My Life as a Hashtag

by Gabrielle Williams

  Wish you were here.

  Sure.

  Liv needed to get cracking on creating that sarcastic emoji of hers, because Anouk could have done with it right there.

  Jed. With some random.

  I felt my heart chink, give a brittle crack, at the thought of how much space I’d given him inside my brain, while there he was, moved on to the next girl.

  Not giving me a second’s thought.

  And Anouk. Loving the fact.

  Looks like he doesn’t want either of us. Wish you were here.

  I hadn’t thought she could make me feel any worse, but props to Anouk – she’d just made me sink lower.

  I tried to think of something good to send back to her. Something great. Something that would shut her up. Cut her down.

  And then I had my first idea.

  I went onto that app, the talking-dog app, clicked the photo I still had of Jed’s dog, and I recorded the word ‘bitch’ – just the one word – and I texted it to Anouk.

  So it was like Jed’s dog was calling Anouk a bitch.

  But only because she was.

  Anouk texted back, ‘Ha ha!’ with a winky face.

  I looked at the text. She was completely fearless. She didn’t give a shit. I could say what I liked to her, and she wouldn’t give a flying fuck.

  To think she’d used to be one of my best friends.

  I should have been at that party. I should have been there with all my friends, cheers-ing the world in the hallway with Liv and Yumi, with Nique and Harry and Charlie; laughing with Della and Audrey.

  Maybe standing in the kitchen kissing Jed.

  But no one, none of my friends, were giving me a second thought. They weren’t missing me. They weren’t leaving early. They were all still there, having a good time.

  I wanted to go round there, over to Anouk’s house, and bail them all up, stand in the front yard and scream at them. Did they all think this was fine, that I wasn’t there, that I wasn’t invited, that Jed was with this other chick? Did any of them even care?

  Oh sure, MC, I thought, that’d go down really well. Everyone would think I was certifiable.

  I wanted to yell out my window like a shaggy-headed girl from the seventies: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore. Except it would just be me. Me yelling out the window into the storm, and no one else caring.

  I wanted to vent on a grand scale, but the world wasn’t interested.

  I picked up my phone and looked at the photo of the Gun, still there on my screen. I pressed record again.

  ‘Fuck you, Anouk, you fucking fucker.’

  It felt good, the viciousness of the words suiting my mood.

  I was going to text it to her, Insta it, Snapchat it; send it out to everyone I knew, so they could … what? Think I was a psycho?

  But I liked the way the Gun looked so furry-faced and serious as he swore at her. I liked my angry voice coming out of this calm-looking dog.

  So I opened up my secret Tumblr account. And I uploaded the video of the Gun calling Anouk a fucking fucker, keying in below it: #GirlsAreBitches.

  And then I had another idea.

  This is the one I should have left alone.

  I had hundreds of screen grabs on my phone of celebrities. Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth, Troye Sivan, Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber.

  I pulled all their photos into the talking-pet app, synced up the dots on their eyes and the lines on their mouths, then got each of them to give a spray to Anouk.

  ‘What the fook, Anouk.’

  ‘Fook you, Anouk.’

  ‘Fook Anouk, go have a sook.’

  I changed the speed setting on each one as I went, so that some sounded slow and deep, and others sounded high and chipmunky.

  Sharing our private joke with the world.

  Elle Fanning, Josh Hutcherson, Selena Gomez, Emma Watson, Jennifer Lawrence … Over and over again, variations of ‘fook Anouk’ Tumbling onto the internet.

  #Rihanna

  #ElleFanning

  #ChrisPine

  #MadAsHell

  #Lol

  #PartyBitch

  #FookAnouk

  Raging fury, consider yourself vented.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning when I woke up I kept my eyes closed and enjoyed a drowsy, behind-my-lids moment. A sense of calm lay over the top of me, keeping my doona weighted down comfortably.

  I’d told the entire world that Anouk was a bitch. And the good thing was, none of my friends were ever going to know about it.

  I picked up my phone. Opened agirlwalksintoaschool to re-watch some of my videos.

