by Donna Cooner
“It means the longitude and the latitude of this picture could be stored in the metadata,” he explains. “As long as they didn’t turn off the location services for their photos.” He mumbles the next part almost to himself.
Harmony snorts, then says, “For once I’m glad I don’t have one of those fancy phones.”
Ryan says, “Yeah, people don’t realize how much of your privacy geotagging gives away. You post a photo of something you want to sell online. Boom. People can see exactly where it is and can come take it for themselves.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard of this before?” I ask, surprised.
Ryan shrugs. “It’s not super widely known. I only read about it because I was doing some research on phone cameras.”
“So if you post a random photo, a geotag on it could let someone know you’re not taking the picture from home?” Harmony asks.
Ryan nods. “Exactly.”
“How do you turn it off?” I ask, the iced latte in my hands completely forgotten.
Ryan’s eyes are still focused on the screen in front of him. “It’s a simple setting switch under location services, but most people don’t realize it’s there.”
“Or how important it is,” Harmony says.
I shake my head, trying to understand the implications of what Ryan’s telling me. “So you can’t tell who sent the picture, but …”
“I can tell you where it was taken, and if we get lucky, it leads us right to someone’s home address.” He taps my phone quickly. “There’s a free web-based tool where I can upload the photo.”
Harmony is leaning over toward Ryan, all big eyes. I just sit and wait, even though I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. There’s a long second of silence. Harmony puts a knuckle in her mouth.
Then Ryan says, “Okay. I’ve found it.”
I shut my eyes, terrified of what will come next.
Harmony can’t stand it anymore. “What does it say?” she practically yells at him, and my eyes fly open.
Ryan reads off the screen. “The photo was taken with an iPhone yesterday at six thirty p.m.”
I’m shocked. My head feels weird and floaty. Instantly, I start trying to think of who was where at six thirty yesterday. “You can tell that by looking at the photo?”
“It’s all there in the hidden data stored in the image,” he says. “And there’s more.”
I feel my pulse starting to beat faster.
“When you load the longitude and latitude of the photo into Google Maps, it puts the location …” He looks up from his phone, his dark eyes intense. “The photo was taken only a couple of blocks from here.”
“Where?” I almost whisper. I feel a chill.
“The Lyric Cinema.”
The walls of my world crumble. All this time, I had no idea.
Ryan and Harmony are both watching me.
Harmony finally breaks the silence. “You know.” It’s not a question.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
I stand up, taking my phone back from Ryan. I start composing a text.
“Where are you going?” Ryan asks. His voice is concerned.
“I know who it is, but now I need to know why.”
FADE IN:
EXT. ASHA’S HOUSE—DAY—LONG SHOT
We see an affluent lakeside community. We can see the rear of a number of large houses whose backs are around the lake. Some are two stories high, some are three; some have large wraparound decks and porches. The neighborhood is a prosperous one. The lake is covered with ice and the trees surrounding the lake have piles of snow on their limbs.
THE CAMERA MOVES ACROSS THE LAKE and brings us nearer to the backyard of ASHA’S HOUSE. Lights are on in several of the windows and there are figures moving around inside the room on the bottom floor.
THE CAMERA IS NOW FOCUSED ON THE SLIDING GLASS DOORS of ASHA’S ROOM. We are now able to see inside the room. Loud music is pouring out of speakers. A short, dark-haired Indian American girl is standing facing a closed door. This is ASHA.
THE CAMERA MOVES IN TO FOCUS ON THE DOOR. The door opens and a pale, brown-haired white girl with a curvy figure, dressed in a revealing red nightie, dances out. This is SKYE. She gracefully moves across the floor to the rhythm of the music. ASHA is cheering her on and the second girl is radiant, twirling and prancing across the room. They are both laughing.
THE CAMERA NOW PULLS BACK SWIFTLY and retreats through the sliding glass door back to the outside of the house. Now there are hundreds of PEOPLE standing around the yard and deck of the house, looking in through the glass.
Emma looks down at the printed and bound script in her hands. Her script. She knows she should be proud. She should be ecstatic.
The film contest ended thirty minutes ago and everyone has left the theater. Emma is by herself, sitting near the middle of one long row of seats. She looks like a pale ghost, wrapped in her black overcoat like it’s a blanket, her jeans-covered legs and combat boots dangling over the seat in front of her.
The judges were unanimous: Emma’s screenplay, a social-media-themed riff on Rear Window, won first place. She won the tickets to New York and the applause of the small gathering of judges. Innovative. Creative. Emotional.
So why doesn’t she feel happy?
A text message buzzes onto her phone.
SKYE: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
Emma stares at the message with a pit in her stomach. This is the moment she’s been dreading since the day after the sleepover. The day she got her idea. She types back as fast as she can.
EMMA: I WAS NEVER GOING TO SHARE IT WITH ANYONE.
SKYE: I NEED TO SEE YOU. NOW.
EMMA: COME TO THE LYRIC.
Emma turns her phone to black and shuts her eyes tight. If emotion comes directly from a character’s eyes, like Hitchcock always said, she’d shoot a close-up right now of the tears that are sliding out her lashes and down her cheek.
