Unfiltered

by Sophie White

  ‘Are you OK? I mean apart from …’ Ali cast a hand around awkwardly, searching for a good way to put Shelly’s troubles.

  ‘Apart from what? Everything?’ Shelly suggested wryly.

  ‘Well, yeah.’

  Shelly gazed across the car park. Despite the belly, she looked tiny, Ali thought, and vulnerable.

  ‘Have you lost weight, Shelly?’

  ‘It’s just stress.’ Shelly sighed. ‘Everything has been so full on.’

  She met Ali’s eyes and the look of bald fear startled Ali.

  ‘What’s going on? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Shelly replied plainly. ‘I have this person who is wrecking my life, and no one is taking it seriously. The guards can’t seem to find any answers. They don’t seem to understand half of what we do on Instagram. My parents are freaking, which is not comforting. And as you probably gathered, Dan is blaming me completely for the whole thing.’

  ‘Shit. Is this still the person in the DMs? The one getting ratty every time you forget to do an outfit post?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Only it’s really escalated.’ She looked uncertain about whatever she was about to say next but appeared to steel herself. ‘They came into my home, Ali.’

  ‘What? So, you’ve seen them—’

  ‘No,’ Shelly interrupted sharply. ‘Not exactly. I dunno if you remember, it was Georgie’s birthday about a month ago and I actually forgot to set up the balloons the night before. I sent Amy a voicenote asking her to pick up stuff. Anyway, when I came down in the morning, it was all laid out perfectly. Except Amy hadn’t done it.’

  Ali shivered despite the warm late August day.

  ‘What. The. Fuck. That’s so creepy. What was set up? Balloons and shit?’

  ‘Yeah, they sent a message being all “I’ve always got your back. Lucky, I’m always watching and listening”.’

  ‘God.’ Ali was reeling. ‘It’s just so, so freaky. How did they get in?’

  Shelly just shrugged helplessly. Something niggled at Ali about the message Shelly had just related but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  ‘No idea. Still. Obviously, I’ve put in way more security measures since. I’ve got a camera on the front door that links to my phone. All the alarm codes and locks are changed but they’re relentless.’ Ali folded Shelly into an awkward hug. She looked so worn out and desperate.

  ‘Here’s Sam. C’mon let’s get you fed. You look tiny, like someone’s FaceFixed you into oblivion.’

  Shelly mustered a thin, bloodless smile.

  Sam pulled up beside them and Ali ushered Shelly into the passenger seat. ‘Mega preggos get shotgun,’ she chirped, trying to sound cheery.

  ‘Sorry that took so long.’ Sam slipped into gear and headed back down the avenue to the exit. ‘Your one actually clocked me making my “getaway” and gave me the bollocking of my life. She said I deserved to be sterilised if I couldn’t sit through one antenatal class. It was a bit much,’ he trailed off, spotting Shelly’s upset.

  ‘Crap, are you OK? What’d I miss? Is it your husband? He seemed … eh … nice?’ Sam finished clumsily.

  Shelly, to Ali’s relief, managed a laugh at this.

  ‘Dan is the least of my problems. I was just telling Ali about this complete psycho who is wrecking my life currently.’

  As Ali directed them to the nearest carvery – she was keeping an active list on her phone, colour-coded according to which establishments were ‘weekend-only’ carveries versus which provided leather-meat all week – Shelly brought Sam up to speed on @__________.

  ‘It’s so twisted. They basically want you to keep performing for them.’ Sam shook his head.

  Shelly nodded emphatically. ‘I didn’t understand it at first but that totally is what it seems to be about. Berna, my therapist, says the stalker has a form of addiction. They seem to hate me but need me in equal measure. The thing is they’ve amassed so much on me.’

  ‘Like what?’ Ali had spent the journey leaning forward with her elbows propped on the front seats lest she miss a single detail.

  Shelly shifted uneasily. ‘Stupid stuff like posed photographs.’

  ‘But everyone does that. It’s Instagram! Anyone who thinks they’re not watching a complete sham probably has some undiagnosed brain injury,’ Ali pointed out.

  ‘Some of these things are … pretty dishonest. It’d be embarrassing if they came out.’

