I thought about what had happened with Yumi’s mum the summer holidays before we started Year 10. One afternoon she was picking us all up from the beach and dropping us home, reminding us that we only had a few more days before school went back, teasing us that we were going to have to start getting used to getting up at seven o’clock again, saying how would we cope … the next morning, she was riding with some of her cycling buddies at dawn and a car smashed into her and, bang, gone.
I remember that day with hyperclarity: where we’d been going, what we had planned, what I’d eaten for breakfast. I’d texted Yumi to see if she wanted to go to the beach again, and she hadn’t answered. Liv had texted her. No answer. Then Prue came driving up to us, looking for us, chasing us down as we walked towards the tram stop, her face fallen, a greyness about her, and she told us to get in the car; said she needed to tell us something.
She took us back to my house, where Mum was in the kitchen, eyes red-rimmed. Then they told us that Yumi’s mum had gone riding that morning. ‘And, and …’ Liv’s mum was shaking her head, as if she couldn’t even get her mouth around the words, as if she didn’t want to tell us the one thing she’d specifically brought us there for. ‘And, I mean …’
Liv and I both watching her, thinking, What’s her point? We want to get to the beach, we’ll miss the tram, we’re meeting people.
‘I’m afraid …’ Prue was still not able to get the words out. ‘Well, the fact is … this is very difficult to tell you, it’s very distressing. Yumi’s devastated, of course …’
And then I started crying, even though I didn’t know yet what she was talking about.
‘… but you need to know …’
Taking so long before she finally managed to tell us Yumi’s mum had died.
I’d had the same feeling that day. That the world was untrustworthy. That it couldn’t be relied upon to plod along, exactly as expected, rolling one day into another. That instead, you might wake up and Yumi’s mum would be gone, just like that.
Or your dad might leave.
Or all your friends might hate you.
And there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.
#
I walked into a barricade of blue-jumpered backs at school. No one would even look at me.
‘Anouk,’ I said, trying to get to her, realising as I looked at her distressed face through the wall of my friends’ backs the full extent of how badly I’d hurt her, how thoroughly I’d trashed our friendship, how awful it was that the entire globe was looking for her because of what I’d posted, that T-shirts were out in the world because of what I’d done.
That there was a five-thousand-dollar bounty on her head.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t … it wasn’t meant to … I don’t know how …’
Hattie narrowed her eyes into slits at me, then put her arms around Anouk, shielding her from having me anywhere near her.
The bell rang, and everyone shoved past me, Anouk in the centre of the group like they were her security detail.
During maths, Yumi kept her hand up to her face so she didn’t have to risk seeing even a fraction of me as we sat next to each other.
I couldn’t even tell you whether it was statistics or logarithms that we were doing that day. I didn’t hear any of it.
When the bell rang for morning recess, I gripped Yumi’s arm as she stood up. ‘Yumi,’ I said. ‘I know I fucked up. I know it’s bad. But I … please …’
‘Piss off, MC,’ Liv said, coming over to the two of us.
‘Liv, I just want to talk.’
‘I’m pretty sure there’s nothing you can say that I ever want to hear.’
‘Please,’ I said, grabbing Yumi again, knowing she was the most likely to soften. ‘Please. I have to explain everything. Can we go to the oval?’ I pleaded. ‘Just for a second.’
Liv scoffed. ‘You’re hilarious.’
‘I can’t even imagine what you’d have to say,’ Yumi said in a hurt whisper.
‘Please?’
Yumi clasped her lips together tightly, like they were zipped, then finally unzipped them enough for a quiet, ‘Okay,’ to slip out.
The two of them grimly headed off towards the oval, with me following along a couple of steps behind, like they were the royal couple and I was the servant.
I could feel people watching us curiously as we walked through the quad. I could hear words like ‘Tumblr’ and ‘agirlwalksintoaschool’ and ‘five grand’ burbling up through the blueness.
