7.14 a.m.
The entire world has gone insane. And not like good, quirky insane, like Ajita after two beers or The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Ugh, Ajita. My heart hurts whenever I think of her. I’ve sent her over a thousand texts and she won’t reply.
I don’t blame her.
I wonder if her parents have seen it. I wonder if she’s currently fielding endless questions about it from her extended family. I wonder if I’ve ruined everything for her. I wonder if I was so far off the mark that it doesn’t matter anyway. I wonder just how much damage I’ve caused.
Although it’s not like I’m getting off scot-free. The garden bench picture was on the evening news last night. The evening news! Seriously, I am just some random teenage girl with a penchant for nachos and peanut butter cups and sexual intercourse. Why would the host of a primetime TV show invite some political analyst into the studio to discuss Ted Vaughan’s campaign, and his flawed parenting, and the implications of his son’s involvement in this stupid, small-town scandal?
Why would the entire Vaughan clan use me as a launching pad to discuss their wacko opinions on abstinence?
Why would professional journalists use the word “slut” to describe an innocent eighteen-year-old girl?
I have to go to school today because I’m falling severely behind in basically every class. At this point I would rather sit naked on a traffic cone than walk those hallways, but the stubborn streak in me is screaming like a banshee: “Fuck you guys! Fuck you all! I’ll never let you fuck with me!” Except they are quite clearly fucking with me, and I’m not handling it particularly well.
For instance, last night I cried so hard onto Dumbledore that his fur became all matted with snot and saliva, and Betty had to run him a bath in the kitchen sink, and I just watched them both and continued to weep hysterically about all manner of things, such as a) the unfavorable press coverage obviously, b) my adorable grandmother and pet and how I would run through the fiery pits of hell and/or a particularly hilly cross-country trail for them, c) Vaughan turning out to be such a prick, despite his inoffensive manner at the party, d) my eyebrow still not recovering from the overzealous plucking incident and how much it accentuates my lazy eye, e) people who attempt to use “jamp” as the past participle of “to jump”, f) how my best friend in the whole entire world will probably never speak to me again and it’s entirely deserved, g) how I had my very own guardian angel in the form of Mrs Crannon and I’ve let her down, h) I was starting to fall for Carson and yet he turned out to be just another fuckboy . . . et cetera, ad infinitum.
Anyway. Long story short, I have to go to school and pretend to care about Tudor England. If I see Vaughan, Danny or Carson I plan to pull a full Henry VIII on their asses. I know we are not married so the metaphor doesn’t quite work, but rest assured I will feel approximately zero remorse following the public beheading of those treasonous goats. I have brief concerns over probably not having the upper-body strength to lift an axe above my head, but Ned Stark makes it look very easy. I’ll keep you updated.
8.05 a.m.
As per our usual morning routine, Betty sits me down for a bowl of cereal and a much-needed heart-to-heart before I haul myself to Edgewood for another day of character assassination.
I’m crunching miserably through a bowl of Lucky Charms, and she’s slurping the milk from the bottom of her already demolished shredded wheat.
She finishes and smacks her lips. “Listen, kiddo, I know things are rough right now, but I promise you they’ll blow over. Do you realize how short an attention span most people have? By this time next month they’ll have forgotten all about you. I know weathering the storm until then isn’t going to be fun, but you have so much going for you. The screenplay, for example! That’s such incredible news about being shortlisted. Mrs Crannon must be so thrilled.”
“I haven’t told her yet,” I mumble.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get your ass into school, put a smile on that lovely face of yours, and tell your mentor that she has every damn reason to be proud of you. All right?”
“All right,” I lie, knowing I’m still far too embarrassed to show my face in Mrs Crannon’s office. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look her in the eye again. Whether I’ll be able to look anyone in the eye. I’m even struggling to meet Betty’s worried gaze, even though I know she loves me unconditionally.
The shame is seeping into my bones. They feel heavy as I leave the sanctuary of my tiny home and out into a world full of people who despise me.
8.27 a.m.