  ‘Liiike … ?’ Sam prompted as he pulled into the pub Ali had indicated and she was amused at how invested he was. She’d forgotten about his love of tea-spilling.

  ‘Well, I lied a bit about breastfeeding. So, there might be misleading pictures on my grid … that were staged. With a doll instead of a baby.’

  Ali and Sam snorted in unison.

  ‘Oh my God! You just snorted,’ Sam roared.

  ‘So did you! Shut up! OK, so you boobed a doll but that’s not exactly the craziest thing anyone’s lied about on Insta.’ Ali tried to sound soothing.

  ‘Yeah, Ali knows!’ Sam chimed in as he swung into a parking space.

  ‘Well, yeah, none of the pictures are as bad as …’ Shelly hesitated then seemed to make up her mind. ‘Well, see for yourselves,’ she said, pulling out her phone and tapping and swiping until she found what she was looking for. She passed it to Ali and Sam. Ali was dying to see what could’ve spooked Shelly so badly, but she was also very, very aware of how close Sam was at that moment. His body just seemed to emanate some undefined aura that called to her, a magnetic pull she found irresistible. Goddamn, it was potent stuff. His shocked exclamation broke the spell.

  ‘Oh shit! Did you just give your kid—’

  ‘The finger? Yeah.’ Shelly rolled her eyes. ‘Sometimes they are really asking for it. Give it three years and you two will understand. Ugh, if this got out, it’d be a disaster,’ she said as Sam replayed the clip and Ali shifted her focus, with some difficulty, back to the video and away from the curls of dark hair on his neck.

  ‘Well, the kid has her back to you,’ Ali noted. ‘She can’t see it. Seems grand to me. Sure, you don’t have to have kids to know that they can be complete pricks. Just go to the supermarket and follow the sound of screaming and you’ll find some bastard kid breaking their mother’s gentle spirit in the cereal aisle.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Sam chimed in. ‘I was deffo a little shit to my mum. I barely remember her, but I remember her telling me to “go the fuck to sleep” one night! Must’ve worn her way down that day.’

  ‘C’mon to the meat.’ Ali was antsy. ‘I can focus better when the carvery is locked in.’

  Inside the dimly lit pub a Saturday match blared, and the punters gave them barely a glance as they loaded up plates and settled in a pleather banquette in the corner.

  Shelly had skipped the carvery in favour of the salad bar, which Ali was sure she’d never seen anyone go for. God, she seems so repressed, Ali thought as she watched Shelly take genteel bites of what had to be the most disgusting mélange of vegetables masquerading as a salad ever to grace a plate.

  ‘Look, I have a theory.’ All that SVU seemed to have paid off. Sam was seriously all over the stalker situation. ‘@__________ is obsessed with you, right? You’re her – look I think we can assume it’s a “her” – you’re her oxygen. She threatens you when you aren’t supplying her with what she craves. YOU. You said any time you’re slow to post to Insta, she’s in the DMs. She might hate you, but she also needs you. She’s addicted to you, see?’

  ‘Yes. I see, Sam, but that doesn’t exactly help when she’s coming into my house to hang up decorations and watch me sleep.’

  ‘But wait, he’s onto something.’ Ali picked up the thread. ‘You think she’s got stuff on you, that she holds all the power. But in reality you have way, way more power. If she loses you, she’s got nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, but how does she lose me? She has me on the hook with all these pictures and videos.’

  ‘But power is relative,’ Ali argued, swallowi
ng a forkful of mash doused in gravy. ‘Can we just take a minute for this gravy, lads … fuckin’ gorge.’ She sighed contentedly before continuing. ‘This video to me is nothing. You should post it. You’re not being a bitch to your kid, you’re not hurting her, she doesn’t even know you’re flipping her off. You post this and write a caption about how some psycho troll is trying to mum-shame you and BAM, everyone will be on your side. The tide is turning on all this call-out culture. Mark my words, you’ll win this. You’ll be brave for “being real’’,’ Ali concluded.

  ‘Instagram.’ Sam shook his head ruefully. ‘You get praise on there for just not being completely full of shit.’

  Shelly pushed her depressing wilted iceberg lettuce around her plate, evidently considering Ali’s words.