  I was surprised to see a few people had re-blogged a couple of them, with comments like ‘gotta download this app – this is brilliant’ and ‘hilarious’ and ‘best idea ever’.

  For the first time in days, I actually cracked a genuine smile.

  I went back over the videos. You’d have thought the Josh Hutcherson one might have been my favourite, or the Elle Fanning one, but actually the ones that made me laugh the most were Jon Snow saying, ‘The whole reason we’ve built that bloody great wall is to keep out all the fooking Anouks,’ and a painted portrait of the Queen in her tiara saying, ‘Fook Anouk, go have a sook,’ and, okay this one was pretty weird and not even a celebrity, but a strawberry with a tiny little mouth saying, ‘You’re a berry, berry, berry biiiiig bitch, Anouk,’ the voice speeded up so it sounded like a chipmunk.

  There was something just the right kind of ridiculous about those ones to make me laugh.

  Because fook Anouk, go have a sook.

  #

  I texted Liv later that morning: Kristen Stewart mouthing my words, ‘Hey Liv, whatcha doing? Wanna hang out? Just you and me, girl.’

  Liv texted back. ‘Ha ha! Come over,’ she wrote, with a face crying tears of laughter.

  When I went up to her bedroom, she was sitting at her desk in her pyjamas, short hair sticking up at the back, dregs of mascara still on her lashes, marking up one of her insect sketches – putting her eye to her microscope and checking the detail on the bug she’d laid carefully out on the glass.

  She turned around and grinned at me as I walked in.

  ‘That’s so great,’ she said. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘The Kristen thing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s this app. It’s supposed to be to make dogs talk, but you just put anyone’s face on there and it works perfectly.’

  ‘Show me,’ she said, doing a gimme motion with her hands.

  I was going to show her on my phone, but then I realised there were all the celebs bitching about Anouk on my version. So instead I picked up her phone and went onto the app store, pressed the little magnifying glass to search for the talking pets app and saw that I didn’t need to bother – it was trending.

  Liv downloaded it, then we both started screenshotting different celebs and making them talk for us – Emma Watson, Zac Efron, Justin Bieber; just whoever took our fancy, saying all sorts of things on our behalf – and posting them on Insta.

  ‘MC is the absolute hottest chick ever,’ I made Robert Pattinson say.

  ‘I can only dream of being as completely and utterly cool as Liv Barrett,’ Liv put in FKA Twigs’s mouth.

  And so it went – a mash-up of general adoring of us by every single celebrity we could think of.

  As we screenshotted and posted, we avoided talking about Anouk’s party. Both of us did. The two of us pretending like perhaps it just hadn’t happened.

  Until finally I couldn’t bear it, and threw in like I’d only just remembered, screenshotting Gigi Hadid as I asked, seemingly completely carelessly, ‘How was last night?’

  Liv said, ‘Last night?’ like she wasn’t exactly sure what I was referring to – like the party had completely slipped her mind – and then, ‘Anouk’s?’ and then she shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, it was fine. I mean, it was fun, but nothing special.’

&nbs
p; I’d have preferred she’d said, Yeah, the party was awesome, best party I’ve been to in ages, maybe in my entire life. Had a great time – great music, great night, great, great, great, so much great I can’t even go through all the greats about it. How was your boring Saturday night at home?

  Because that’s what the normal Liv would have said.

  ‘Who was there?’ I asked, wanting the detail, wanting to force her to say something I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Um,’ she said, looking away from me, back towards her bug drawing, pencilling in some detail, the celebrity-talking, the fun we’d been having, completely forgotten, ‘the usuals. But I promise, it was nothing big. What about you? How was your night?’

  ‘Oh yeah, my night was great,’ I said, sarcasm making my words brittle. ‘Tosca’s pregnant, and Mum brought a guy home, who I thought was a home invasion, so yeah, great, great, just a normal, great Saturday night at home.’

  ‘Whoa. Tosca’s pregnant?’

  ‘Apparently. I don’t know. She might be. I don’t care.’

  I picked up my phone and opened the text Anouk had sent me.