More journalists hound me on the way to school, and it’s infinitely worse without Ajita there to protect me. They follow me all the way to the school gates with their fluffy microphones and TV cameras and notepads and flashing Dictaphones, even though I don’t say a word at any point. I am even very careful to maintain an alarmingly neutral facial expression, just in case they manage to flash a pic in which I look a) angry, b) devastated, or c) anything other than a stone-cold Ice Queen with no soul, which is how I prefer to appear at all times.
Getting through the school gates isn’t any better. Though nobody approaches me, everybody stares. It sounds like a cliché, but seriously. Everybody. Stares. Not one person manages to avert their gaze as I cross the yard. I catch snatches of conversation – the usual buzzwords like whore and slut and self-respect – but don’t allow myself the luxury of sticking around long enough to hear the whole shebang.
As much as I despised being chased by the Japanese kid with the phone cover, or approached by sleazy guys complimenting my nipple piercing, at least then I didn’t feel like such a loner.
It’s the most disconcerting sensation, being looked at but not engaged with. Hot and prickly, like you’re an ant being roasted under a magnifying glass.
10.23 a.m.
Ted Vaughan is using the whole nude picture fiasco as a scapegoat for his deeply rooted misogynistic views, and has issued a staunch statement about how he longs for the good old days when women were classy and respectful and served their male masters like quiet little mice servants with no personality of their own. Something along those lines.
It’s really so irritating how I have become an icon for all that is wrong with teen America. Some people try so hard to become icons, like those folks who go on reality TV shows and pretend to be completely devoid of brain cells, and yet here I am, minding my own business and having sex on garden benches and sending naked pictures of myself to fuckboys, and somehow the whole country suddenly knows who I am.
There are actual, genuine teenage icons out there. People who fight for equality, fight against injustice, fight for human rights. Give them this much attention. I am entirely undeserving.
My newfound celebrity status makes school borderline intolerable. Someone has graffitied “Izzy O’Neill for President!” in a toilet cubicle, which is completely insane and baffling on a number of levels, and then someone else has added “of the Whore Society” in pink highlighter. I will concede this is slightly amusing and far more innovative than most of the abuse being hurled my way, but still.
While I’m peeing and admiring the semi-originality of the libel before me, I hear a couple of girls enter. Their voices sound young – freshmen maybe. Their conversation goes something like this:
“So we were just texting, like, back and forth, you know? Like, the banter was flowing so easily, he’s really funny, like, super hilarious, and I was just bouncing off him, you know? He’s just so easy to talk to, so different to other guys our age, you know?”
“I know, yeah.” At this point I am extremely relieved that we have established the knowledge of Girl Two.
“And then out of nowhere he starts trying to sext me! Like, asking what I was wearing, what I’d do if we were together. It was so awkward, but I just played along because I didn’t want him to think I’m frigid, you know?”
Good grief.
“Oh my God, Louise! I can’t believe you!”
“I know! Then, you’ll never believe this, he asked me to send a picture. I was like, eww, no! I wouldn’t want to end up like that Izzy O’Neill girl, you know?”
“Ugh, I know. I’m surprised she hasn’t killed herself yet.”
The looks on their faces as I exit the cubicle at this point are comedy gold, but for some reason I don’t feel like laughing.
10.59 a.m.
Neither Ajita nor Carson seem to be in school. I’m quite relieved about Carson because although I don’t want to admit it to myself, I was actually starting to care a lot about him, and I’m pretty devastated that he turned out to be even worse than the rest of them. And I hate, more than anything, that Danny was right.
“Not every guy would put up with this shit, let alone still want to be with you. And the others? Well, where are they now? On CNN talking about what a waste of space you are? ”
So yeah, I’m glad Carson isn’t here. As much as I want to tear him limb from limb for what he did, I’m just not really up for a big confrontation.
In fact, I’m not really up for anything anymore. Although usually I am more hyperactive than your average cocker spaniel [this is an absurd and blatant lie: I am and always have been lazy to my very core], these last few weeks have drained the life out of me. Energy is a thing of the past.
