But Marvo is walking with me, our elbows linked, his stride slowing to match my stuttering steps.
“So, how do you know all those people?” he says. “I never see you talking to anyone.”
“I, uh . . . don’t really . . .”
“Because they do sound fascinating. Yarn bombing!”
We keep walking, and Marvo’s friends say “hey” and look at me funny. They’re putting us together and we don’t belong together and I really need to find the nearest bathroom.
“. . . much better than eight pages of football,” says Marvo. “Or cheerleader pyramids. Which are great, I mean no offense to cheerleaders, but it’s the same every year . . .”
I’m really trying to listen to him, but my brain can focus on only one thing at a time, and right now I am conscious of how much I am sweating and worried he’ll start to feel a little damp.
Then Lipton is walking toward us and he sees me and his eyes get brighter. He smiles and flashes his dimple, but then his gaze flits to my arm, which is still hooked into Marvo’s, and the light dims. The dimple disappears.
Marvo is still talking merrily away, but Lipton is getting away. And I can’t let that happen again. I push toward him, dragging Marvo along. I reach for Lipton. I catch him by the wrist.
He turns, surprised.
“Lipton. Hi! Hey,” I say, breathless. “This is Marvo. We work on the yearbook together. That’s, uh. That’s who he is.” I awkwardly extricate myself from Marvo’s arm.
After his initial startled expression and a brief moment of confusion, Lipton’s eyes are shining again. He nods to Marvo. “Hey.”
And Marvo nods back at him. “Hi.”
“So, uh, Lipton might be someone we could feature in the yearbook,” I say to Marvo.
They both crinkle their eyebrows at me.
“He plays Minecraft!” I declare. “He’s also very smart. And nice. And, you know, different. Than the usual. Like we were talking about.”
Marvo appears on the verge of bursting out laughing, which I actually hope is at me and how idiotic I’m acting, not at Lipton. But he doesn’t laugh. He just nods again and says, “Cool.”
Lipton, meanwhile, has turned an interesting shade of red.
“Nice meeting you, dude,” says Marvo. “Later, Vic.” He walks away, glancing back once to give us a casual salute.
I swallow. “Sorry, that was, I didn’t want you to—”
“It’s okay,” Lipton says quickly, his gaze dropping to his feet, where a sliver of sock is exposed. It’s a plain old white athletic sock, not his signature red or blue or yellow. It makes me sad that I did that to him, took the joy out of his socks.
“I’m so sorry about that day in class,” I murmur. “When you asked me . . . you know, if I wanted—”
“To pet my cat?” He cringes. “I’m such an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. I am. I get so nervous in front of people . . . and then I, with your socks, and Jeremy . . .” I close my eyes for a second, frustrated at my inability to complete a sentence, my own words as jumbled as my thoughts were that day.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have asked you in front of everybody. That was stupid.”
“I’m stupid.” I shake my head. “Jeremy is stupid.”
Lipton snorts. “Don’t blame yourself for that. Jeremy has pretty much been bullying me since kindergarten. You could’ve said you loved my socks and really meant it, and he still would’ve made fun of me.”
“I do love your socks.” I glance down at the white. “The colorful ones.”
“Really?”
I nod. Smile.
He laughs. The sound of it lifts the tension from my shoulders.
“So, I’ll see you in class tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” says Lipton. “See you in class.”
We nearly collide in the process of trying to walk away from each other. Lipton steps aside then and gestures for me to go first.
I head straight to Mrs. Greene’s office, because I’m feeling good and I don’t want to lose it. The door is open. The twinkly lights are on. Mrs. Greene looks up and motions for me to come in.
I sit. And I breathe. She lets me. I almost feel like talking. Almost.
After a while, she says, “You look happy today.”
I nod and pinch a smile between my lips.
For the first time in a long time, I can’t wait for tomorrow.
