10.13 a.m.
Things that have happened since arriving at school this morning:
1. Danny ignored me in homeroom. Sigh. This animosity is highly inconvenient because I need him to fix my laptop for me. It just will not connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many sacrifices I make to the technology gods, including but not limited to my firstborn child.
2. Ajita is off sick. She has stomach flu from consuming week-old pepperoni pizza, even though she’s supposed to be vegetarian. I texted her to tell her that she is an extremely selfish and inconsiderate individual, but she just told me that she hopes I contract the norovirus in the next few hours so I can join her on the sofa for a Comedy Central binge. That doesn’t sound awful in all honesty.
3. All the usual jeers and whispers and general assholery. It is quite baffling to me that people are still interested in my nudes, because as a solid 6/10 I’m painfully middle of the road. This is why I have developed a sense of humor to compensate, so I’m totally okay with my ranking as “above average but only just”. However, I am totally not okay with the fifteen-year-old Japanese boy who follows me around everywhere asking me to sign the iPhone case he’s had made out of my leaked photo.
4. I flunked math. Shock of all shocks, quadratic equations and/or the ancient wanker that is Pythagoras are not top of my list of things I currently give a crap about.
5. Vaughan made a speech in the cafeteria in response to aforementioned jeers and whispers and general twattery. It went something like this: “Ahoy, gossiping fishwives! It is I, grandson of Benito Mussolini, evil dictator and abhorrent human being. I doth shall [again I’m not a hundred percent clued up on doth usage, but hopefully you’ll let it slide] make it abundantly clear that I did not have sexual intercourse with this here Izzy O’Neill.” I am paraphrasing slightly. The original was far less eloquent. Basically, he wanted everyone to know that despite all the evidence, he has zip zilch zero to do with my situ. And nothing screams “uninvolved bystander” like a public declaration of innocence.
6. I caved and checked the WCW website again. Nice new additions: a sweepstake in which voters guess my weight, bra size and body mass index based on the nude photo [these are weirdly accurate]; a strongly worded post about how decidedly unfunny I am [lol okay sure]; more amateur Photoshop jobs [in one, my face has been superimposed onto a porn screenshot in which the actress is receiving a penis in every orifice].
7. Bumped into Carlie in the restroom and almost as soon as she made accidental eye contact with me, she turned and speed-walked straight out of there. Thank you for the support, dude! I mean, I understand that as a new kid she probably doesn’t want to taint her reputation by associating with the likes of me, but still. If she and Ajita do end up going out, I don’t want things to be awkward between us.
Sigh. I might go and hang out with Mrs Crannon. She seems to be the last person at Edgewood who doesn’t despise every fibre of my being.
2.45 p.m.
Crannon is also off sick. Am slightly concerned about the fact this coincides with Ajita’s absence, and ordinarily I would cook up a delicious conspiracy theory about their passionate, clandestine love affair. But I’m just not in the mood.
Ho hum, woe is me, why must I go on? How can things possibly get any worse?
4.56 p.m.
Ha. Ha ha. HA.
Surely, Izzy, you have seen enough movies and read enough books to know that when the protagonist utters that doomed sentence, “How can things possibly get any worse?” things invariably get worse.
In my case, much fucking worse.
Someone sent a video of Vaughan’s cafeteria speech to a local newspaper reporter, who uploaded it to the publication’s website along with links to the gross, Izzy-shaming blog, and a full background as to the involvement of a Republican senator’s son in a small-town sex scandal. Ted Vaughan has been approached for comment.
There’s also an image gallery containing – you guessed it – the nude pictures.
It’s had over 4,000 shares.
11.07 p.m.
Even though she’s still sick, Ajita calls an impromptu but highly necessary girls’ night to address the catastrophic developments today brought forth.
She answers the door dressed as R2-D2, which is an unexpected perk of the evening, and I decide it’ll be funniest to pretend not to have noticed. So I just greet her as normal and waltz into her house like I own the place. She plays along nicely, adding the occasional beep-bop for believability.
