My Life Undecided

by Jessica Brody

  “Thanks,” I hear myself saying.

  “Look,” Shayne says, her expression turning serious, “I’ll stop beating around the bush. I owe you an apology.”

  My jaw drops and I gawk at her in silence.

  “It’s true!” she vows, reacting to my disbelief. “This whole hostage thing really got me thinking about our friendship. When my mom and I were watching the situation unfold on the news that night and they announced your name as one of the people trapped inside, I totally started to panic. I didn’t know if you were going to live or die. No one did. And then I started to think about what would happen if I lost you. If you never came out of that store. And…” Her voice cracks, and when I glance over, I can actually make out moisture forming in her eyes. It’s like watching a fish jump out of the bowl and start walking around. In five years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shayne Kingsley cry. I can feel my own eyes prick with tears and I quickly blink them away.

  “I’ve been a really bad friend,” she continues, her voice still heavy and fractured. “And I feel awful about it.”

  My mouth remains wide open. But not because I’m using it to speak. Quite the opposite, actually.

  Fortunately, Shayne is quick to fill the silence. “That whole party at the model home. And the fire and everything. I handled it completely wrong. I started to think about my parents’ reactions and I freaked out. Like totally freaked OUT. I’m really sorry. I should have been there for you. I should have taken half of the blame. Or all of it, really. Because you know, the party was my idea.”

  I simply can’t believe what I’m hearing. Shayne Kingsley. Apologizing. Admitting a mistake. Admitting flaw. I didn’t know that “I’m sorry” was even in her vocabulary. I’m really not sure what to do with this information. I don’t know how to process it. It’s like trying to run a Mac program on a PC. Does. Not. Compute.

  I turn and look out the window. Her voice continues to drift through the car as she speaks, but it sounds like it’s coming from a million miles away. Another world. Another lifetime. Not across the mere two feet that separate us now.

  “I want us to be friends again,” she finally concludes as the car rolls to a stop at a red light and she twists to face me. “I want to go back to the way things were. Life without you royally sucks. It’s like a martini with no olives. It just doesn’t taste right.”

  Her tone is so soft, so defenseless, that I have no choice but to face her, too. Because I simply have to know what that tone looks like. I have to know what kind of expression accompanies a confession like this. And what I find is something I’ve never seen before. At least, not on the face of Shayne Kingsley.

  Vulnerability.

  Weakness.

  Anguish.

  “Uh…” is the only thing I manage to utter. And although I know it doesn’t sound like much, it accurately sums up everything I’m feeling right now.

  “What do you say?” she asks, her voice still small like a child’s. Like a human being’s. “Do you think you can forgive me? Do you think we can be friends again?”

  Friends? With Shayne Kingsley? Just like old times?

  As much as it pains me to admit it, I actually want to believe her. To believe that she’s truly sorry. That she’s seen the error of her ways and wants to make amends.

  On the other hand, though, what she did was pretty freaking horrific. I mean, she totally dissed me. In front of everyone. Threw me out like I was a bottle of expired cold cream. Can you really forgive something like that? Can you ever be sure that she wouldn’t do it again just as quickly? Is Shayne Kingsley really capable of change?

  “I don’t know,” I finally tell her after a very long moment and two more intersections. And I don’t know. I don’t have a flipping clue. But what I really want to say is “I don’t know, but I know about a hundred people who will.”

  * * *

  My Life Undecided

  HEINOUS NO MORE?

  Posted on: Monday, November 15th at 8:59 am by BB4Life

  You’ll probably notice from the time stamp on this posting that I’m supposed to be in class right now because the bell is about to ring in less than a minute. But the news I have is SO big, I felt it was worth the extra tardy on my school record to be able to share it with you right this very minute. You know, CNN Breaking News-style.

  This Just In… Her Royal Heinous has apologized! Yes, you read that right. As in, “I screwed up. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” I mean, she was this close to getting down on her knees and begging for my forgiveness. And trust me, Her Royal Heinous does not beg. To anyone. So you can imagine my reaction. Just imagine cartoonlike eyes popping out of their sockets and jaw on the floor and you’ll pretty much have the entire picture. And to top it all off, now she wants us to be friends again.

  Needless to say, I have absolutely NO idea what to do. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for all of you because I definitely would not want to make this decision on my own.

  So what do we think?

  Oh, and in case you missed the posting fully detailing exactly what Her Royal Heinous is apologizing for and how she received her fitting nickname, be sure to check it out here before you vote.

  Okay, it’s off to learn about American history for me!

