Fugly

by Claire Waller

  I read the rant over and over, trying to twist it around so it computes. Once upon a time, that would have been no problem at all. A month ago, I could have written that. Hell, maybe even a week ago.

  And there is still a little, vicious part of me that agrees with every word she says. The Beautiful People do have it easier.

  But that doesn’t excuse what we did. What I did. It’s not their fault society is built that way, and it certainly doesn’t make them any less human. Okay, so they don’t have to document every single aspect of their lives online. They don’t have to go out of their way to make sure they have an adoring audience. They could just be hot and anonymous. But, hell, who am I kidding? I get it! I know how strong the lure of the internet is. Am I really any different? They post pictures to make themselves feel that someone cares and that they are someone who matters. I troll those girls because, in some twisted way, that means I can steal a little bit of that power from them.

  When I troll, I am their equal. It makes me feel powerful and clever and dangerous—all the things I’m not in the real world. Where they have their physical perfection, I have my perfect anonymity. I’m as hopelessly caught up in the web as they are. Without the internet, their lives mean nothing. Without them, my life is nothing.

  Or, at least, that’s what I once thought. But now Amy’s introduced me to another way. A way that doesn’t involve sitting on your own in the dark spitting venom at people.

  I close my eyes and let out a long, shaky breath. I’ve been so stupid. I was so caught up with Tori and her seductively dangerous ways that I didn’t even see Amy there, doing what friends are supposed to do, being what friends are supposed to be.

  And now, that’s all at risk. If she discovers what I did to Dizzy, she’ll be gone and all I’ll be left with is a shell of a family and spite spewing from a computer screen.

  I gasp. Now that I realize how huge this is, tears aren’t enough. I actually feel physically sick. Because even if I manage to keep all of this to myself, I still have to live with it. I still have to live with Dizzy and that bloke’s marriage and Freedomchick’s online disappearance and the unknown fates of countless others like her, other people who admitted defeat and quietly slipped away . . . maybe in more ways than one. Despite never picking up a weapon, I’ve got blood all over me. And it is never going to wash off.

  Beth? You there?

  I glance at the time. Shit. I’ve been sitting here, paralyzed, for nearly ten minutes.

  Yeah.

  I have no idea what to say next. I mean, how do you tell someone you love that you not only think they’re wrong, but that you now think they’ve been wrong all along, and that you were too, and you kind of wish you’d never started this whole sordid business in the first place, without seriously hurting them?

  I need chocolate and I need it now, in vast quantities. I rummage through a treasure trove of empty wrappers, hoping my bedside cabinet holds at least one I’ve missed, but I come up empty. Even chocolate has deserted me. I am truly alone.

  More minutes tick by. What do I say? What do I do? Agree with her and go along with whatever she wants to do? That would be the easiest option. Just pretend all of this was nothing more than a silly misunderstanding, sorry babe, don’t know what came over me, sure let’s do it, that bitch deserves everything she gets, btw that pic of you in that T-shirt is gorgeous, can I have a more private one later, if you know what I mean, wink wink . . .

  Yeah, I could do that. I could take the easy way, the coward’s way.

  But if I do, I may as well kiss my friendship with Amy goodbye, because there’s no way I’ll be able to look her in the eye ever again. What we did to Dizzy didn’t just hurt Dizzy—it hurt everyone around her, even me. And while self-sabotage is definitely another of my talents, even I realize that sticking my head in the sand and carrying on wouldn’t just be that, it would be full-on engage-self-destruct mode. Warning: radioactive person ahead.

  Tori, I’m sorry, but I can’t agree. Not this time. I know we’ve been hurt by others in the past and punishing them was our way of dealing with it . . . but this time it’s different. You weren’t there. You didn’t see the blood, or how scared everyone was, how miserable and vulnerable Dizzy was. It made me realize that our targets are real ppl. Real women, with hopes and fears and insecurities that we don’t know about. Sure, what they’re doing is stupid and vain, but be honest. If you looked like them, wouldn’t *you* be doing it?

  I take in a deep, shuddering breath. Time to lay my cards on the table.

  Cos I know I would.

  There’s a boom deep in my chest, like someone’s detonated a bomb in it. I start shaking as I continue trying to type, my head swimming at the enormity of my confession.

  I punish those girls cos they are everyhtin Im not. I hate them cos I love them. I want to be them I want wat they have. I wanna do yoga on a beach and have millions of ppl fawnin all over me. We all do, deep down. Even, I think, you.

  I have no idea if Tori is replying, but as far as I can tell she hasn’t logged out, so maybe she’s now doing a me: she’s questioning herself, and in reading my words, she might find a grain of truth in there. I really hope so, because I do love her, I do, and if we can just get over this, we can carry on as usual—well, not as usual, but as . . . as . . .

  Beside me, my phone buzzes. I glance down. A Facebook notification from Amy. Yeah, I know. Even I can see that might be a sign.