This is going to sound really morbid, but lately all I want to do is go to sleep and not wake up for a significant period of time. Not because I want to be dead, or anything. I don’t. I’d never give those toilet girls the satisfaction, for one thing. But being alive feels a lot more difficult than it used to, and I’d really appreciate a prolonged stretch of time off, and to be able to wake up when all of this is ancient history.
Oh, the perils of being internationally reviled simply because of who you are as a person.
You know what? I’d stay internationally reviled forever if it meant Ajita would forgive me. I wish she was in school, just because it’d mean she’s relatively all right, and that her parents haven’t burned her at the stake or sent her to one of those awful correctional facilities for non-straight people.
Why did I do this? Seriously, what was my thinking when I sent that text to Carson? That’s the problem. I wasn’t thinking. Not at all. And I’ve done so, so, so much damage through sheer negligence. It’s deeply concerning – that I can screw up so epically and irrevocably, and not even be aware I’m doing it until it’s too late.
Why am I like this? I know my generally apathetic and humorous nature can be endearing. [At least, I assume that’s why you’ve stuck with me for so long. You’re over 50,000 words into my story and you’re still here! You deserve a medal, I tell you.] But this is not okay. It’s not okay that I’m like this.
I send Ajita one more message:
I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I love you. And I’m sorry. Please talk to me. Or don’t. Because I definitely don’t deserve it. But just know how sorry I am. I’m so lost without you xxx
Anyway, Vaughan’s in school today, but he’s deftly avoiding me. He’s probably heard about how I plan to decapitate him in a brutal Westeros-style murder situation.
Then – because everything I thought I knew about myself and those around me appears to have been blown out of the water – I start to wonder whether he’s really the one I should be hating here. Yeah, he made that ill-judged speech in the cafeteria that ended up hitting the press, and he has been a bit of a dick to me on several occasions (e.g. stomping on my flowers), but I sort of understand his thinking. It all boils down to the fact he’s scared of his dad. And yeah, he does stupid stuff without thinking – in the same way I do apparently – but I don’t think there’s any genuine malice there. Just fear, and a desperate need for approval.
The person I should really be pissed at is the person who turned this from something personal between Vaughan and me into a fully fledged scandal. The person who made that website. The person who leaked my nude photo. Because that was cold, and calculated, and vicious. That was malicious.
I need to find out who it is.
11.45 a.m.
When I’m walking out of biology class after a highly traumatic dissection of a pig’s heart, I see the last person I expect to bump into at school: Betty.
She’s leaving the principal’s office, and looks absolutely furious about something. The principal, a stern fellow with a big gray mustache, goes to shake her hand, but she totally shuns him, flat out ignoring the peace offering and storming away. She nearly knocks over a gaggle of girls gathered at the water fountain like gormless geese. [Check out dat alliteration. In the unlikely event you are studying this book for a high-school English class, please do feel free to point out my astonishing grasp of literary devices. Between you and me it was just a happy accident, but your teacher doth not need to know this.]
Betty finally spots me gaping at her and approaches with a look of wild hysteria in her eyes. “Izzy! Darling granddaughter! Why did you not inform me that your principal is a cretinous goblin with the worst breath I have ever encountered in my life?”
She’s speaking so loudly that everyone within a thirty-mile radius can hear, but I’m truly beyond caring at this point. To say my reputation is in the gutter would be an understatement of epic proportions, so really how much worse can a mad, raving loony of a grandmother make things?
“Betty-O. Dare I ask what you’re doing here?”
A strained smile. “Well, Iz-on-your-face, I –”
“Hilarious new nickname by the way.”
“Why thank you, I do try. Anyway, I thought I’d have a chat with your principal about his complete lack of action in determining the founder of the World Class Whore website, and his apparent disinterest in the way you’re being treated in this godforsaken sanctuary for cretinous goblins.”
A small crowd has gathered to listen to our conversation, including Mr Wong. To the average onlooker, it appears he’s abandoned an AP class just to get a good vantage point for this unlikely scenario: a lunatic grandma set loose on the halls of a so-called cretinous goblin sanctuary. But I know the truth. He’s probably just watching his back; making sure I haven’t ratted him out. That this dramatic confrontation isn’t about him.
“And? What did he say?”
