How to Disappear

by Sharon Huss Roat

  “What?” She glances at her friends, laughing nervously.

  “In the photo. Lipton Gregory.” My voice is shaking, but I keep going. “You called him ‘Tea Bag.’ That’s not his name.”

  “Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s his nickname, then. Everyone calls him that.”

  “Not everyone,” I say. “Only people who think it’s funny to make jokes at someone else’s expense. Because that is not his nickname. It’s name-calling. There’s a difference.”

  She is briefly stunned, but tosses her backpack over her shoulder and says, “Whatever.”

  Her friends follow hesitantly as she stalks out.

  I can’t believe I’m still standing. I put a hand to the desk to steady myself and take a deep breath. I’ll just wait here until everyone leaves. But then someone slow claps from the back of the room. It’s Raj, I’m sure. I turn, thinking, No, Raj, don’t make it worse.

  But it isn’t Raj. It’s Jeremy Everling. I drop into my chair like someone just yanked the floor out from under me. Jeremy has made more jokes at Lipton’s expense than anyone. He’s probably the reason Lipton’s seeing a therapist to learn how to stand up for himself. He walks toward me, his slow clap getting faster. A few smatterings of applause join his, but mostly everyone’s waiting to see what he does. I brace for the punch line.

  Jeremy stops clapping when he reaches my desk. He drops his hand in front of me, palm up. I bring my eyes to his.

  “Guilty as charged, Decker.” He shakes his head. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Dude,” one of his friends says.

  Somebody laughs.

  Somebody else says, “Oh my God.”

  I stare at Jeremy Everling’s palm. He’s waiting for me . . . to slap it? I tentatively lift my hand.

  He says quietly, “Low five, Decker.” So I do it. I slap his hand and then wince, because I’m sure this can’t really be happening. I am probably hallucinating the whole thing.

  But he shrugs, says, “Hope there’s no hard feelings,” and leaves.

  I stare at my hand. My low-fiving Jeremy Everling hand. It stings a little.

  I don’t know how long I sit there contemplating my hand. But when I look up, the class is full of the next period’s students, and the one whose seat I am occupying says, “You’re in my seat.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I hop up and hurry out.

  My heart is racing, but for once it’s not because of fear or dread or anxiety. It’s because I overcame those things. It’s what I imagine it feels like to pump my fist in the air and shout at the top of my lungs.

  Lipton is not entirely thrilled that I defended his honor. Mallory and some of her friends keep exaggerating his name when they say hi to him in the hall.

  Now it’s, “Hi, LIP-TON.”

  But it’s nothing compared with the gossip and speculation going around about Vicurious, which reaches out to me like grasping tentacles. In the hall. In the locker room before gym. In the bathroom. On the bus. It’s everywhere.

  “You think she goes to school here?”

  “How else would she know East 48?”

  “I can’t believe she’d pick them out of the blue.”

  “She could’ve.”

  “I bet it’s Marissa. Put a wig on her . . .”

  “Doesn’t look like her at all. She looks like . . .”

  I kick myself for forgetting to post some background shots from other places this week, which may have thrown people off. I put my head down and let my hair fall around my face, remind myself that my own mother didn’t recognize me in that wig and sunglasses and lipstick. Still, it’s like they’re shouting “Get her!” every time they say “Vicurious.” I can’t stop flinching.

  “Are you okay?” Lipton meets me at my locker first thing Tuesday morning. “You seem nervous.”

  I force a smile. “I’m always nervous.”

  “More than usual.”

  “I’m fine,” I chirp.

  “I can’t even see you.” He bends down to peek around my hair curtain. “Why are you hiding?”

  I jerk away from him. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I have to go to the bathroom.” I spin on my heel and weave away from him, hating myself.

  I expected all the fuss to die down by now, but it’s only getting worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it. My classmates are not only speculating about a connection between Vicurious and East 48, they’re doing exactly what I asked them to: finding someone who needs a friend and reaching out. And they’re talking about it:

  “I wrote to this one girl who wanted to end it all.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Just that I’m here if she needs me, but she should definitely tell someone.”