  My laptop screen flickers, heralding the arrival of Tori’s reply. Well, the moment of truth has arrived.

  How dare you make those assumptions? You don’t know me. You want shitty fawners? Then fuck you. I thought you were different, but no, you’re just like the other superficial whores out there. I can’t believe I once thought you might be someone special, someone different, and that we might have something special, that we were together against the world, but it looks like I was wrong. You’re right—you are no different from them if that is what you truly aspire to. You led me on, letting me think that you were on my wavelength, when all along you were just taking me for a fucking ride, and now you think you’ve taken the higher road with your touchy-feely bullshit. I seriously cannot believe you would do this to me, like it’s my fault, like you’re blaming me, like I made you do it, cos I didn’t—YOU DID IT! And whatever happens, you will NEVER be like those girls. You’re never going to have their life, you’re never going to have their popularity, you’re never going to compare to them cos you don’t have it, you don’t have the bikini body or the diet or anything they have, bitch, GOD I cannot believe you, cannot believe this, FUCK YOU! FUCK THEM AND FUCK YOU!!!

  I have to read it three times before I can even begin to make sense of it all. She’s jumping all over the place, throwing blame at everyone except herself. The backs of my eyes sting and my throat turns bitter. Is this what she really thinks? Is this how she truly views the world? That anyone who aspires to be, well, anything beyond being a stone-cold bitch to everyone is somehow a fraud?

  The fact that her rant is so disjointed makes it clear that I’ve managed to really hurt her. That she doesn’t just do this for fun; she really believes she’s righteous—which is mental. I mean, even I knew what I was doing was wrong, when all is said and done.

  Before I can even think of replying, Tori’s message disappears and Metachat shuts itself down. I stare at the screen, blinking furiously. Looks like Tori just left the building. Did Metachat always do that when she logged off? I can’t remember. I was always too full of thoughts of her to even think about how Metachat shuts down. Maybe I should have paid more attention.

  I run both my hands through my hair. Oh shit. Oh shitty shitting shitty shit. What do I do now? Am I losing her? I literally have no idea. I don’t know how these things work. Sure, I’ve been bullied before and had shouting competitions with just about every member of my immediate family, but this is different. I hated my bullies. My family is, well, my family—you’re supposed to argue with them. But this? Is this
just a tiff, or is this one of those I never want to see you again deals? I don’t know, and it’s making me want to puke. And maybe jump off a building. Or build a time machine so I can go back and erase the last hour. Or maybe the last week. The last month?

  Oh, God, why did I say those things? I am such an idiot! Stupid stupid stupid! Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut, or say I was busy, or that Mum had called me, or, let’s face it, found an anonymous Beautiful Person to torment just to keep her happy—okay, so I’d have to live with the guilt, but at least Tori would now be happy and would be sending me messages of love rather than . . . whatever that was. It’s all my fault. All of it. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  My phone buzzes again and I jump about eight feet off the bed. Another notification from Amy. Shakily, I open up Facebook. She’s tagged me into a few things—a couple of memes, nothing serious, just Amy-stuff. And there’s a friend request.

  From Indigo.

  I stuff a hand into my mouth to stop the sob escaping.

  A few months ago, I was alone and miserable. Now, miraculously, I have friends—and they’re judging me on what they think is my personality, my qualities as a fellow human being, and not a number sewn into the back of my shirt. This is utopian stuff! Or it would be, if it wasn’t all built on lies, the biggest of all being that I’m a good person, because I’m not, I’m a bad person, a very bad person, and I don’t know what to do about it. At all.

  Well, Indigo is going to have to wait for a moment. And Amy—sorry, you too. I need to find Tori. I need to say whatever it is I need to say to make things right between us. I don’t care what it is or what I have to do—I just want things to go back to where they were, rewind to some arbitrary point where everything seemed okay and I can actually live with myself.

  I click through my posts. Funny, I can’t find her.

  Okay, contact list. Scroll scroll scroll . . .

  She’s not there.

  I check again.

  Still not there.

  Okay, forget the phone, stupid shitty phone, can never find anything on that. Check on the laptop. Aaaaaannnnd nothing.

  In the few minutes since she pulled out of Metachat, Tori has unfriended me.

  I think I’ve just been dumped.

  49: #FML

  Three days.

  Three days of staring at the screen, of hitting refresh every thirty seconds, of logging into Metachat just on the off chance a miracle key might be waiting for me.

  Three wasted, miserable days.

  I haven’t gone out. How could I? I might miss her. Well, okay, maybe I did go and get some chocolate, but that’s it. It was, what, fifteen minutes, twenty at the most. One shop, a fiver’s worth, yeah they’re all for me, you judgmental knobhead.

  I’ve trawled Facebook, trying to find her, but there’s nothing. Not even a you must be friends with this person to view their profile. We had no mutual friends, no mutual connections. I don’t even have the know-how to reverse-engineer the posts she once commented on to somehow find something resembling an IP address. It’s like she never existed. All I have are the pictures I secretly downloaded. I stare at them, trying to resist the urge to stroke the screen, as if that might bring her back into my life.