She turns beetroot-colored at this point. “Funny you should ask! He said that while the website is being investigated, the school has limited resources and cannot prioritize instances of a self-inflicted nature.”
WTF ? “Self-inflicted?! Someone hacked into my phone! That’s victim-blaming. And revenge porn is a big deal. It’s illegal in at least thirteen states.”
“Exactly what I said, Iz-on-your-face, but the twat goblin just made some sanctimonious remarks about self-respect. He also said that while revenge porn isn’t illegal in our state, having sex in public is, and we should be thankful nobody is pressing charges.”
“It was on private property!”
“I know, I know. But he seems to think that I should, I quote, ‘lie low and not make this any worse than it already is’.”
I puff air through my cheeks. “Shitting hell.”
“Yes. Shitting hell indeed.”
The murmuring crowd remains gathered around the principal’s office long after Betty departs. I just hope my comment about victim-blaming rings true, even to just a handful of them.
I had my phone hacked. I had my privacy violated. I had my personal life broadcast across the country. And I’m tired of feeling like a criminal for it.
When Betty leaves, I head straight for the woods. It’s the only place on this godforsaken campus that you can find any space to breathe. And I’m desperate to get away from the eyes, the constant eyes on me, the never-ending stares that follow me wherever I go. It’s suffocating.
But when I get to the clearing, Danny’s there. He’s sitting on the ground, back against the tree I leaned against when we had that first confrontation all those weeks ago, after I accidentally kissed him.
His head is in his hands, skinny shoulders shaking. Is he . . . crying? I haven’t seen him cry since we were twelve years old.
A twig crunches under my foot, but his ears don’t prick up. He hasn’t seen or heard me yet, and all I want to do is to turn and walk away. The last words he said to me burn through my mind.
“You know, after everything I’ve done for you, you should be grateful to have people like me in your life. Not every guy would put up with this shit, let alone still want to be with you.”
Just walk away, Izzy. Walk away.
It’s not that easy, though. When you’ve been so close to someone for so long, seeing them hurt or sad breaks you a little bit. It’s an animal instinct to protect them. They’re your family, and even if you’re mad, even if you’ve been in a fight, it all gets put on the backburner if one of you is upset.
“Danny,” I say carefully, not wanting to give him a shock. But he doesn’t hear me. Louder: “Danny?”
He freezes, caught in the act. Then sniffs, wipes his nose and says, “Go away, Izzy.”
“No,” I reply, defiant. I edge closer. “You’re upset. We can put the fight on pause. What happened?”
“Why do you even care?” His voice is sad, but slightly venomous. “I mean nothing to you.”
“You know that’s not true,” I say, persevering through his stubbornness. “You’re my best friend. I care when you’re hurt.”
I step forward until I’m right beside him, but he still doesn’t look up at me. He just stares straight ahead, teeth gritted.
“What happened, Danny?” I try again. “Talk to me. Is it your parents?”
For a second he looks like he’s considering telling me, but eventually he shakes his head, dissolving into fresh tears. “Please. Just go.”
So I go.
12.36 p.m.
Lunchtime. Cafeteria. I’m sitting alone on a bench, trying to eat my grilled cheese and tomato soup in peace. I’ve accidentally put too much salt in the soup so every time I have a spoonful my face resembles a bulldog sucking a lemon, but in the grand scheme of my life at present I’m sure this is not the greatest tragedy I’m facing. Still, it’s taken me a good half-hour to even make a dent in the bowl, and at this point it’s just all cold and lumpy.
Carlie and her gang of tennis-playing cronies are sitting on the bench behind me, and for the most part I’m barely listening to what they’re saying because, for all their chit-chat about balls, it’s not the entertaining kind. But then I hear something that pricks my ears up.
“. . . that Ajita chick,” a white girl with cornrows [no, really] says to Carlie. “Is it true? Are you two having a thing?”
“Ugh, God no,” Carlie says, as though she’s never heard anything more disgusting in her life. “She’s so annoying. She follows me around like a lost puppy. I only invited her to trials to be polite, and now she’s on the team I can’t get rid of her.”
The underlying anger I’ve been trying to bury for weeks begins to bubble a little hotter.