  “I was on there for, like, an hour yesterday.”

  “Me too.”

  Laughs. “Yeah, that’s what I kept writing. ‘Me too.’”

  “This kid said I was the first person to talk to him in three days. That nobody had even said good morning to him, or hi, or anything. For three days.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “So, I followed him. Told him to DM me anytime.”

  “Cool.”

  I imagined a quiet army of helpers, doing their good deeds amid the relative anonymity of Instagram where I could safely check on them from the privacy of my own home. They would swarm the internet with selfless kindness. Not blab about it all over school every day.

  It’s like they’re peppering me with bullets of my own making. Bullets of kindness, but still. I can’t seem to avoid mentions of Vicurious and each one makes me nervous that I’ve been recognized. I duck into the bathroom and retreat to my usual stall, squeezing my head between my hands.

  Nobody knows it’s me.

  They’ll never guess.

  I am nobody.

  They don’t see me.

  It’s a strangely comforting mantra, the opposite of what I’ve been recommending to everyone else. But it’s my comfort zone. Invisible. Safe.

  I give myself an extra hard head-squeeze before dashing to class. Lipton doesn’t look at me when I walk in, but as soon as I sit down, he hands me a note.

  I’m afraid to read it.

  I go through the process of pulling out my world history notes, and my book, and lining up my pencil. I even consider walking to the sharpener, and I hate walking to the sharpener. I have a half dozen newly sharpened pencils in my bag to avoid that.

  Lipton clears his throat and tips his chin to the note in my hand. I can’t avoid it any longer. I unfold the small square of paper on which he wrote:

  Is it something I said?

  I almost sink to the floor with relief, then am shamed with guilt for making him worry that he’d done something wrong. I shake my head and scrawl a reply:

  Just my stupid brain, messing with me.

  He smiles and pretends to wipe sweat from his brow, like whew! And quickly scribbles another note.

  Not to say I am glad your brain is messing with you. I am not. Tell your brain to piss off.

  I smile. Before I can reply, he’s sliding another note onto my desk.

  Don’t tell your WHOLE brain to piss off.

  Just the part that’s behaving badly.

  The rest is perfect and should remain in

  place as is.

  I pat my head, a gesture I guess is supposed to indicate that my brain is intact. He smiles and dips his head down to write one more note.

  Can we talk after class?

  The question takes away all the good feelings from our note exchange, because of course we can talk after class. We’ve been talking after class all week. Why is he making a special point of asking?

  I nod, and spend the rest of the period imagining various reasons he might want to speak with me so officially, including all the ways he could break up with me. My brain likes to torment me that way, contemplating a future where everyone I care about leaves me behind.

  My brain is pretty much an asshole.

  After class, Lipt
on pulls me into the alcove where he asked me out only last week.

  “I’m going away,” he says, and my stomach drops to my ankles. I didn’t actually think my brain was going to be right.

  “Forever?” I whisper.

  “What? No.” He laughs and pulls me into the circle of his arms. Right there in front of everyone. “Just for Thanksgiving. We’re visiting my aunt in Pittsburgh. Which sucks. I mean, she’s great, but I’d rather be here with you. I just wanted you to know why I wasn’t asking you out this weekend.”

  I blink at him.

  “We could go out next weekend, though, if you want. To a movie or something, or get pizza, or I don’t know.” He lets his forehead knock against mine. “I’m terrible at this.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  I lean into him, crazily unconcerned with the nearby presence of the entire student body. “I’m terribler.”

  He hugs me tighter, and I hug him back.

  It makes me feel like a real person.

  And I need that, amid all the talk of Vicurious. I need a reminder that I exist outside the internet and that someone in the real world wants me here, more than my followers want me there.