  I’ve had a couple of messages from Amy asking if I’m okay. I end up telling her I’m sick, which isn’t a lie because I am sick, heartsick, so sick I’m beginning to wonder if it’s time to call it on this miserable life. I can’t ever see it getting any better; get older, get fatter, get more and more desperate . . .

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, my eyes screwed up tight. This isn’t right. Gotta do something. Gotta sort this out. Can’t just sit here and rot. It’s all a bit ridiculous, if you think about it; all I did was say I’d had a change of heart over being a total bitch to strangers. It wasn’t as if I’d decided to dedicate my life to Jesus or Kanye or a commune. Sure, we’d had fun before that fun nearly managed to kill someone, but that wasn’t the be-all and end-all of our relationship—was it? We had more than that. We had to. I think of Tori and my heart flutters. I feel physically sick when she’s not around. That’s love, isn’t it? Maybe I should be flattered that she’s had such an extreme reaction. Maybe this proves that she loved me more than she ever admitted, even if that also proves that it’s all a bit twisted? Maybe, just maybe, she’s sitting in her room, staring at her screen, wondering how she’s going to fix all of this and invite me back into her life.

  I let out a shuddery breath, because that last thought is the most painful of all. That Tori is still out there, waiting for me, wanting me, just plucking up the courage to get back in contact. It’s painful because it fills me with hope—horrible, insidious hope, a little scrabbly thing that runs around your body, lighting fires along your nerve endings, forever whispering what if and maybe even though that kind of shit only happens in movies.

  I rummage around in my bedside cabinet until my fingertips brush against something solid through the whispery wrappers of my misery. I pull the candy bar out—a Snickers, not my favorite but it was a quid for four and hell, who am I kidding, they’re all my favorites when I’m this desperate—and tear into it, mechanically chewing and swallowing, not really enjoying it but eating it anyway because it’s the closest thing to actual, genuine comfort I can get around here.

  And all too soon, it is gone: just another empty wrapper joining its brethren in the cabinet. Together they twinkle like jewels in the light of my bedside lamp, shiny slivers of fleeting happiness, heavy reminders of soul-ripping shame. I’m running my tongue over my teeth to savor the last of the salt-and-sweetness you get when you mix chocolate with peanuts when my phone rings. It makes me jump, because it doesn’t ring that often. I mean, who would call this stinking loser?

  Turns out, Amy would. I should have guessed that, I suppose.

  I could ignore it. I don’t know if I’m up to her relentless perkiness. But, at the same time, can I really risk alienating anyone else?

  “Hey,” I say, trying to keep the weariness from my voice.

  “Hello,” Amy replies, sounding oddly officious. “Not coming to lectures again?”

  “No, not today. I’m not feeling great. Sorry.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Again, she sounds clipped, like I’ve somehow upset her. Oh, this is brilliant! I don’t even need to be around people to piss them off now. Just my mere existence will do that.

  “Yeah, I think I’ve picked up a bug. Feel terrible.”

  “So I take it you’re not going to be coming to that workshop tomorrow. That’s nice and convenient. Did you ever find out what group you were in?”

  My stomach drops a note. I’d forgotten about the workshop. I swap my phone to my other ear so I can wipe my sweaty palm against my thigh. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Amy sounded angry. But that can’t be right. Amy’s never angry. Angry doesn’t even feature in her emotional dictionary.

  “Uh, no, I forgot to do that—not that it matters, what with this virus. Are you okay?”

  “Yep,” she snaps.

  “Oh. All right. It’s just that you don’t sound yourself today. Has something happened?” Ohshitfuckbollocks, has she found out about Dizzy? Does she know it was me?

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, Miss ‘We’ve never heard of Bethany Soames’?”

  My heart rockets up into my throat and sits there, quivering, until I think it might suffocate me.

  “Pardon?” I manage to squeak.

  “I went to lectures today. I thought I’d do something good, so I apologized for your absence. Said you were ill but you’d be back soon. Imagine how I felt when Grindle looked at me like I’d grown another head. Turns out, he has no idea who you are. I thought it was a bit weird given you’re pretty good at his subject, but hey, we all know what lecturers can be like, especially when it comes to first-year undergrads, so I let it slide. Having nothing else to do because my best friend’s ill at home, I decided to go into the office and find out what gr
oup you were in for the workshop, just in case you were back tomorrow. So I looked at the list—and lo and behold, your name wasn’t on it. So I spoke to the secretary, and guess what? She’d never heard of you, either. She looked you up on her computer and everything, but nope, no sign of Bethany Soames. Or Beth Soames. Or Elizabeth Soames, or any Soames at all. What the fuck is going on?”

  She gets progressively louder until she’s all but screaming at me. I try to swallow, but I can’t.

  This is worse than Dizzy. This might even be worse than Tori.

  My whole life. My whole identity.