But this is real life—and now it’s out of her control.
I find Emma sitting in the empty theater. She doesn’t look at me when I come through the curtained entrance. Instead, she stares straight ahead, still as a statue. My shoes stick to the floor in spots, and the smell of popcorn still lingers.
I slide into the row and make my way to the seat beside her. The heated air from the wall vents plays at her blonde hair, pulling it out of the low pony and across her face. She drags it back with one hand and tucks the strands firmly behind her ear. Her eyes flick toward me as I sit down, then back to stare at the seat in front of her. I feel her take in a deep breath like she might say something, but then she doesn’t.
Since the eighth grade, this is the girl I shared every secret with—the dent I put in my mom’s car door when I hit the pole at the Sonic, the first kiss I shared with Ned Blakely behind the gym in middle school, the letter I sent my dad that came back marked “Address Unknown.” Something twists in my stomach.
“You sent me the screenshot,” I say, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “And all those ChitChat messages. And the picture of the Band-Aid. You’re the one who was blackmailing me.”
Not one muscle in her beautiful face changes. She says, “Yes, I was.”
I knew it was true before I ever came here, but the simply spoken words stab me so deeply I can hardly breathe. The tears gather in my eyes, but I don’t try to hide the hurt. I want her to see it. Wet pain streaks down my face. I sit mute, willing her to look at me.
She finally does.
Whatever she sees in my face, it makes her breath catch. There is a long silence. I can hear the street musician out on Mountain Avenue playing the drums and the jingle of the horse’s bridle as a carriage pulls away from the square full of laughing kids.
I hold her gaze so she can’t look away, and ask the question I’ve been waiting for so long to know. “Why did you do it?”
It is half a question and half a cry of frustration. Emma bites her lip, looks away, and then sighs. She pulls her feet up over the chair in fron
t of her and wraps her arms around her long legs. For a minute, she rests her forehead on her knees. I wait.
“It was for the screenplay,” she mumbles into her knees. After a long time she adds, “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, sometimes. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.”
“So tell me,” I say, feeling the anger start to rise under my tears.
“In all the years we’ve been friends, you’ve never been inside my house, have you?” Emma says, which catches me off guard. I don’t answer, so she asks, “Don’t you think that’s strange?”
What does that have to do with anything right now? I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“Maybe a little,” I say finally.
“There’s a reason for that.” A muscle in her jaw twitches.
“Emma?” I prod.
“Things at home are … not good,” she says, her head still down. “My parents … fight. All the time. Like, bad fighting. I needed a ticket out. Away from home.”
“Oh,” I say. My head is spinning. I’m still not sure where all this is going.
“This contest was going to be it,” Emma says. “My way out.” She looks up at me. Her eyes are the darkest of blues, racing across my face, seeking any sign of forgiveness. I can feel how hard and tight my own features are. “I had to win. I wanted to write the best screenplay, the one that felt the most real. I just got this crazy idea … that if I could write the screenplay about something that was happening as it was unfolding, it could be amazing.”
I try to take all this in. I shake my head.
“So you … used me?” I cut her off. “For some kind of experiment? Some inspiration for a movie?”
Emma looks away and nods quickly. “It was just going to be one text, to see how you responded. I know how you hate black nail polish. You said one time it made people look like they had holes in their fingers.” She gives a shaky laugh. “I thought you’d tell me to go jump off a cliff when I texted you to choose between the nail polish or the screenshot. You’d say—‘go ahead. My picture looks fine. I’m not doing that.’”
“But I didn’t.” My mouth is dry. There is a wall between us now.
“So I went further.” She stops, swallows. “I never thought you’d actually wear that dress to the interview. I knew how much you hated the dress and I knew how much that interview meant. I thought that’s when you would call my bluff and tell me no. But the screenshot—that image—was so important that you were willing to do anything to keep me from sharing it.”
I shudder. “I guess I was.”
“And then I was hooked,” Emma says.
“And you kept raising the stakes higher and higher.”
“Don’t you understand? I needed to see what would happen.” Emma points to the floor of the theater, where her bound screenplay sits. “The story kept unfolding. And you kept doing what I asked. Even if it meant losing Luke.”
I nod, taking that in.
“And even if it meant losing you?” I ask quietly.
She closes her eyes briefly.
“I’m so sorry, Skye. I wanted to tell you. So many times. But … I couldn’t. I got in too deep. And I was worried you’d never forgive me.”
“I don’t know if I ever can,” I say. The edge in my voice makes her shift in the seat beside me.
“I guess I finally did push you too far,” Emma whispers. “Bringing Megan into it was the worst … the most horrible …”
“Don’t even talk about Megan.” I blink away tears, my hands clenching into fists. “Ever.”
“Skye, I don’t know how to apologize,” Emma murmurs, turning to me. “I thought maybe that picture of the Band-Aid could be a symbol … like a way to show we can heal.”
I shake my head. How can we heal from this?