  ‘Ali deffo has a point, though,’ Sam continued. ‘You need to get ahead of this. That’s what we’d be advising in work.’

  ‘What do you do, Sam?’ Shelly asked. Ali straightened up. This was her chance to finally nail this info down. Back when they were together, Ali had zoned out a few too many times on the early dates, planning Insta captions for her feed, and had never gotten to the bottom of Sam’s job beyond that he went to an office. It had then gone on too long and it seemed too late to ask.

  ‘Well, I’m in communications ostensibly, in a big software company, but with the way things are these days, we spend a lot of our time managing micro shitstorms on Twitter. It’s sensitive stuff. I can’t really talk in depth about it because it’d defeat the purpose of my job – put it this way, if you’ve heard about it, it means I didn’t do my job right.’ He gave a little exasperated wink.

  Aha, Ali thought, finally, I can confidently tell people what my boyfriend’s job is. Kind of.

  He’s not your boyfriend, luv, the bitchy inner monologue was quick to point out. Was he ever?

  All right, all right. Ali was refusing to end this day on a downer. My sort-of near-boyfriend – we were definitely relationship-adjacent at some point and he’ll be my baby’s dad for ever so piss off.

  ‘He’s so right.’ Ali turned to Shelly. ‘Post it and you are basically castrating this horrible person. It’s the perfect solution.’

  Shelly looked as if she was coming around to the idea and for the rest of their lunch they composed the caption. Sam, Ali couldn’t help but notice, was particularly good at the Insta-spin. He dictated a pitch-perfect caption:

  ‘It is not OK to terrorise another person. Instagram is a wonderful, positive space and I am so, so grateful for the career and connections I have forged here. This person has hidden behind their anonymity while threatening to expose intimate moments from my life. I am not perfect but every day I am trying my best. I am showing up and trying to be a good mum and role model for my little girl. I don’t always succeed one hundred per cent, but I try, just like all us mums are constantly trying. The holder of this anonymous account illegally gained entry to my home, set up a camera and captured footage of me at the end of my mum-tether, then threatened to expose me. But I say NO MORE. No one has the right to publish the private moments of others …’

  Sam briefly trailed off, switching back to his normal voice.

  ‘You want to subtly hint that you’re throwing yourself under a bus for the good of others …’ He pondered for a minute while Shelly waited, finger poised to tap.

  ‘OK, I’ve got it.

  ‘No one has the right to publish the private moments of others and if I am criticised for my actions with my daughter, which came at the end of a long day and which I am not proud of, well, then so be it. I am taking this stand because I don’t want others to be shamed or harassed or bullied in the manner in which I have for the past six months.’

  ‘Mention your pregnancy,’ Ali cut in. ‘You’re at a particularly vulnerable time in your life or whatever.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Shelly amended the caption.

  ‘Now, we need a hashtag that can get everyone talking,’ Ali said.

  ‘What about #CallOutCallingOut?’ Sam suggested.

  ‘That’s good.’ Shelly typed feverishly.

  ‘Is #TakeBackPowerFromTrolls too long?’ Ali wondered.

  ‘Tighten it up.’ Sam drummed his fingers on the table. ‘#TakeTrollPrisoners works.’

  They read the caption through a couple more times before pronouncing it perfect.

  ‘You’re good at this, Sam,’ Shelly said admiringly.

  ‘Yeah, you could’ve helped with my Insta comeback.’ Ali grinned, risking a reference to the dreaded baby lie.

  ‘Nah, yours was good.’ His face was infuriatingly hard to read. ‘It needed that rawness. Anything too polished and people would’ve hated it.’

  He suddenly looked solemn and Ali sensed it was probably still too soon to be making cracks about her Insta downfall. But it would always be too soon unless they just talked about it. To get past it, they had to get it out there. It was just like what they’d been saying to Shelly, hiding from something only feeds its power.

  Shelly, clearly sensing the change in mood, signalled a lounge boy to bring the bill.

  ‘I’d better be getting home. My mum’s got Georgie but I don’t want to miss bath and bedtime. I’m getting this.’ She handed her card to the waiter. ‘You guys really cheered me up and, seriously, I’m starting to feel so much better about this. I’m going to give it to Amy for a final edit but then, screw it, you’re absolutely right. Taking back the power is the only way.’

