“Yeah, I know, I’m dealing with it,” I manage to say. Jason’s sister? Who the—oh, yeah, Jason Cross, Hayley Cross’s brother. Hayley Cross, who bullied me from year 9 to year 11. Okay, not so bothered about that one; in a roundabout way, Tori’s actually ticked something off my bucket list.
He snorts. “Yeah, ‘dealing with it.’ ” He does that irritating air quotes thing that unimaginative people who don’t know the subtleties of true sarcasm use when they want to seem clever. “What’s up? This crap has been going on for hours now, and it isn’t like usual hacking. Whoever this is, they’ve got a real grudge against you.”
What surprises me is that he hasn’t mentioned the photos. I mean, it was the first thing I saw—all that flesh. I would have thought Brad would be telling me how disgusting I am, but instead he seems . . . concerned?
“I said I was dealing with it.”
“Well, you’re not dealing with it very well, because they’re going apeshit all over everything. I keep telling people you’ve been hacked, but not everyone’s so sure—”
“You’ve been telling people to lay off?”
“Yeah. Course I have—”
I crumple inwardly. “Oh, God, no, don’t do that. Stay out of it. She’ll work out within two seconds that you’re my brother, and then you’ll become a target too.” Especially since I once had her track you via GPS, which I am now very much regretting.
“She? What?”
“Just—stay away. Seriously, it’s the best you can do, for me and for yourself. The person doing this—they’re dangerous. I thought they were my friend, but you have no idea what they’re capable of.”
“Okay, so this person is what? A troll? Why didn’t you just block them and report them straight away?”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. In my determination to be completely miserable, I hadn’t even considered this. “Pardon?”
“Why haven’t you blocked and reported them?” He talks slowly, like he’s addressing a certified imbecile. “You know, make a new account, tell everyone you’ve been hacked, report the old account, block it, and then tell everyone to do the same. Jesus, Beth, that’s, like, How to Deal with a Hacker 101. You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
Funny how common sense often comes from the unlikeliest of sources, isn’t it? If he wasn’t so gross and my brother, I think I could kiss him right now.
“Fucking hell, you noob. I’m amazed this hasn’t happened before if this is how stupid you are.” At any other time, I’d be yelling at him for being a condescending little prick and that he’d better watch his back because he was just about to lose all his achievements in CoD, but at the moment, he’s pretty much on the money.
A new account. A clean slate. Send out friend requests to Amy and everyone else who matters and tell them it’s not me. She might not be picking up her phone, but she’s definitely online. I might just be able to salvage this situation after all. Report and believe in the powers that be for once. I know, I’m usually the one kicking them in the ankles and giving them major headaches, but right now, I’m grateful they exist. Sure, it won’t erase the pictures and it won’t stop the vile messages from those horrible websites that Tori signed me up for, but it’s a start. At least the people who count will know the truth, and that’s all I care about.
“So who is this dick you think hacked you? This is major grudge territory. What did you do to them?”
I shrug. I don’t really want to tell him, but I suppose it’s the least I owe him, given he’s helped me. “Just someone I met online. Thought we were friends, but . . .”
“Fucking hell, you were catfished?” He laughs. I bristle.
“No, I wasn’t fucking . . . cat . . . fished . . .”
Oh God.
No.
You hear about it all the time. Like, literally all the time. There’s even a TV show about it, for God’s sake. And we all watch it, smug in the knowledge that we’d never be that stupid, that we’d see right through it all from the start. I mean, how can you not? Surely this is all staged as you’d have to be a right idiot to fall for that, seriously, how do they tie their shoelaces in the morning, they must be total morons . . .
Until it happens to you.
Maybe this was the aim all along. To draw me in, gain my trust, then tear me down, piece by piece, in the most public way possible. To be the ultimate troll. Trolling the trolls.
Was everything just a game to her? All the late-night flirting, the photos, the I love yous? She said she was impressed by me, that I was special, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. She may as well have said she was a Nigerian prince with a million dollars, or a chiseled model with a thing for chubby girls.