The rest of the week is marked by small moments of happiness that make me wonder if I’m imagining things, or slipping into a truly vicarious state. When Lipton’s hand brushes against mine while passing out worksheets in class, I dig my fingernails into my palm to make sure I’m not dreaming.
Five minutes later, I catch myself absently stroking the little spot where he touched me. Like a weirdo.
I keep finding notes on my desk when I get to class, too. Another photocopy of information on the Siege of Jerusalem. The tiniest piece of paper imaginable folded into an even tinier square, with “hi” written on it. A picture of his cat, autographed:
Missing you. —K
I tear off a slightly larger piece of paper and write a note back to him:
Your cat’s name starts with K?
He turns it over and writes something. Slips it to me.
Yes.
But he fails to provide the name. I write back:
Are you going to tell me what it is?
He studies my note a minute, tapping the end of his pencil on his chin. He finally writes back, then folds and folds and folds the note until it’s super tiny.
I unfold and unfold and unfold it to reach his message:
Kitty
I smile. It’s too perfect. He puts his head down and writes again, then flips the page up for me to see.
Yours?
I frown. How does he know I have a cat? For one panicked minute I am sure he’s seen my cat photo on Vicurious and knows that she is me. When I don’t respond right away, he tears off another piece of paper, scribbles what appears to be a really long message, and tosses it into my lap.
What’s your cat’s name? You are obviously a cat person. So I assumed you have a cat. Unless it died? Oh, God, please tell me your cat didn’t die. I’m such a jerk.
I bite my lip to keep from smiling, though it sneaks out the corners of my mouth. His note sounds kind of like one of my own word vomits. Is it possible that another human brain functions even a little bit like mine?
I write on the back of Lipton’s note:
You are not a jerk.
My cat’s name is Kat.
Lipton reads it and laughs out loud, one barking burst of joy. Everyone turns to stare, including Mr. Braxley. I stop breathing. Lipton pops the note in his mouth, as if we were trading world secrets.
Adam expresses his dismay with his signature head-desk move. Mr. Braxley simply points to the trash bin next to his desk. Lipton rolls his eyes, strides up there, pulls the note from his mouth, and drops it in the trash. Everyone’s snickering.
I am mortified.
But Lipton smiles at me as he returns to his desk, and it makes me forget everyone else. I smile back. It reminds me of the way Jenna could set everything right with just a nudge and a “hey.” I didn’t think anyone else would ever wield such powers again. And yet here is Lipton.
He waits for me after class. He walks me part of the way to my next one. Neither of us says anything for a while. Then he stops. And I stop. “I could text you,” he says softly. “If I had your number.”
I stare at his left elbow. That’s as close as I can get to eye contact as I consider his offer. Texts from Lipton would surely add countless happy moments to my life. But it would also put him in the realm of Vicurious, which is all I use my phone for anymore. And I don’t know why. I just don’t want him there.
I want him here. With me. Vicky.
“I don’t want you to text me,” I say.
Before I can explain further, his whole body slumps. “Okay.
Fine. I—”
My eyes leap to his, which are all achy and confused.
“Because I like your notes better,” I quickly add. “On paper. They’re, I don’t know . . .”
“Real,” he says.
I nod. “Exactly.”
“Okay.”
We start walking again, the fabric of his jacket touching the knit of my sweater. That slight bit of contact gets me through the rest of the morning, somehow.
When lunch period arrives, I open the door to yearbook and glance at the list of people I suggested for the special section, which has been taped to the wall for two whole days now. I keep expecting to find that Marissa has crumpled it up and thrown it away. I won’t even be upset if she does. But it’s still there.
Marvo isn’t here today. Just us girls. I go to my corner desk and start clicking through photos.
“Have you seen this?” Marissa says to Beth Ann, who leans over to look at her computer screen.
“Yeah. She’s cool. Good taste in tattoo art.” She lifts her red Converse and waggles the yin-yang toe in front of Marissa. “Marvo loves her. He says she’s the only person who understands him, which, thanks a lot, but whatever. She cheers him up when he’s in one of his funks. I hope she posts something today so he can get his butt back to school.”