  ‘Anouk texted me last night,’ I said, shoving the screen of my phone at Liv so she could see firsthand what a bitch Anouk was. ‘And Jed was with this girl? And you weren’t even going to tell me?’

  I didn’t care if Liv didn’t want to listen to me vent. She was my ventee, it was the deal, it had always been the deal, and today I felt like venting.

  ‘Sure, don’t invite me to your party, Anouk, whatever,’ I ploughed ahead. ‘I don’t care, but don’t go out of your way to make me feel more shit about everything than I already do.’

  Liv scrolled through Anouk’s texts, the photo she’d sent of Jed, shaking her head.

  ‘I can see why you might think it’s bad that she sent these,’ Liv said, ‘but I think she was sending them as, like, “What the hell, why aren’t you here, what are we fighting over this guy for?” type texts. I think she felt pretty bad that you weren’t there.’

  I snatched my phone back from Liv.

  ‘“Wish you were here,”’ I read out loud. ‘Seriously, Liv, as if. If she’d wanted me there, she could have invited me.’

  Liv bit down on her lip. ‘But the thing is,’ she said, ‘I think Anouk did feel bad about not inviting you. Nique said she’d gone around to your house, and you kind of lost it, and I think that’s when Anouk realised that it was actually really mean that she didn’t invite you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, shaking my head in the hope that Liv’s words couldn’t enter my brain and get trapped in there, ‘she only realised the night of the party that it was mean not to invite me? Seriously? I can’t believe you’re defending her.’

  Liv sighed. ‘I’m not defending her. But I hate that you guys are having this stupid fight over some stupid guy. I mean, Jed’s an arsehole. Look at him.’

  She took my phone and then presented it back to me, as if the proof was right there in the photo of him kissing Ms Random.

  ‘He’s always been an arsehole. I don’t really get why so many girls like him, but, you know, I guess he’s just not my type. But this whole thing with you and Anouk … it’s just kind of shit. And I think she really does feel bad about you not being there. And you won’t even believe her, because you’re so mad at her. So what’s this thing you sent through next?’

  And she pressed the play button of the Gun saying, ‘Bitch.’

  She frowned at me and pressed play again. ‘What’s he saying?’ she asked, bringing my phone closer to her face as if that would help her hear better. ‘I can’t quite get it. It sounds like a cough or something.’

  It was muffled. Not terribly clear. And even though his mouth was moving open and shut, it wasn’t specifically making the b-itch shape.

  Which I was kind of relieved about.

  It had seemed okay to send in a text to Anouk the night before, but sitting with Liv, imagining saying it to her with my own mouth, hearing it with my own ears, I realised how awful it would sound.

  ‘It just says …’ I fudged it. ‘It’s just like a woof sound. You know, because he’s a dog.’

  Lied? Yes.

  Saved myself? Definitely.

  Because if Liv couldn’t hear it, here in her bedroom on a Sunday morning, Anouk would have had no chance at her party with all those people around.

  Later that afternoon, I lay on my bed and rehashed my conversation with Liv. I really do think she feels bad, she’d said.

  Liv was on Anouk’s side. She didn’t have my back anymore.

  And Jed was with that other chick, and everyone at the party would have known about it, too.

  Part of me wanted to unfriend him, but then it would look like I actually cared, and the only thing I had left in my life was the fact that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t know I cared.

  Maybe he didn’t know that the whole reason Anouk and I were fighting was because of him.

  No, who was I kidding? Of course he would have known.

  And now with Liv backing Anouk, acting like Anouk had suddenly become the good guy in all of this, it—

  Liv. Backing Anouk.

  A strangled little sound came out of my throat, causing me to start.

  And that was when I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand going to school the next day. Because I didn’t feel mad as hell anymore. Instead, I just felt out-and-out sad as hell.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning, Monday, sure enough, I couldn’t lift my head off my pillow. My arms felt heavy. My legs were like unattached logs.

  I didn’t want to face everyone, hear about Anouk’s party, how awesome it had been. Or worse, have everyone stop talking as soon as I walked up.