Brad stops laughing. “Look, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Everyone will have forgotten by this time tomorrow. That’s, like, a thousand years in internet time. Just report them, make sure everyone knows you’ve been hacked and get them to report it too, and move on. You know the old saying? Don’t feed the trolls?”
Bless him, he thinks he’s giving me valuable advice. If only he knew.
53: #catfished
I’m back in my room, and a kind of grim determination has settled over me, which is much preferable to the panicked helplessness of earlier. I may not be able to take Tori on directly, but at least I can do my best to stop her from the sidelines.
First things first: new Facebook profile. Bethany Anne Soames. Big pinned announcement: As you might have guessed my account has been hacked. Please report and block, thank you. Then I send out friends requests: to Amy, Indigo, Patrick, Auntie Sandie, Uncle Paul, my cousin Frankie who lives in America, the few people from school who tolerated me . . . everyone I can think of, which rather sadly ends up only being about twenty people.
But it’s a start.
With each friendship request, I send out a message, reiterating that this is the real me, that my old account has been hacked, please please please report and then block them.
To my surprise, the first person who gets back to me is Patrick, via Messenger.
Hey, BB! WTF?! That’s major hackage, chick! Didn’t think for a min it was really u, tho. Will defo report this fucker and tell everyone else to do the same. Fuckin arsehole hacker! PS: nice pics. I no u probs didnt want them to go viral, but hey, u may as well own them now. Not bad for a big bird, BB! Paddy x
Oooookkkaaayyy. I’m pathetically grateful for him believing me but could have done without the mention of the pictures. And what does he mean, viral? No, don’t look. Can’t get distracted.
Thnx P. U think u could get Amy to msg me? Been trying to get hold of her all day and she’s not picking up.
Yeah, course! What’s goin on with u 2 anyway? Had a fight?
Oh. Well, I guess Amy was never going to be the type to keep her emotions to herself. Sounds like she didn’t tell Patrick what the argument was about, though—thank the lord for small mercies, I guess?
It’s a very long story. I just want her to know it’s not me, and for her to be careful. This hacker is not to be messed with on any level, k? That goes for u and the others too—DO NOT ENGAGE. Just report and block them.
Righty ho captain—whatever u say!
Thanks for helping, Paddy—totes appreciate it xxx
Hey, what are friends for?
Can’t stand by watching u get pummeled.
Off to kick butt now. Speak later Px
A rather complicated emotion wells within me. It’s a bit like gratitude, but it’s also a bit like . . . being happy? And—I don’t know—some kind of affection? Whatever it is, it buoys me. Patrick has my back. And with any luck, Amy might talk to me and everything will be okay.
If I ignore the whole Dizzy thing, of course.
Whatever emotion Patrick briefly coaxed out of me flees like a deer. Because if this works, and Patrick rallies the troops around me and Amy comes back and we all prevail over Tori, it’s going to be a million times worse when they find out about Dizzy.
I bite my knuckl
es, paralyzed by the realization that, sooner rather than later, I am going to have to tell them. And they are going to hate me for it. And I am totally going to deserve that hate.
But for now, Operation Catfish needs to be kicked up a notch.
There are a couple more replies on my new Facebook page, and even a couple of friend requests. I’m not going to add them, though, not yet—can’t run the risk of one of them being Tori in disguise. I have to be completely in control of this or it’ll all go wrong.
I open my laptop and bring up the secret folder where I saved pictures of Tori. There are quite a few, some innocent, some not so innocent, and I take a deep breath before selecting one and running an image search.
Three seconds later, I’ve found her.
Unsurprisingly, her name isn’t Tori Heidegger. Her name is Adele Durand, and she’s an aspiring plus-size model. She lives in Quebec with her fiancé and fluffy gray cat called Claude.
I scroll through her Instagram account, feeling hollow. Even though I knew this would happen, it still hurts. Adele doesn’t have many followers, but she seems nice enough. She posts in both English and French, so I don’t always know what she’s saying, but it seems to be a lot of the old “love yourself” claptrap these girls like to promote. I wonder if Tori ever trolled her, or if she simply left her alone so she could steal her life? It’s hard, seeing what I thought was Tori’s face, smiling, laughing, pouting, pictures I had treasured, imagining that this was my girlfriend when it was all a lie.