I stop clicking the second I realize they are talking about Vicurious, and now I’m trying not to gawk. Marvo has funks? I can hardly believe it. He’s always laughing, talking. It’s like he’s standing in a perpetual spotlight, always performing. But I don’t see him every day, come to think of it. I don’t see him lots of days.
“Adrian is totally obsessed with her,” Marissa says. “He wants to dye his hair purple and orange next time.”
I stop breathing.
“It’s cool, I guess,” says Marissa. “But anybody with a wig and Photoshop could do it. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
Beth Ann laughs. “Yeah, and I could’ve written a kick-ass book about a boy wizard, but I didn’t think of it first, did I?”
Marissa sighs. “I just can’t believe she has so many followers. For basically crashing everybody else’s party.”
“It’s more than that,” says Beth Ann. “Have you read the comments?”
“Yeah, I get it. She sees me.” Marissa rolls her eyes. “Now if I can just get Adrian to see me. He wouldn’t shut up the other night about how cool it would be if she Vicurious-ed one of his gigs.”
I’m trying very hard not to let the freak-out that’s happening inside me show on the outside. Adrian wants Vicurious to feature his band? He wants to dye his hair to match hers? I turn back to my computer and pretend to be working but am just zooming in and out on the same photo and trying not to hyperventilate.
Marissa rolls her chair over to where I’m sitting, and watches from the side of my desk. I quickly find some teeth to whiten, some shadows to brighten. I remove a stop sign that looks like it’s growing out of someone’s head.
“Vicky could do it. Couldn’t you?” She nods toward my monitor. “Photoshop someone into a crowd?”
“What?” I swallow. “I don’t—”
“But you could. If you wanted to. Right?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Oh my God, Vicky. I didn’t say you would. Just that you could.” She turns to Beth Ann. “I mean, who knows who this girl is? It could be anyone. It could be Vicky. And half a million people are following her like she’s some kind of messiah?”
I’m tempted to correct her on the number of followers. Rhyming Rhea’s fans are still flocking to my site, but I’m only up to about 327,000 at last count.
“I’m not even on Instagram,” I say.
She snaps her head to face me. “I was speaking hypothetically.”
“Dude,” Beth Ann cuts in. “You’re pissed at your boyfriend. Don’t take it out on Vicky.”
Marissa inhales deeply and holds it for a few seconds, then blows it out. She smiles at me. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I just meant that anyone halfway proficient at Photoshop could be Vicurious. You could be Vicurious.”
“Still rude,” says Beth Ann, shaking her head. “You’re suggesting that someone like Vicky couldn’t possibly have a half million followers. That she’d only deserve it if she were famous. Or popular, like you.”
Marissa clenches her teeth. “That’s not what I’m suggesting at all. I just—”
“You totally slammed our girl Vicky here because your boyfriend has the hots for someone on the internet, and you can’t say ‘I’m better than her’ because you don’t know who she is,” says Beth Ann. “And that’s super frustrating because you’re used to being better than everybody.”
Marissa’s face goes red, and she looks like she’s going to cry. “I don’t think I’m better than everybody. Or anybody.” She grabs her book bag and storms out.
We watch her go. Beth Ann groans, then folds her arms across her desk and drops her head into them. “I am such a bitch.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything. I know she hates being called a bitch, but does that count when she calls herself one? She was kind of hard on Marissa.
Beth Ann snorts and sits up. “Great. Even the nicest person on the planet thinks I’m a bitch.”
“I don’t . . .”
“Please. At least you’re honest. It’s good to know there’s one person around here who isn’t a total fake.” She grabs her book bag and leaves the room.
I pull my lunch out and eat in the quiet, a new list forming in my head. For once, it’s not the things that terrify me. It’s not about me at all. It’s a list of everybody I know who is suffering, or struggling in their own way.