  28

  THE LINGERING EFFECT OF LIPTON’S hug is like armor, shielding me from all the Vicurious talk. I’m only a little nervous when Marissa mentions her again in the yearbook office over lunch period.

  “Adrian and I spent two hours on her Instagram last night,” she says. “Which was great and everything—I mean, at least we were together for a change.” She pauses and sighs. Lays her forehead on her calculus notes. “I just don’t think I can keep it up. And why wasn’t there a yearbook photographer at the game last night?”

  “What game?” Beth Ann peers around her computer.

  “My game. The biggest one of the season. I told you to assign a photographer.”

  “You did?” She flashes a glance toward Marvo for some backup, but he just shrugs. “Sorry, I—”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Everybody’s sorry, but nobody gets anything done,” says Marissa. “I have to do it all myself.”

  “Okay, Miss Perfect.” Beth Ann wheels away from her desk. “I’ll try to do a better job of reading your mind the next time.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Marissa snaps. “I’m not perfect. I missed an easy goal last night, looking around for that stupid photographer, and lost us the game. I’m going to fail this calc test, and Adrian expects me to be a damn Mother Teresa. I can’t take it.”

  “Whoa. Hey.” Marvo approaches Marissa with calming hands.

  She spins away from him. “I am not perfect,” she says again, voice wobbly now. “I can’t do everything. I can’t be perfect at everything.”

  “Nobody said—” Marvo starts.

  “Nobody says it, but everyone expects it. Marissa can do it! Marissa can do everything! Manage East 48, book all their gigs? Sure! Marissa can do that! Can’t you, Marissa? And keep up those straight As while you’re at it. We’re counting on that academic scholarship. Run the yearbook. Win the field hockey games! Look pretty and wave at the homecoming parade. And be nice to all the sad people on the internet!”

  She stops, finally. Marvo, Beth Ann, and I are silenced, pretty much holding our collective breath to see if she erupts again.

  Beth Ann is the first to talk. “Tell us how you really feel, why don’t you?”

  Marissa gives a half laugh, half sob. “I’ve just been under a lot of pressure lately.”

  “You think?” Marvo hands her a box of tissues from the bookshelf.

  She snatches one and dabs her eyes. I’m kind of impressed at how un-perfect she looks right now. She’s much more likable this way.

  “Sometimes I wish I could be somebody else that nobody knows or expects anything from. Someone like—” She glances up at me, and for one frantic second I think she’s going to say Vicurious.

  “Like Vicky,” she says.

  My eyes widen. “Me?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way. But when you came here to work on yearbook, I thought, Great. Mrs. Greene is pawning her off on us because she can’t do anything else. I had zero expectations of you. Zip.”

  Beth Ann opens her mouth to object, but Marissa holds her hand up and continues. “And then you turned out to be amazing and brilliant, and super nice. You had nowhere to go but up. And you did. But when you start up here”—she wiggles her fingers high above her head—“there’s nowhere to go but down. And everyone is just waiting for you to fall so they can pounce.”

  I’m not sure how to feel about being the poster child for low expectations, but did she just call me “amazing” and “brilliant”?

  “Nobody’s waiting to pounce on you,” says Beth Ann.

  Marissa snorts. “Oh, yes, they are.”

  “Not everyone,” says Marvo. “Some of us are here to catch you. And hold you up if you need us.”

  “Yeah.” Beth Ann throws an arm around Marissa’s neck. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  Marvo wraps his arms around both of them. Marissa is still half crying. “I am so going to fail this test.”

  Beth Ann says, “Who cares.”

  It’s really sweet. I start thinking about all the Vicurious followers who are so hard on themselves, like Marissa is. It’s not always a matter of others being nice and caring, or saying, “You’re special.” It’s about giving themselves a break, too. I’m so absorbed in the idea, thinking of what Vicurious could do about it, that I don’t realize Marissa is talking to me.

  Her head is poked out of their little huddle. “Get over here!”

  “What?”

  “Group hug.” She waves me toward them. “Get your butt over here.”