  Your friend,

  BB

  * * *

  Blog Error in Your Favor

  The bell rings right as I hit “Publish” and I leap up from my chair at one of the library computers and toss my bag over my shoulder. I lean over and hastily click the “X” on the corner of the screen to close the window. But just as the image of my blog disappears, something unusual catches my eye.

  I know it was probably a trick of my imagination and I should be bolting from the library right now and trying to slip into my seat at the back of my history classroom before Mr. Marshall notices that I’m not there, but for some reason, I find myself falling back into the chair and reopening another browser window so I can get a closer look at what I saw. Or what I thought I saw.

  I mean, it has to be a mistake. There’s no way it could be real. It’s beyond all logic. Light-years outside the realm of possibility. That’s why when I log back into my account and click on “View Blog,” I fully expect the information in front of me to confirm that I was only seeing things.

  But it doesn’t.

  In reality, it confirms exactly the opposite. That I am not going crazy. That my mind is not playing tricks on me. And that the impossible thing that I thought I saw just moments ago actually is real.

  In fact, it’s clear as day.

  Under the words “Number of Blog Visitors” it reads “782,764.”

  I blink at the screen. Twice. Then I actually rub at the corners of my eyes to make sure there’s no sleep left in there from this morning and hit “Refresh” on the Web browser. But the number does not change. Actually, it goes up. By about two thousand visitors.

  Two thousand more visitors in twenty seconds?

  But how is that possible? And where are they all coming from? Or more important, why do they all care? Before I went to bed last night that counter was at 125.

  Suddenly it’s very hard to breathe. Or move, really. I feel like my butt is cemented to the chair and my hand is glued to the mouse and my eyes are frozen in place. In fact, the only thing that does move is my index finger as I obsessively hit “Refresh” over and over, watching the staggering number continue to rise with each click of my finger.

  786,975.

  789,085.

  793,468.

  797,101.

  What the heck is going on here?

  I scroll back up to the top of the page, trying to make sense of this insanity. Then something else catches my eye. A little yellow bubble on the top of the screen that says “The system will be down for repairs today from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

  I breathe out a heavy sigh and sink down into my chair, feeling like an enormous weight has just been lifted.

 
Well, that explains it!

  There must be some kind of glitch in the program. A systemwide failure that’s causing the whole site to go cuckoo. And now they have to shut everything down to fix it. That makes so much sense! I mean, how else can you explain an 797,000-hit spike overnight?

  You can’t.

  This is the only plausible explanation.

  I navigate over to the Help section, tap out a quick e-mail to the support team listing out the details of my issue, hoping it’ll help them in their quest for a solution, and book it out of the library to my first-period class.

  I can just picture the site’s IT team, somewhere in Silicon Valley, California, running around the office like headless chickens, shouting out orders to one another, trying to sort out this embarrassing technical hiccup that’s causing everyone’s blog to go haywire. It almost makes me laugh. But I have faith that they’ll figure it out. That this glitch will be fixed. And when I come back to the library at lunch, all will be right again.

  * * *

  Monday, November 15

  Dear BB4Life,

  Thanks for notifying us regarding the unusually high volume of traffic on your blog. After further review, we have not found any functionality issues in your account and we can attest that your blog hit counter is, in fact, working correctly.

  Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

  Sincerely,

  Your Blog Support Team

  * * *

  Where There’s Smoke…

  22,980.

  That’s how many comments have been left on my latest blog posting.

  Twenty-two thousand nine hundred and eighty people have felt the need to remark on my decision to forgive or not forgive Shayne Kingsley. My head is spinning so fast, I can barely focus on the screen long enough to read a single one of them.

  I take a second look at the hit counter. It’s over a million and a half now. A million and a half. As in the population of Idaho. As in the amount of money it would require to buy a house in my mother’s new subdivision development.

  And it’s not stopping there. It just keeps going up. Every time I refresh the screen.

  Like a wildfire.

  It starts with a basic match. Struck innocently enough to light the way through a dark clump of trees and then it slips from your fingers, and before you can react the entire forest is ablaze.

  Maybe I really am an arsonist.

  I quickly close the window. As if making it disappear from my screen will also make it disappear from my life. Obviously, it doesn’t work. Because the image is seared into my brain. So I open it back up again and stare numbly at the screen.

  My heart is hammering in my chest. My fingers are cold and clammy against the buttons of the mouse.

  Who are these people? Where did they come from? How do they know about my little, insignificant blog?