‘You’ve taken low to a whole new level,’ Liv spat at me as soon as we’d sat down on the oval. ‘All those videos, all those celebrities – I mean, one video would have been bad, but you seriously went to town. And now it’s everywhere, and everyone wants to know who Anouk is, and what she did to make everyone so mad. There’s all that shit you wrote on your stupid blog about how you should be able to kiss whoever you want, and calling her a Numero Uno Bitch – which she’s totally not, but you definitely are. There’s a pest control company which has a whole new campaign saying, “If you have any Anouks you want to get rid of, give us a call.” There’s this whole other thing on the internet now that’s like, “My life might be turning to shit, but at least I don’t have a friend like Anouk.” And they don’t even know her. It should be the other way around. My life might be turning to shit, but at least I don’t have a friend like MC. That’d be more accurate.’
I pulled out clumps of the grass and looked at the bright green slivers clutched between my fingers.
‘There’s an entire site dedicated to guys saying, “Yes please, I’d like to Fook Anouk,”’ Yumi added, ‘with all this disgusting stuff about what they want to do if they get their hands on her. It’s really scary.’
‘It wasn’t meant to go viral,’ I protested. ‘As if I wanted any of this happen.’
Yumi looked down at the lawn. ‘Okay, so tell me, because I’m really dumb, what did you want to have happen when you posted all that stuff?’
The quietness, the sadness, the smudged freckle of her made me realise that there was no way of explaining any of this. Because it was all completely not okay.
‘And then there’s all that stuff you wrote about the rest of us,’ Yumi added, her voice dropping to become even quieter. ‘Making out like I don’t have an opinion unless I check with Liv first.’
‘As if Yumi checks anything with me,’ Liv said furiously. ‘What a fucked-up thing to say. It’s like you’ve hated us all along, but we were all too stupid to realise.’
‘How can you say I hate you?’ I said weakly. ‘You’re my best friends.’
‘And now all these people are texting Anouk,’ Liv barrelled on, not listening to me, ‘asking if she’s the Anouk everyone’s looking for, saying they want to cash in the five grand, and does she mind if everyone in the entire world knows who she is. She’s literally ALL OVER THE INTERNET. So, yeah, fine then, I’m really interested to hear your explanation. Like, so curious you can’t even begin to imagine.’
I thought back to Jed’s party; to me jumping into the pool with him after Anouk had gone inside. Triggering this whole thing, like some intricate domino design that was impossible to predict until you stood back months later and saw how they’d all fallen.
I thought back to uploading those videos that night. The righteous fury I’d felt towards Anouk.
I hadn’t intended for things to end up like this – for the internet to swarm all over her. That definitely wasn’t the way I’d meant things to turn out.
But that wasn’t an excuse, because everything I’d done, I’d done deliberately. I’d pushed over the first domino. I’d uploaded those videos. I hadn’t known how it was going to pan out, but I’d started it.
‘I … wasn’t invited to her party, and she sent that text of Jed and that girl, and I just felt really pissed off,’ I muttered, the words sounding pathetic even to my own ears.
‘Are you joking?’ Liv said. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘
I don’t even remember writing half of it,’ I said, pulling more grass out of the lawn. ‘The stuff from Year 9, I mean. I didn’t think anyone would ever see it. I’m so sorry.’
‘So you go onto a little thing called the internet, because you don’t want anyone to ever see it?’ Liv said. ‘Good plan.’
‘I’m sure there have been things I’ve done that have pissed you guys off. You’re just not stupid enough to get caught,’ I protested.
‘No,’ Liv said, standing up and stepping away from me. ‘No, actually, I’m so dumb, I always thought we were best friends. I never felt so annoyed with you, or so angry that I wanted to go onto the internet and vent to the world. But … turns out I was wrong.’
‘You’re just …’ Yumi said, then she shook her head, as if there was no point in saying anything more, and stood up beside Liv.
The two of them walked away.
I sat alone on the oval and looked at the grip of grass I was holding in my hand. Like I was intent on destroying the school oval, one clumped handful at a time.
