape flies out behind me as I stride down the hallway unashamed and unflinching. There is no mask covering my face. I don’t hug the walls, trying to make myself smaller. I’m not hiding from anything.

  In the background are the others, crowded into spaces and shadows up and down the locker-filled hall. Cheerleaders. Football players. Beauty queens. Nerds. Outcasts. Student body presidents. Fat. Skinny. Ugly. Beautiful.

  The drawing is good. Better than good.

  I start to smile. This is what I am supposed to do. I realize I can create a home for myself where my body will relax and feel comfortable. Maybe others like me will feel at home there, too.

  I can create a world that others will want to join and explore. It won’t be like Mountainview and I won’t be like Nosy Parker. Or anyone else. I’ll just be me.

  I spend the rest of the weekend drawing pages and pages of stuff. Some of it is good and some of it stinks, but I keep going. My phone is off and I stay away from the internet, coming out of my room only for meals. I tell my mom I have a huge project to finish for school and she buys it because she’s busy grading exams.

  On Sunday afternoon, I walk into the kitchen, where Mom is fixing herself a tuna sandwich. She’s still in her pajamas with her glasses on and her hair up in a bun with a pencil stuck through the middle.

  “Would you like a sandwich?” she asks me.

  I shake my head. I have no appetite.

  “Are you feeling okay, hon?” Mom asks, frowning at me, and I nod quickly.

  “Hey, have you talked to Claire’s mom lately?” I ask nervously. I hope that to Mom, I sound calm. I fold my arms across my chest, bracing myself for the bad news.

  “No, I think she’s at a conference in Seattle.” Mom pauses to cut her sandwich in half on the diagonal. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Katy Purry winds in and out between her legs, meowing loudly at the smell of the tuna. “That cat is going to kill me one day,” Mom adds.

  “You and me both,” I say, and Mom laughs. I smile. It feels good to hear someone laugh.

  “Did I tell you we turned in our grant proposal last week?” She opens the dishwasher and sticks a spoon inside.

  “No,” I say.

  “I actually think we have a great chance of getting it.” Mom successfully dodges Katy Purry one more time, then brings the tuna sandwich to the table.

  “That’s good,” I say, sitting down beside her. “Maybe I will have a little of the sandwich.”

  “Of course,” Mom says, handing me a half of the sandwich. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She snaps her fingers. “Claire’s mom did actually text me something very interesting just last night.”

  I freeze with the sandwich halfway to my mouth. My stomach flips.

  Here it comes.

  “She decided not to take the job here in Fort Collins,” Mom tells me. “I guess Claire won’t be coming to your school after all.”

  I briefly close my eyes in relief. This good news will only buy me a little time. Sooner or later Claire is going to tell her mother what I did, and then her mother will tell mine. I need to talk to Claire. Even if she doesn’t want to talk back.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Mom asks, peering at me over the top of her reading glasses.

  “My stomach’s a little queasy.” It’s the truth.

  She puts the back of her hand on my forehead, then smooths the hair back from my face. “I don’t think you have a temperature, but maybe you should just take it easy this afternoon. Do you want some tea or something?”

  I shake my head. “No, but I think I’m going to go back upstairs and lie down.”

  She nods. “I’ll check in on you later.”

  Upstairs in my room, I carefully close my door. I start to dial Claire’s number three times, ending the call each time without connecting. I stare at the phone and feel my knees start to tremble.

  I can’t do it.

  My hands are clammy. I wipe them on my jeans and try again. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of my aching heart. I tell myself I’ll get through this, but it’s so hard to breathe. When I open my eyes, I call again. This time I listen to it ring once.

  Twice.

  Claire answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

  I expected it to go to voice mail. I suddenly don’t know what to say even though I practiced it in my head over and over again.

  “Claire?” I finally stammer out. “This is Maisie.”

  “I know who it is.” Her voice is angry. I don’t blame her. “What do you want? More pictures of me?”

  “No,” I say, my voice shaking a little. “I want to apologize. I did a stupid thing, and I’m really sorry.”

  “I don’t forgive you.” Her voice is taut.

  “I understand that. But I still want you to know how very sorry I am. You didn’t deserve any of this, and I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

  There is silence on the other end of the phone and for a second I think she may have h
ung up.

  I hear her take in a quick, hard breath. Then she asks, “Why me?”

  Her voice breaks and it sounds like she might be crying. I can hear the pain in her voice, and I know there is only one person to blame for her misery.

  I exhale heavily. The truth is almost more than I can bear to say. After all, haven’t I been the one who’s struggled with this reality my whole life? But I have to say it.

  “Because of how you look.” It is so ugly when I say it aloud.

  Her only answer is the click of the line as the phone call disconnects.

  That night, while Mom is in the study grading, I walk downstairs and sit on the couch beside my dad.

  “Can I talk to you?” I ask.

  My dad’s eyes don’t leave the football game, his hand reaching for the tortilla chips in front of him. “Sure,” he says.

  “I think I need to stay home from school tomorrow.”

  He must hear something in my voice. He glances sideways toward me, then points the remote at the television and turns it off. He’s looking at me hard enough to make me nervous.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  I tell my dad I’m sick.

  He looks at me. No expression on his face. Somehow, my dad always knows when I’m lying even when my mom doesn’t. “No you’re not. Why don’t you want to go to school?”

  “I screwed up. Everybody is mad at me. I did something really stupid.”

  “Okay. How long you think you’ll need to hide out?” he asks.

  “I’m not exactly hiding …” But I am.

  “And when you go back to school, then what?”

  I don’t want him to be right, but I know he is. I’m still going to have to face what I’ve done. Tomorrow. Next week. Some time. It’s going to happen, so it’s better to hit it straight on. Get it over with.

  “What did you do?” Dad asks.

  “I pretended to be someone online I wasn’t. A lot of people were hurt because of what I did.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Wow.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “I’m trying to take it all in.”

  I nod. “Yeah, it’s a lot.”