I massaged my temples. So I had to delete the video from the Doc of the person who made it. Then all these other links and tags would connect to nothing.
Across the room, in the charging bay, my Doc spoke. It was my brother, Kyle. Yes, he was also called Kyle. It was my fault. His real name was étienne. But when we were little, I was convinced he was part of me, just born ten months later. Kyla and Kyle. By the time we were four and five, we both went by Kyle. Everyone still called us the Kyles, even Mom and Dad.
I’d txted him as soon as we got to Sharma’s. We went to different schools, but our online worlds synced up faster than a Doc to its home hub.
moi Don’t worry. It’s FAKE.
He promised he’d skip basketball practice so we could face Mom and Dad together. Every five minutes since, he’d been audio txting to make sure I was okay.
“Aww, your bro is loaded nachos,” Fawn said, blowing my Doc a kiss.
Unlike Mac, who hadn’t txted or FaceAlerted even once. I could still see the rage and heartbreak on his face. I bet now he saw the merit in the “just friends” stance I’d been taking for the last three and a half months. Imagine how much worse it would have been if we’d been together together when this thing dropped.
“I can’t believe this is my life.”
“No offense, Kylie,” Audra said, tossing her Doc aside, “but only because you’ve never had to deal with a problem before. This is life. On the bright side, at least now you won’t have to keep fending Mac off. What? I’m just saying what we’re all thinking. Or is everyone else also thinking about lunch? Pizza delivery? Or no, let’s go out. Mussels and frites, on me.”
Fawn made apology face at me but proceeded to scratch Audra’s temples. Audra closed her eyes in contented bliss. And it was only then I realized that her Doc was lying next to me and that for once, shockingly, it wasn’t on private. The screen was still aglow with her latest search. I spun it toward me.
Her eyes sprang open.
“Wait.” She scrambled to sit up.
Although she’d made it clear that my video drama bored her, a little part of me still hoped that she was tracking my online life as heavily as usual. Maybe scrolling message boards or chat forums looking for someone bragging about making the video. But no.
“Really, Audy?”
I pushed her Doc back over to her.
Audra was stalking the Bra&Panties slut.
For a moment she looked guilty, like she knew she’d been caught, but then she did her little so what? Audra head toggle and sniffed, “I can’t help it. She just announced she’s revealing it all—all, her face, girl parts, everything—on New Year’s Eve, and she’s made this countdown app—”
“So my life might be over but at least we’ll all know who the B&P slut is. And here I was upset that you were doing something trivial over there. Wait, a countdown app? As in ‘T minus ten, nine…’”
“Nooo. As in every morning you get a code to look at a close-up pic of one of her features. It’s groundbreaking marketing, actually. You have to see it.”
She sat up and swiped into her Doc. Maybe she was instantly ready to move past my video, but I wasn’t.
“Audra, for the last time, I don’t care about the stupid B&P slut.”
Audra’s tiny doll hands balled into fists. “And I don’t particularly care that you lost your V online and are afraid to admit it, but I sat here and listened to you, didn’t I?”
The room went silent. Sharma chewed on her lip. Fawn’s eyes filled for a good fourth cry. Audra inspected her nails.
“At Prep you said you believed me.”
“I believed you’d launch into rebuttal mode if I didn’t one hundred percent support your resolution. How else were we supposed to get your stubborn little butt out of there?”
There it was, then. They didn’t believe me and there was no convincing them. It felt even worse than Mac calling me a slut.
“I’m outta here.” I stood up. “Enjoy your lunch.”
“Kylie,” Fawn protested.
I didn’t need their help. I already had a pretty good idea who did this. With any luck, Kyle and I wouldn’t even need to talk to Mom and Dad. I could have the video offline before dinner. And then Mac, the girls, and all my classmates could kiss my ampersand, because I was never speaking to any of them ever again.
Happy senior year.
In debate we called it a takeout. It meant you decimated an opponent so thoroughly they couldn’t recover. Once when I’d recapped a win for Mac, enthusiastically detailing how absolute my takeout was, he’d raised that eyebrow of his and said, “Takeout? Aces. I’m starved. Tell me you ordered sweet and sour chicken.”
Ever since, I’d thought the wrestling term was more fitting—a takedown. It essentially means the same thing without bringing to mind white cartons of lo mein. One minute you’re standing. Next you’re completely floored.
Couldn’t the girls see? This was a takedown. Pure and simple.
And I could only think of one person who might care enough to decimate me completely. The same person whose dad was some big-deal head honcho of development at Eden and had access to all the latest software. The same person who had been cozying up to my best friend for weeks now. As I sat in a café in Bed-Stuy, ordering one pastry at a time and waiting for Prep to let out, my profile told me she’d watched the video twenty-seven times. A few times for laughs, I could understand, but twenty-seven? That spelled guilt (only with entirely different letters).
So two hours, one really long walk, and five baked goods later, I pressed a doorbell I hadn’t rung in over three years. No matter who answered, they wouldn’t be happy to see me, but I prayed it wasn’t her mom. The last time I’d seen Mrs. Amundsen was at the school talent show. Her withering gaze burned worse than that home hair-removal machine Audra had once inflicted on my toes.
The door opened.
Did I have no good karma chips left?
“Kyle.” Ailey’s mom took a graceful step back inside. Not to let me in. More like she might slam the door in my face. “What a surprise.”
Ailey’s mom ran a Bronx-based modern dance company. A former ballerina, her posture was pin straight, her skin coal black, and her manner elegant. For as long as I could remember, she’d worn her salt-and-pepper hair cropped to her head.
My voice cracked as I said, “Hi, Mrs. Amundsen. Is Ailey home?”
I still thought about the exact day we stopped hanging out. It was the first week of freshman year, lunch. Audra came up to us and set a fresh-squeezed green juice in front of me. It perfectly matched the one she was holding.