I didn’t wait to see out the rest of that day’s classes; didn’t sign myself out. Didn’t even go to my locker to get my things, just stood up from the oval, walked out the gate, caught the tram back home, and went up to my room.
Liv sent through a text at lunchtime. ‘Sam Anderson from Year 12 just called Gig FM and scored herself $5000,’ she wrote. ‘Congratulations. You’ve officially ruined Anouk’s life.’
So now all those creepy guys who’d written what they wanted to do to Anouk if they got their hands on her … the pest control companies … the breweries … the celebs and the paparazzi … the random commenters and sharers who all had an opinion even though it was none of their business and nothing to do with them … they all knew who Anouk was.
And it was all my fault.
Mine and Sam Anderson’s.
.
.
No.
Just mine.
#
I texted Anouk and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m so, so sorry. Sorry.’
I wanted to call her, talk to her in person, see how she was feeling, give her the opportunity to yell at me, but I knew that if I called, her phone would shunt me straight to voicemail.
I could picture her picking up her phone, seeing my name come up on her screen, and pressing the button to end my call.
Disconnecting me.
And fair enough, too. Because the entire world had turned itself southward-looking that afternoon after Gig FM announced it had found Anouk and she was a Melbourne girl.
Facebook hyperventilated from all the posts made by people I knew (on top of the millions made by people I didn’t): comments like, ‘Hang on. Our Anouk is the one the whole world’s been looking for? Classic!’ and, ‘She’s a couple of years above me at school,’ and, ‘I was at her party!’ and reposts of my Tumblr blog with #MeanGirl, #FookAnouk, #PartyHag, #WhichOneOfAnouksFriendsWroteThisBlog.
Google Images had pages and pages and pages of shots from Anouk’s party: pics of her in her wolf hat; shots of all of my (ex) friends in laughing groups; a sext she’d sent her old boyfriend in Year 10 of herself in her bra and undies.
#IdFookAnouk and #HesJustNotThatIntoAnouk were trending.
A new gossip column had sprung up titled ‘Norway isn’t as great as you think it is’. It had a photo of Anouk as its banner shot.
Nique had done a picture of a group of meerkats standing on their hind legs looking startled, with a banner across the top saying, ‘When you’re hangin’ with da squad,’ and underneath, ‘and it turns out one of you is Anouk.’
It had been shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Anouk was now thoroughly entangled in the internet. Over ten million results came up when you googled her name. Complete strangers all had an opinion on her, and felt free to share it. Trolls were writing the most hideous, violent things about what they wanted to do to her.
And if the internet was chewing Anouk to bits, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going to happen when it turned on me.
#
That night, Mum came up to my bedroom.
I was rolled up in a ball in bed, trying to keep as far away from my computer as possible. It was my new approach to dealing with the problem.
‘I’ve just been on Facebook,’ Mum said, sitting down on my bed.
I watched her from under my bedcovers. Didn’t answer.
‘Anouk’s mum,’ she went on, ‘has done this post – which has been shared hundreds of times – saying that people all over the internet are talking about wanting to rape Anouk’ – she stumbled, the words catching in her throat – ‘and that it stems from something one of her friends did.’
Everything seemed dark in my room, shadowy, except this one spot I was focusing on – Mum’s mouth. My room felt crowded with the two of us in there. Mum was taking up all the air. I could barely breathe. My chest felt sore. I wondered if sixteen was too young to have a heart attack.
‘So then I went onto the internet,’ Mum continued, although I could hardly hear her – it was like when you walk into a crowded party and all you can hear are clashing sounds and loud music, and no one person can be heard until your ears adjust to the new environment, ‘and the things that are being written about Anouk are repulsive – violent, misogynistic, revolting – and there are all these celebrity videos where she’s being abused, and apparently it all stems from a blog called agirlwalksintoaschool.’
My ears slowly adjusted.
‘Which Prue tells me is yours,’ she added.