I take a moment to grab a tissue and blow my nose. All fake. All lies.
Time to find out who Tori Heidegger really is.
I am not surprised when my initial Google search brings up nothing. I go through all the different internet handles she used in my presence, but they all come up blank. Then I try different versions of her supposed name: Victoria Heidegger, Vicky Heidegger, Victor Heidegger, Vic Heidegger . . . a couple of hits, but they’re obviously completely different people. Hell, Heidegger alone brings up a fucking Final Fantasy character, and I have to laugh—how the hell did I not put that together? She must have seen me coming a mile off once I fell for that one.
If she’s a she, of course. She could be a he. She could be absolutely anyone.
And that’s the scariest part of it all.
***
I keep scrolling through the names, trying to find something that might hint at “Tori” doing something like this to someone else, but there are so many stories out there of people being conned online, there’s no way of telling if it’s by the same person. It strikes me, a little too late, how sad all of this is. How sad our lives must be, both the perpetrators and the victims, for us to resort to this kind of contact. It takes a special set of awful circumstances for someone to end up in that headspace, and I can’t help but wonder what Tori’s are. Was the psycho-bitch-ex part true? It would explain a lot. Or was it something else, something even darker? Or maybe she is simply a first-class asshole, an entitled bitch who thought the world should bow before her—and when it didn’t, well, I was just another convenient scratchpost.
Or maybe she was one of my victims. Maybe she found out who I was and decided I needed taking down a peg. That thought makes me shiver. Because unlike the other scenarios, that one’s personal and completely of my own construction. Did I make the monster? Is this the universe finally telling me it’s fed up with my bullshit, and that it’s time to sort out my life?
Beside me, my phone buzzes. I seize it—it’s Amy, wonderful, lovely Amy, calling me at last.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” Amy sounds subdued. “You all right?”
“Yeah. I think so. I’m so sorry about all of this.”
“You don’t need to apologize. You were hacked. Totally and utterly out of order. Who would do that? Why do they do it?”
Good question. You got a couple of weeks? I might be able to tell you.
“I think it’s the girl I met online. You know, the one I told you about the other day? We had an argument, and a couple of days later—boom. I’ve been played. I should have known. Good things don’t happen to me.”
The ferocity in which all of this hits me takes me by complete surprise. Before I know it, I’m sobbing, gulping for air, apologizing to Amy for putting her through it, for putting them all through it. Thankfully, I catch myself before my confession leads to Dizzy. I know I need to tell her at some point, but this just isn’t it.
By the end of it all, Amy’s also crying; for some reason, she’s apologizing too, saying she overreacted the other day, and that it doesn’t matter if I’m a student or not, all I did was sit in a few lectures, oh, this is all so messed up . . .
“I feel terrible,” she sniffs. “Absolutely terrible. But I’ve reported everything and have spread the word. People are blocking your old account, and I reckon it’ll get pulled soon.”
“Oh my God, thank you so much,” I say, aware of how pathetic that sounds. “And you have nothing to feel bad about. I brought this on myself.” In so, so many ways that I can’t admit right now.
“No, you didn’t. No one asks for this. Bloody hell, what is wrong with these people? First Dizzy, now you . . .”
I shift uncomfortably. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m going to trust the powers that be on this. I’ve done all I can. There’s no point dwelling on it.”
I’m amazed at how sensible I’m managing to sound, and even more amazed that I actually kind of mean it. Once upon a time, I’d be spitting blood, doing everything I could to troll “Tori” back, even if it meant trolling my own page, but now I realize that’s futile. Why bother? Seriously, why? With any luck, I have Amy back. That’s about as good an outcome as I could wish for. Sure, there’s still the Dizzy issue, but let’s just focus on the now. That’s what all those Mindfulness morons go on about. Stop worrying about the future, and live in the present. It’s healthy. It’s productive. It’s avoidance of the first order, but we don’t talk about that. Everyone, chant after me . . .