“Really?” another girl asks. “You seemed to be having a nice time in the woods together last week, and if the leaked texts from that Izzy slut were anything to go by . . .”
The whole table giggles. God, I hate high school.
“Shut up, all right?” Carlie snaps like the stick of celery she’s gnawing. “Why would someone like me be interested in someone like her? She’s a midget, she thinks she’s hilarious, she’s got these weird Indian parents –”
As calmly as I can muster, I stand up, pick up my bowl of cold, oversalted soup, and pour the entire thing over Carlie’s head.
Gasps and squeals ripple around the table as Carlie screams infernally. Lumps of unblended tomato trail into her open mouth and down her cleavage. It smells like a sauce factory explosion. People all around the cafeteria stop and stare, pointing disbelievingly at the unfolding scene.
Standing over her like a disapproving parent, I sneer at Carlie, whose smugness is now completely obscured by red chunks. “You will never, ever be good enough for Ajita Dutta.”
And then I storm out. Or at least I try to. Before I even reach the door, someone grabs my arm. Mr Richardson.
“Miss O’Neill. Principal’s office. Now.”
2.25 p.m.
“You could’ve given her third-degree burns.” Mr Schumer’s angry voice is even quieter than his normal voice. He’s intimidating in that cold, calm way, like President Snow in The Hunger Games.
His office is impossibly neat and orderly, and he never has the radiator turned on, so I can practically see my breath. It’s like a morgue.
I sit in front of his desk, refusing to be sheepish or remorseful, because I’m not. “But I didn’t burn her. The soup was cold.”
“You didn’t know that.”
I match his calm, measured tone. “I did. I’d been eating it a mere thirty seconds earlier.”
There’s a silent standoff in which all we can hear is the buzzing of the strip lighting and the vague sound of the road outside.
“Why did you do it?” he asks, but I can tell by his voice there’s no right answer. He’s just trying to vilify me even more; to prove that I’m some uncontrollable monster.
“Because they were disrespecting my best friend.” On the chair next to me is Betty’s scarf. She must’ve left it here earlier. Nothing but a coincidence of course, but it gives me strength. It feels like she’s here with me. I pick it up and wrap it around my neck, inhaling her scent – whiskey and cocoa.
An awful sneer. “Oh. I’m surprised you’re familiar with the concept of respect.”
My anger flares again, but I do everything in my power not to erupt. To prove I’m capable of self-control. “They’re bullies.”
He leans back in his chair, robotically, not breaking eye contact. “Just because someone acts in a way you don’t agree with, doesn’t mean you have the right to punish them for it.”
I scoff. “See, that’s what I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around, Mr Schumer. Because a few weeks ago I too acted in a way some people didn’t agree with. And ever since that moment the world has done nothing but punish me.”
Again, our headteacher says nothing. But I don’t miss it when his traitorous eyes drop to my chest, even though it’s only for a split second.
He’s seen the photo too. Of course he has.
I jut my chin out defiantly. Before I can talk myself out of it, I add, “And since it’s such an important subject to you, maybe you want to have a word with your faculty about respect. A certain math teacher can’t keep his eyes off me. Especially when he keeps me behind after class just to make inappropriate comments.” His eyes narrow. The light catches on his expensive watch and flashes in my face, but I don’t flinch. I power through. “Don’t you want to know which teacher I’m accusing of sexual harassment, Mr Schumer? Or should I just go straight to the school board with my complaints? I don’t mind either way.”
Sneering disparagingly, he replies, “You can try. But after your antics I’m not sure there’s a single board member who would take your allegations seriously. Miss O’Neill, it doesn’t escape my attention that all this is a little convenient. You’re remembering these inappropriate incidents just now, when you’re facing disciplinary action? Falsely accusing my staff of harassment will not get you off the hook.”
My blood spikes red hot, and I fight the urge to clamber over the desk and tear his face off.
“I should suspend you immediately. But I won’t.”
I snort. “Let me guess. Because I’m a tragic orphan?”
“Something like that.”