  I rise tentatively and she sighs her impatience. So I hurry over and their arms reach out to pull me in. Then we are head to head to head to head, hugging and swaying and laughing.

  Well, the three of them are laughing, at least. I’m just trying not to cry, because they aren’t Jenna, and they’ll never be Jenna, but they’ve given me a place to belong. And it’s such a relief to no longer feel like I’m floating away.

  I only wish Jenna was the one who caught me, that she hadn’t cast me off in the first place.

  That night, I prepare the image inspired by Marissa’s meltdown. First step is taking a new selfie in front of my computer, this time wearing the swirly X-ray-vision sunglasses and hugging myself. I scribble words of self-love and empowerment and putting yourself first all over it. Because sometimes, you can’t be everything to everybody. You need to be there for yourself.

  #Holdon#Behappy#Youarebrave#Fabulous

  #Worthy#Wanted#Loved#Bestrong#Staycalm

  #Hope#Laugh#Smile#Relax#Beyourself

  #Breathe#Findyourjoy#Listentoyourheart

  #BethereforYOU

  I put that last line, “Be there for YOU,” in a little speech bubble coming out of my mouth. The finished product makes me smile. I hope it does the same for Marissa and Hallie and everyone else who might be crumbling under the weight of expectations. Especially their own. The image looks a lot like the previous one, only with a smile and neatly painted lips instead of the smeary, sad ones. Hope instead of despair. I scan it and get it ready to post. The message is an easy one to write:

  It’s good to be there for one another. But don’t forget to be there for yourself!

  Instead of posting the image right away, I schedule it for Thanksgiving, two days from now. That way, I won’t have to deal with the reaction until it’s had a few days to diffuse. Tomorrow will be bad enough anyway, with Lipton taking the day off school for the drive to his aunt’s.

  I open my Instagram, but not to check on Vicurious. (She was nearing two million followers last time I looked, which makes me anxious, so it’s better if I don’t look.) But I’m worried about Jenna. I want to see if she’s posted anything. It’s weird that she hasn’t been on there at all. At first I thought she went dark just to drive me crazy,
knowing I’d be checking. But now, I’m starting to wonder if it’s something else.

  Her followers are getting fewer and fewer, too. After she moved, they jumped from about 27 to more than 100. When she started hanging out with Tristan, they climbed even faster . . . 300, 400, 500.

  Today, she’s down to 243.

  And I just can’t figure out what would make 250 people ditch her that fast.

  I could text her a quick “You okay?” if I had my phone, but Mom’s still holding it hostage. So, I open my email.

  I write a message and delete it, write and delete and repeat. The messages I come up with are either too long or too complicated or too apologetic or too accusing or too . . . something. Finally, I settle on this:

  Worried about you. Even if you hate me, will you let me know you’re okay? —Vicky

  I hit the send button before I can change my mind, then wait for a reply. If all she writes is “I’m okay,” then I’ll know we’re really, truly, absolutely done. But maybe she’ll say more. Maybe it’ll be the start of finding our way back to each other.

  When my email in-box bleeps a few seconds later, I’m afraid to look. But I’m more afraid not to. So I open it and there it is:

  Delivery notification: Delivery has failed

  I stare at those five words for a really long time, because Jenna has had the same email address her whole life, and the only reason I can think for her to change it would be to stop someone from finding her where they’ve always found her. Someone like me.

  When I get up from the computer, I don’t even log out of email or Instagram or shut it down properly. I just reach around and flip the main power switch off. I crawl into bed and let the words I wrote for my followers swim in my head, over and over again.

  Hold on . . . be strong . . . stay calm . . . breathe.

  And I wonder if they’ll help anyone out there at all, because they’re not doing that much for me.

  29

  LIPTON IS WAITING AT MY locker on Monday morning and doing a pretty good job making me believe that he really did miss me. “The weekend is too far away. Can we go out tonight? Please say yes.”