  Last week this blog was nothing and today it’s the toast of the Internet. How long will it take people to figure out who wrote it? How long will it take them to put the pieces together and deduce that, like BB, I also joined the debate team and tried out for the rugby team and chose to read The Grapes of Wrath, and nearly choked in the cafeteria?

  My estimate: not very long.

  Which means I have little time before all hell breaks loose.

  A hand lands on my shoulder and I nearly jump out of my skin.

  “There you are!” Shayne’s voice echoes through the entire library, despite the “Quiet Please” signs that are plastered on every wall. “What are you doing in here?”

  There’s a clear disdain in her voice as she glances around the room, taking in her surroundings as if she’s seeing them for the first time. A secret chamber discovered in a house you’ve lived in all your life.

  I dive for the mouse, trying to close the window before Shayne catches sight of it. But it’s too late. “Oh,” she says, glancing at the screen and rolling her eyes. “That. Please don’t tell me you’re into that thing, too?”

  Way too late.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Shayne Kingsley knows about the blog.

  Shayne Kingsley has read it.

  It’s already happening. I’m already doomed.

  There’s no way she doesn’t know it’s her I’m talking about. She has to at least recognize herself. Could this be the real reason behind her apology? Could she have read the blog and now be setting me up for some kind of retaliatory revenge scheme?

  “Everyone is talking about that stupid blog,” she continues.

  “They are?” I manage to say. But it’s barely a squeak.

  “I think it’s totally overrated.”

  I search her face for a clue. A flash of accusation. But I don’t see anything.

  “Have you read it?” My voice is trembling now.

  She stares down at her manicure, as if even the maintenance of her fingernails interests her more than the topic at hand. “Yeah, I read some of it last night after DishnDiss posted it. But I really don’t see what the big deal is. So some girl needs help figuring out her life. What else is new?”

  “Wait a minute.” I rewind her words until I reach the part that strikes me as odd. “DishnDiss? As in DishnDiss dot com?”

  She looks at me like I’m clearly stupid. “Um, yeah.”

  “They posted it on their site? The site that’s read by millions of people a day?”

  “Duh,” she says, clearly getting bored with this conversation. “How else would you have heard about it?”

  I scramble for words but they’re coming out in short, incoherent clumps. “Uh…I…don’t…”

  “Whatever.” She spares me from having to finish. “So not interesting. Let’s go to lunch.”

  I don’t know if it’s the shock, or the fact that I’m still just trying to find my footing in this overturned world of mine—like a baby horse trying to walk for the first time—but I don’t argue. I let myself be led down the hallway and into the cafeteria. And before I know it, I’m right back at the center table, occupying the coveted spot next to Shayne Kingsley.

  As if I never even left.

  Under the Radar

  Everyone is talking about my blog. And debating about the fate of BB and Her Royal Heinous’s friendship like it’s a feud on an MTV reality show. Meanwhile, I just sit there, listening to people go back and forth, trapped in the constant fear of exposure. Convinced that any minute now someone is going to walk up to the table, point to me, and go, “Hey, you’re BB4Life, aren’t you?” And then everyone else will turn and stare at me in astonishment as the gears in their heads start turning and the puzzle pieces start falling into place.

  Thankfully, “that stupid blog” is the very last thing Shayne wants to talk about. And she makes her objections very clear about five minutes after we sit down.

  “Can we please talk about something else?” she whines. “This is such a waste of brain activity. Besides, BB is a loser for even contemplating forgiveness. If her ex-best friend really dicked her over that badly, then why is this even a decision to make? Her Royal Heinous is clearly a major biatch. End of discussion. Let’s talk about something else. Like the winter formal. Ooh! Or the fabuloso sweet sixteen my father is planning for me next month.”

  And for the first time in my life, I’m actually grateful when everyone obeys her command like sniveling dogs following their alpha leader and the subject is promptly changed.

  I duck out of lunch early, claiming to have to print something out before English class, and make my way back to the computer terminals in the library. I go straight to DishnDiss.com and rapidly scroll past the custody battles, eating disorders, and stories of leaked sex tapes, until I find what I’m looking for.

  It’s not long. It’s not complicated. And yet, after reading it, everything about the last few hours makes perfect sense.

  How lazy have teenagers gotten these days?

  When I was fifteen, we didn’t have blogs and online polls.

  We actually h
ad to make our own decisions. And we had to walk to school…uphill both ways…in the snow.

  Click here to vote on a hopeless girl’s life.

  This is bad. This is very, very bad. This could be the end of me. For heaven’s sake, it’s listed under the “Diss” column! I’ve been publicly dissed by the most well-known gossip site in America! If people find out that this blog is mine, I’ll never be able to recover.