I couldn’t find the words to describe the hugeness of what I’d done. What a revolting person I was. The damage I’d caused, without even trying.
I put my hand over my face and shook my head back and forth.
‘That it’s something you did from when you first started at Whitbourn,’ Mum went on, talking, talking, talking, but I didn’t want to hear any more of it. My bedroom was supposed to be the one place I could escape to, but here she was, dragging all the horribleness in and dumping it on my doona, trying to talk at me through the webbing of my fingers, through the back-and-forth of my head.
I was feeling giddy from moving my head so much, which was good. I wanted to make myself sick.
Sick would be good.
‘MC. Stop it.’
I kept my head moving, because I didn’t want to hear another word.
Didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to talk.
I’d been doing way too much talking lately – telling the world everything that came into my head. Every thought, every furious rant. Like everyone needed to hear my opinion on every little thing; on every person I knew. Well, I’d spoken my last words, they’d had maximum impact, and now I wasn’t ever going to talk again. I was done with talking.
‘I had no idea you had such a tough time when you first started there,’ Mum said gently, putting her hand on mine to try to stop me moving my head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Tears were filling my head, like water in a bucket.
‘Tell me what’s been going on,’ she pressed. ‘We can sort this out. There are always two sides to a story.’
I took my hand away from my face and looked up at her, suddenly furious.
‘Two sides?’ I spat. ‘No. My side’s the same as everyone else’s side. I’m a horrible person, I did a horrible thing, and it can’t be fixed.’
‘That’s not true,’ Mum said. ‘You’re not a horrible person. Don’t say that. We can sort this out.’
‘No,’ I yelled. ‘This can’t be sorted out. It’s unfixable. And I am a revolting person. You might as well get used to that fact.’
‘Get dressed,’ Mum said. ‘We’ll go over to Anouk’s. We’ll sit down, the four of us – you, me, Anouk and her mother – and we’ll sort this out.’
I couldn’t believe she was so dumb. ‘What are you talking about?’ I screamed at her. ‘This is bigger than Anouk’s house. Bi
gger than her street, bigger than the four of us sitting down together. This is worldwide. Don’t you get it? What planet are you on? I’ve fucked up, and there’s no way I can un-fuck it.’
And then I started crying.
And I couldn’t stop.
#
In the end, Mum gave me a sleeping pill.
Apparently she’d been dosing herself up on these when Dad had first moved out. Which, from the way I was feeling, explained why she hadn’t managed to get any cooking done and hadn’t been bothered going outside to smoke her cigarettes.
My edges were fuzzy. I didn’t really care about anything anymore. Or, no, that wasn’t strictly true – I still cared, but I couldn’t be bothered doing anything about it. Things could wash around me, life could troll along, could crush in on me, and so long as my edges were fuzzy, it just wouldn’t matter, because I would give with every squeeze, like a marshmallow.
I vaguely heard Mum talking to Harley in the hallway outside my bedroom, telling him she was going over to Anouk’s house to talk to her mum.
‘Whoa,’ I heard him say through my couldn’t-care fog, ‘what did you give her? She’s off her face.’
I Iooked up at my ceiling and wished the flower mobile Dad had given me was still hanging there. This would have been the perfect time to look at it. But I’d taken it down, because … for some reason I couldn’t even remember anymore.
Didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
‘You okay?’ Harley said, coming in and standing over me, next to my bed.
‘Great,’ I said, my words barely audible, barely legible. ‘Super-good. Super-better-good. Like, so great. So, so great.’
And then I turned to face the wall and felt tears roll out of the corners of my eyes and run into my hairline.
Chapter 21
I didn’t wake up the next day until after eleven, even though I’d been in bed since the afternoon before; I’d kept drifting back to sleep, preferring it to real life.
When I finally did get up, I felt fuzzy from the sleeping pill Mum had given me. I didn’t want to look at the internet, didn’t want to see more damage but, like the night of Anouk’s party, I felt compelled to delve in.
My Life as a Hashtag Page 16