Hallie
Raj
Lipton
Marissa
Marvo
Beth Ann
They are names I would never have expected to find on the same list, people I’ve always thought were either perfect or happy or didn’t care. It’s a list I can mentally add one more name to:
Vicky
Which makes me happy, I’m ashamed to admit. I don’t mean to revel in anyone else’s pain. But I’ve existed on a list of one for so long. It feels good to have others I can count myself among, even if they have no idea. They’re not alone, and neither am I.
20
AT HOME ON SATURDAY, I pull out my Siege of Jerusalem assignment and try to do some research online. I’m way behind, even with Lipton giving me notes and offering up his presentation slot. I last only about fifteen minutes before switching over to Instagram—just to check how many followers I have this morning.
I note my new total, 349,000, then decide to take a quick peek at some of the comments on my last few posts.
An hour later, I’m in deep, and instead of lifting me up today, Vicurious followers are dragging me down. I should’ve known to expect trolls, but I fooled myself into thinking I had created a place where no one would ridicule me or criticize. Behind the wig and sunglasses and crazy clothes and jewelry, I would be safe.
Silly me.
It seems when you reach a certain level of popularity, the haters come out of the woodwork to take you down. Some even have the word “hater” in their usernames. I can ignore the generic negativity in comments like “I don’t get it” or “This is stupid” or “Why? Just why?”
It’s the ones that hone in on me, on who I am and the decisions I’ve made. Those are the ones that really bother me, make me question and second-guess and worry that I’ve done something terribly wrong.
hipstrh8er that yin yang tat is kinda lame
I lift my shirt to look at the Sharpied symbol on my side. It’s obviously not a real tattoo. Or maybe he takes exception to using the yin-yang symbol at all? Someone else writes:
zzaakkattack yah a little cliché
I start stressing over it, because is it totally not cool? I never heard that before, but where would I hear that? Beth Ann is much cooler than I am and she drew the yin-yang on the toes of her sho
es. It’s entirely possible, though, that Richardson High School itself is not the pinnacle of cool.
Then I start worrying that it’s offensive or something, that I’ve accidentally insulted someone. I start Googling and finding all these discussions of whether or not people who aren’t Chinese or Buddhist or Taoist should wear the yin-yang symbol at all, or if it’s cultural appropriation, and I’m not even sure what that means and my head is going to explode.
I take deep breaths. I scan the comments to see if anyone’s saying that, if anyone’s offended. But they’re not. Some chime in to defend me, to say it’s a positive thing, it’s universal. Anyone can use it if it means something to them.
And it does mean something to me. It’s the symbol of my friendship with Jenna, of the balance between us, the strengths and weaknesses, the ups and downs. Seeing it still gives me the tiniest hope that it’s not completely over, that our friendship will right itself in the end. So I try to push the yin-yang haters out of my mind. But that’s not the only thing people are complaining about.
One of my very first followers writes:
tanyazeebee Why don’t you follow anyone back? Only following 8, only 1 woman? That’s bullshit.
I frown. Did I only follow men? It wasn’t on purpose. My first was a girl—Rhyming Rhea. And I would’ve followed Jennifer Lawrence if she had an Instagram. Or Demelza Poldark. Still, the criticism stings. So I find some of my favorite women on social media. There’s Amanda Palmer, singer-songwriter-ukulele player. She’s so cool and different and completely unafraid. She once let a mob of fans autograph her body. I wouldn’t mind living vicariously through her for a day or two.
I click the follow button.
I try to follow J. K. Rowling, but it’s a fake account. So I follow Emma Watson instead. If Hermione had an account, I’d follow her, too. But the only ones I find are fan sites. I follow the Malala Fund and Oprah and Zooey Deschanel. And finally, Ellen. The Ellen Show. She’s got more than forty-two million followers. A single one of her posts gets 350,000 likes.
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