  They piled into the car and, as Sam headed towards the health centre, Ali mulled over how to swing it so that she and Sam were alone together. He hadn’t mentioned giving her a lift home and it made no sense for him to cross the entire city and then go back to his place in Rathmines. But maybe he—

  ‘I can drop you to the bus, Ali?’ His abrupt stop by the side of the road shut down any hopeful thoughts in her head. ‘It goes from here back into town, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, cool, here’s perfect. Thanks.’ Ali said her goodbyes and heaved herself out of the car, wishing she wasn’t leaving Sam with the lasting visual of her looking distinctly ungraceful and struggling to get out.

  She thanked them and waved as they drove out of sight.

  It seemed like he couldn’t wait to get rid of her, she thought sadly as she ambled to the bench at the bus stop and stood practically pelvis to eye level with a guy on his phone until he got the message and grudgingly gave up his seat for her.

  She WhatsApped Liv.

  It seemed to be going great. We went for lunch with Shelly, but then he dumped me out at the bus stop and is now driving her back to her car.

  Also, we ducked out of the class early because it was like a hellish combination of Social and Personal Education class in fourth year and the final scenes from Event Horizon. I need cheering up ASAP and to find out how to birth a baby.

  She added a GIF of Sam Neill losing it in that last scene of the movie and began rooting for her Leap card.

  Liv’s response a few minutes later was comforting.

  I got you covered …

  It was accompanied by a picture of the coffee table in the living room where Liv had arranged a load of snacks and some latex gloves with One Born Every Minute loading on the TV in the background.

  Thank you. I don’t want to know why you just HAPPENED to have latex gloves to hand like that ;) See you soon. xx

  Shelly felt bad that Sam was bringing her back to her car. Maybe if she hadn’t been there, Sam and Ali would’ve spent the evening together. It was such a shame those two had gotten off on the wrong foot – though that was, Shelly knew, definitely putting it mildly.

  Still, the connection they had was just so obvious. Even in the early days, she and Dan had never had that.

  ‘So’ – she turned to Sam – ‘you didn’t want to invite Ali back to the very coveted garden-level apartment, then?’ She was pretty sure it was OK to ask, given how much he had learned about her life in the preceding two hours.

  Sam shrugged, keeping his eyes on the r
oad, the turn for the health centre coming up. ‘I don’t want to be sending mixed signals.’

  ‘What constitutes mixed signals when you clearly still have feelings for her and she’s having your child?’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that,’ he returned tersely.

  He didn’t deny he had feelings for her. Shelly made a mental note to WhatsApp Ali as much as soon as she got to her car. She sensed Ali needed cheering up on this matter.

  ‘How many serious relationships have you had, Sam?’

  He looked unhappy with this line of questioning.

  ‘None really, unless you count Ali and I don’t really count it.’ He sighed. ‘Not with how it ended,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Can I be your annoying big sister for a minute?’

  He shrugged again and indicated left for the health centre. Shelly opted to take his silence as a grudging agreement.

  ‘You don’t get what you have with Ali with a lot of people.’ She held up a hand as he began to argue. ‘Wait, let me finish. Just park her dumb lie for a minute. You two get each other. You have fun together. You fit. I’ve never had that with anyone, you know. Not even Dan. Never with Dan. From day one, I tried to fit him and then it didn’t work and look at us now. That’s why I can’t bear to watch you talk yourself out of being with Ali. You’ll probably go on and meet someone and she’ll be nice, but she’ll never be Ali. She’ll never be that person who makes you laugh and smells just right, feels right, is right. I truly wish I’d had that, and if I found it, I wouldn’t be tossing it out over one thing that, yes, was brutal and so wrong but my God, Sam, her dad was dying – she was not in her right mind.’

  ‘I know that.’ He pulled into the car park. ‘Where are you parked?’

  ‘Up there on the right,’ she directed him. ‘I’m not trying to annoy you. I just like you two. Plus, I guess I know what’s coming down the line. Newborns are a miracle and all but they’re also like someone just chucked a sweet-smelling bomb into the middle of your life. She’s going to need someone to mind her.’