Emma frowns. “You have to understand where I was coming from. Please listen. You don’t know what living in my house is like …” Emma stops talking. A shadow of a bitter smile flickers across her face, then she says, “There’s a different story inside people’s windows when the shades are pulled down tight. The reality is … ugly.”
There’s a tiny piece of me that hears Emma’s pain, that almost feels sad for her, but I’m too focused on my own pain right now. “What do you know about ugly?” I snap. “You’ve never looked bad a day in your life. Every angle, every outfit, every photo—beautiful. Your face. Your body. The first thing people think when they look at you is pretty.”
Emma’s face hardens. “You can only see me from your point of view, but you can’t walk in my skin. And if you could, you wouldn’t like it.”
I feel another massive surge of anger, and I stand up shakily. My eyes are stinging and my heart is pounding.
“You’re right, I probably wouldn’t. And I don’t want to look at you anymore either.” I stop, breathing hard. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were my friend, Emma. One of my best friends.” I let the words sit there in the air before continuing. “All you are is a bully.”
I turn my back on her and walk out of the theater.
That night, Emma can’t sleep. She sits cross-legged on her bed, clutching her phone in her hand. Like a portal into another world, the screen in front of her has saved her too many times to count. It was her refuge—her life saver.
Now it has betrayed her.
No. Not true.
She was the one who did the betraying. She remembers how upset Skye looked, the things she said in the theater. It breaks her heart. She always loved Skye like a sister. Why did she hurt her like that? It wasn’t just about the screenplay. It was another way to feel powerful.
She thinks about how Skye will surely tell Asha. How everything will come crashing down. And maybe, in some way, that’s what Emma wanted. She had to make a mess of everything before she could truly escape.
Emma dials a familiar number on the phone to make a video call. Summer is still two months away, so all she can do for now is step through the portal and be transported instantly to another life—one she will soon join.
“Hello, sweetie!” her aunt says brightly. “Congrats on winning the contest! Let’s make plans …”
Her aunt is always so perky. It is something Emma will have to adjust to.
That, and so much more.
The first thing I do the next morning is drive to Senator Watson’s in-town office. It is located above Cafe Vino and as a result, the waiting room smells like bacon-wrapped dates. A sign taped to the wall says to knock and someone will be with me shortly. I knock, then sit down nervously on the edge of a blue upholstered chair positioned beside the closed office door.
The person who opens the door is immediately recognizable.
I jump to my feet, struggling to find my voice. “Senator Watson.”
I’m surprised to see she is only a head taller than me. She looks just as she does in her photos, though, with her big brown eyes, brown skin, and black hair pulled back into a low bun at the nape of her neck. She smiles serenely at me, extending her hand as if I were the leader of some foreign country or a diplomatic emissary. “And you are?”
“Skye … Matthews … Skye Matthews.” I stumble all over the words.
“So nice to meet you in person.”
She knows who I am?
“I wanted to come by and ask about volunteering to do …” I’m talking so fast, I don’t know if anyone could understand me. “Things,” I end, lamely.
“Won’t you come inside?” Senator Watson gestures for me to enter her office. I walk past her into the room, smoothing my sweater down over my jeans with clammy hands.
What am I going to say?
I sit down in a chair at the cluttered desk, swallowing hard. Senator Watson sits down across from me, brushing back the fallen tendrils of hair behind her ears and still smiling that oh so likable smile. She doesn’t have to try to be likable. She just is.
“I …” Swallowing again, I try to keep my voice
from shaking. My tongue feels like it’s made of cotton. “I applied to your internship program.”
“Yes. I believe I recognize your name. You made quite the impression on James.” She sounds amused. “He told me all about your unusual pitch at the interview. You’re the one who wore a … prom dress?”
I nod, feeling heat engulf my face. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for making a unique space for yourself.” Senator Watson tilts her head to one side. “We all agreed it was a very impressive—and memorable—application.”
“But I didn’t get the internship,” I say. Then I screw up all my courage and ask, “Was it because of my social media photos? That one photo was …”
My voice trails off, and Senator Watson shakes her head. “I don’t think we reviewed your social media, Skye.”
“Oh.” I don’t know whether to feel relieved or defeated. “You see, there was this not-great picture of me online.”
Senator Watson looks at me understandingly. “A lot of us don’t always like the way we are portrayed online. I sure don’t.”
“But you always look so confident.” That was going to be next on my to-do list. Be confident.
She laughs, her eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Looking and being are two very different things.”
I think of Emma, even though I don’t want to. “Sometimes there is more to the story than what you see,” I admit.
“The internet puts a new spin on the whole appearance thing, doesn’t it? It’s connecting us in new ways we’re just starting to figure out.”
“And disconnecting us,” I say.
“Exactly.” She nods. “We just have to keep trying to be our best selves, even when it seems like everyone is watching and hoping we mess up.”
“We’re Internauts,” I say. “Going where no one has ever gone before.”
She looks surprised, then laughs again. “I like that.”
“Thanks,” I say, blushing. I can’t believe I’m being so open with Senator Watson. It feels good.
“If it wasn’t the photo, then do you know why I didn’t get the position?” I ask.