  I didn’t want to turn up at school and have everyone look at me and think to themselves, Jed hooked up with that chick – I wonder if MC knows.

  I didn’t want to look at any of their faces, because whatever expression I saw there, I just knew it would make me feel worse.

  ‘You’re still feeling sick?’ Mum said, taking the thermometer out of my mouth. ‘It’s probably lucky you didn’t go that party on Saturday night, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She put her hand on my forehead. It felt nice. Cool. I wanted her to leave it there.

  We didn’t hug anymore; didn’t cuddle up on the couch to watch films on a Friday night like we’d used to when I was little. The most skin contact we had these days was if she gave me a cursory kiss on the cheek before I left to go out somewhere.

  I kind of missed her.

  ‘You don’t have a fever,’ she said, sitting back and looking at me, her eyes narrowing as if she was trying to pull me into focus. Something she hadn’t done for months now. Not since Dad had moved out.

  I could feel tears pushing against the backs of my eyes, but I held them in. ‘I’ve got a really bad headache,’ I said shakily, putting my hand up to my own forehead. ‘I … I think it’s a migraine.’

  I threw ‘migraine’ in because it sounded serious and I was pretty sure you didn’t get a temperature with a migraine.

  ‘You do look pale,’ she said. ‘But I’m working at the shop,’ she went on. ‘I feel bad leaving you here if you’re not well.’

  I snuggled back down under my doona. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said weakly, wondering if maybe I really did have a migraine, because I felt so shit. ‘I just need to rest.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  She didn’t move.

  ‘I’m sorry that was all so awkward on Saturday night,’ she finally said. ‘When you got home from Dad’s.’

  I turned towards the wall. I really didn’t want to talk about that; didn’t want to have that particular picture in my mind any more than I had to.

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t care.’

  She lingered by my bedside.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I repeated into the wall.

  She leant over, kissed my cheek, barely brushing her lips against my skin, lik
e usual, and walked out. ‘I’ll call you later to see how you’re feeling.’

  I heard her leave the house. Pulled my computer into bed with me and opened it up.

  I went through my feeds, scrolling through everyone’s posts of Anouk’s party again: the drinking photos, the laughing photos, the me-not-there photos. ‘Best night ever.’ ‘Still recovering.’ ‘Party hardy.’ I knew I was wallowing, but there was something exactly right about doing this, about the hurt it caused me, seeing what a great time everyone had had, and how badly I’d missed out.

  Liv had acted like Anouk was the good guy, all sad she hadn’t invited me, but I knew that wasn’t true. She would have had a fantastic time, with everyone round at her place, feeling popular. I wanted to prove it to myself, to point at her photos and posts and say to myself, There, see – no regrets to be seen anywhere on that smug face of hers, but I couldn’t, because I was still blocked.

  So I hacked her Facebook.

  It was easy enough, seeing as ‘qwerty’ was my second attempt at her password and, yes, that was the one.

  Let that be a lesson to you, Anouk. Try to have a little more imagination.

  There were millions of photos, comments. I don’t even need to go into what everyone had posted – you’ve been on Facebook after a party. You know what people post. And woven through all those photos was Anouk with her arm slung around people’s shoulders, laughing, drinking, having a great time. Regrets? No. Sad I wasn’t there? Didn’t look like it.

  My fingers started itching with comments I wanted to write – sarcastic, bitchy remarks, telling people to piss off. But then she’d know she’d been hacked. So instead, I poked every guy she knew (cute, bad, ugly, cool, uncool, anyone living and breathing) – retribution for the humiliation of Jed not poking me back.

  I changed her language to Pirate English.

  I liked every single ad that came up in her feed.

  I felt like my own evil twin – my bitchy alter ego, screwing Anouk’s Facebook page up. It was a good feeling.

  I closed my computer, shoved it to the end of my bed and went down to the kitchen in my nightie. My teeth were unbrushed; ditto my hair. Which was when Harley came through the back door into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, hey,’ Harley said, stopping short. ‘What are you doing home?’