Her parents and siblings are all out at some tragic athletics meet [Prajesh is the next Usain Bolt, by all accounts] so we have the house to ourselves. We cozy up in her kitchen instead of the basement. It’s really beautiful – sleek refrigerator with an ice machine, massive central island and breakfast bar, fresh lilies in a vase at all times.
She putters around making nachos – spraying grated cheese and rogue tortilla chip crumbs everywhere as she tries to stay in droid character – while I rant.
“I just don’t get it,” I say from my perch on a bar stool. “Why does anyone care about my sexploits? It’s just so absurd.”
“Agreed,” she replies, sucking some spilled salsa out of the R2-D2 onesie. “I don’t care either. I wasn’t even listening to what you just said, for instance. You really are a hugely uninteresting individual.”
“Right? And yet four thousand people give a crap about the fact I slept with a senator’s son. On a garden bench. And sent him a nude. WHY?”
She rams the haphazard nacho tray under the grill and hops up onto the counter, which is where she always prefers to sit given the chance. She insists it’s more comfortable than any sofa money can buy. She’s an oddball, my best friend. “In all reality, though, how are you feeling about it? Because this cannot be easy.”
I shudder. “The worst part is knowing how many actual adults will now see those pictures. When it was just the website, I assumed the damage would be contained to fellow high-school students. Which was far from ideal, but it was easier to stomach than knowing parents and teachers and all sorts are now going to see my foofer.” I groan. “Oh God. I just thought of something else. Nobody in this godforsaken town is going to hire me now.”
This feels terrible. Betty is going to have to work even longer just because her disaster zone of a granddaughter has rendered herself completely unemployable.
Ajita tries her best to put a positive spin on the situation. “I mean, you don’t know that. I feel like you might have a USP among owners of struggling dive bars. From their point of view, your incredible boobs might attract a whole slew of sleazy clientele as they arrive in their hordes to attempt to woo you. Sales of Johnnie Walker will skyrocket.”
I groan again, dropping my head into my hands. This all feels like a bad dream. Why can’t I wake up?
“So Danny mentioned you guys had a bit of a fight,” Ajita says, changing the subject in a bid to distract me from the fact my future is evaporating before my eyes. “Something about a screenwriting course? Care to fill me in on the non-biased, non-Dannyfied version?”
Instead of spelling it all out, I just hand her my phone and let her read the messages herself.
“Jeez,” she says, eyes widening. “Hey, Danny, might wanna cover up a bit. Your privilege is showing.”
Exasperated, but also hungry, I pad over to the fridge and open it up, scanning for any potential snackage situations. “Do you understand what I was trying to say, though? Did I come off too harsh with all that stuff about not wanting or needing a rich person to buy me in?” I settle on the remainder of the grated cheese and start shovelling it into my face like popcorn.
“Not harsh at all,” she says, giving the nacho tray a shimmy and dumping more guac on top. “It’s like when I talk about racism, I’m not asking for one single white person to wave their magic privilege wand and fix one single symptom. What I’m saying is that I want the systemic racism to not exist in the first place. I want a cure, not a Band-Aid.” She shrugs. “But a lot of rich white guys will never get that. They’ll always make it about them. And why wouldn’t they? Historically, it always has been about them.”
Frustration is building in my blood to such a high concentration that not even rapid ingestion of cheddar can take the edge off. “Do you know, Ajita, I’m starting to lose all faith in the world.”
“So how do we take your mind off it? I really thought the Star Wars costume would do it.”
“What Star Wars costume?” I ask innocently.
“Yes, very good. Har har. Shall we do some karaoke? I’ve also got a Chewbacca outfit you can wear for the occasion.”
It really is incredible how much better singing along to Eminem’s [admittedly highly problematic] greatest hits can make you feel. A personal highlight is our rendition of ‘Love the Way you Lie’. I perform the rap segments while Ajita takes Rihanna’s chorus. Magical.
Unfortunately her parents return at the precise moment Ajita is holding her brother’s teddy bear over the gas cooker, crooning “just gonna staaaaand there and watch me burn” as the blackened nachos set off the fire alarm. But you take the wins where you can get them.
[I would show you the video of us dancing on the breakfast bar dressed as a Wookie and a droid, but then I’d have to kill you.]