“Oh, you’re so calm! I’d be all over the place if that was me. Look, I’ve got a lecture this afternoon, not that I need to tell you that”—she giggles nervously—“so I’m a bit busy today, but do you want to go and have a coffee tomorrow? Kind of start anew?”
Fresh tears well. “Yeah. That would be cool. I’d like that a lot.”
54: #newboy
Facebook has taken down my old account for breaching community standards. I’m still getting vile emails from all manner of nasty websites where misogynists demand you suck their dicks, but they’re easily blockable. I jump like a nervous horse each time my phone buzzes, expecting Wave Two of Tori’s Reign of Terror, but it doesn’t materialize: no doxxing, no outing on Instagram, no big statements about how I nearly drove Dizzy to suicide, nothing. Bit of an anticlimax, huh?
You might think I’d be letting out a big sigh of relief, but I’m not. In fact, rather than make me feel better, the fact that she seems to be satisfied worries me, because I know Tori’s type. I’ve been Tori’s type. You never give up until your opponent is completely crushed. So when I go to meet Amy for a coffee a couple of weeks later, I’m still a little on edge.
She’s almost back to being her bouncy self with me. I can feel that she’s still holding a little bit back; although we agreed to put all of this behind us, we’ve not been out socially, not properly, since the whole Fake-Student-Gate scandal broke. I actually kind of miss going out with her. Never thought I’d say that, but here we are.
Today, she’s grinning, and there’s an undercurrent of excitement that makes me smile. Indigo isn’t joining us today, like she did last time—it was nice to see her, if you can believe it—but I’m kind of glad about that. I’ve come to treasure these Amy-and-Me moments. I’m such a big softie at heart.
“So, how’s it going?” I ask, sipping on my very fashionable Flat White. Yeah, I know—I’m a hipster now. Maybe I could carry off th
e fat in a cool, ironic way. I once suspected that the Beautiful People held the secret to living a happy life, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that everybody is actually just winging it. Which means there might be hope for me yet.
“It’s going very well,” Amy beams, pouring about eight teaspoons’ worth of sugar into her own coffee. “Grindle’s set us a bitch of an essay, and they’re already going on about end-of-term assessments, but apart from that, everything’s really cool.”
“You need someone to help you revise?”
Amy’s smile turns gentle. “If you want. Although I still think you should reapply, Beth. You’re really good at it, and it’s obvious you love studying.”
I scrunch up my face and shake my head. “Nah. Not at the moment, anyway. I’ve got a couple of application forms for Tesco and the new Lidl. Hoping I can get a job, earn some money, pay my way, then worry about the rest of it.”
“Good on you, but I really do think you should try to get on the course, like, legitimately. You’ll be wasted working in a supermarket.”
She gives me a wide-eyed look of total innocence that no one but Amy could ever get away with. I shake my head and take another sip of my coffee and try not to wince. Ugh, needs sugar. Turns out, some old habits die very hard indeed.
“So, apart from uni stuff, anything else to report? You’ve been unusually quiet on Facebook recently.”
It’s a filler question—Amy’s life has never been that interesting, even compared to mine—but to my surprise, Amy blushes deeply and says, “Yeah, there is, actually. I think I might have met someone.”
“What? Really? Who? Not that Scruffy Dylan guy again?”
“Who? Oh, that knob from the club—yeah, no, not him. Someone else. I met them online.”
I can’t help it when a cold little shiver chases its way down my spine. “Online? Where?”
“On this horror site I go to. Been posting there for years, you know, reviews and what’s your favorite movie and all that. It’s all a bit old school, but it’s fun. About a month ago, this guy started talking to me, ’cause we’re both big Evil Dead fans. Didn’t think much of it, you know, I’ve talked to lots of people about these things”—yeah, I have no doubt about that—“but recently, I dunno . . . things changed. He’s sweet. Turns out, he lived around here when he was a kid. At the moment he’s studying in Manchester. His name is Anthony, he’s twenty-one, he’s really cute, and he’s single . . .” She lets the last bit dangle, like an enticing bit of fruit.
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