We stare each other down for a few more minutes. That doesn’t sound like much, but there are certain times in your life when you realize just how long a minute is, such as when waiting for another driver to let you slip into their lane during a traffic jam, or when waiting for a microwave meal to cook. This is one of those times.
I feel like he’s waiting for me to apologize, but I won’t do it.
Eventually he says, “You may go. But if this happens again I won’t be so lenient. Your behavior has already attracted a wealth of unwanted attention to our school, Miss O’Neill, and by continuing to act up you’re only making it worse for yourself. I know you’ve had a troubled upbringing, but there’s only so much understanding we can give before we have to take action.”
Now I feel like he wants me to thank him for letting me off the hook, but again, I won’t do it.
I walk out without a word.
4.47 p.m.
Desperate to have my faith in the world restored, I stop by Mrs Crannon’s office after final bell. Instead of candy wrappers, she’s surrounded by balled-up tissues and a tube of menthol oil, and her nose is redder than a baboon’s behind. Bless her.
And yet, at the sight of my weary expression, she’s the one offering me sympathy. “Oh, Izzy. You poor thing. How are you doing?”
My skin crawls. The idea that this lovely, warm and kind woman has seen my vagina is so sickening, so gut-wrenching, that I can barely breathe. But I’m getting used to having the wind knocked out of my lungs, and I try to push past it.
Swallowing hard, I perch on a desk instead of condemning myself to several minutes of torture-chair hell. “I’m okay, I guess. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to it all, you know? Should I be fighting back? Or lying low for the time being?”
She blows her nose like a trumpet, mumbling against the tissue. “Well, I think only you can answer that. There’s no right answer. Just do what feels most comfortable, and know that you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Those of us who truly care about you know that too, and don’t look at you any differently.”
Even though she’s being sweet, my cheeks burn with embarrassment as I let it really, truly sink in that my middle-aged drama teacher has seen me naked. You know those dreams you have when you’re a kid, that you accidentally go to school without any clothes on, and everyone stares and there’s nowhere to hide and you just want to die?
That’s my reality.
I can’t do this.
I’d planned to chat to her about my screenplay, but I’m too mortified. I leave without even saying goodbye. Maybe she calls after me, but I can’t hear anything over the blood roaring in my ears and the self-loathing rippling through my veins.
4.59 p.m.
I almost don’t see him.
I’m hurrying down the hallway in the arts and social sciences building, chin tucked to my chest and heart beating wildly, dreaming of the moment I hit the fresh air, but knowing deep down it won’t make me feel any less dirty.
Mercifully, there are no other students around. Most are either at team practice – yes, on a Friday night, because sportsball is evil – or cutting loose for the weekend. Feeling excited about the weekend is an alien concept to me these days.
Because it’s so quiet, the soft remixed reggae floats out into the corridor even though the door to the art studio is closed. It’s so out of place, so incongruous, that it jars in my subconscious. It takes me back to a very specific time and place in the not-so-distant past – to Baxter’s party, sipping beer on the soft couch with Carson pressed up against my shoulder. Before . . . everything.
I stop in my tracks. The art studio is just down the hall and, while the door is shut, the blind over the window hasn’t been pulled down. Curiosity gets the better of me and I edge closer, the music growing louder as I do. It’s not as intense as it was at the party; it has that tinny quality you get when you play songs through your phone speakers. But it’s definitely the same song.
Carson has his back to the door as he paints, working on a giant canvas propped up on an easel. As I creep toward the window, I try to get a better look at what he’s drawing, but his body obscures the middle of the canvas. Around the edges, in the background of whatever he’s shielding, is the star-spangled banner, painted in the same red and white I saw speckled on his shirt back when he kissed me in the hallway; the same blue that stained his hands.
A brush in his hand, he dabs away at something I can’t see, leaning close to the canvas and examining his work in painstaking detail. I’m transfixed, but I also feel like I’m violating his privacy. He once offered to show me his work someday, but like I say. That was before.
I’m about to walk away, to leave him to the painting session he’s obviously skipped basketball practice for, when he swivels his body to the side, reaching for some more paint. His shirt lifts up as he does, exposing a strip of toned torso, but for once that’s not where I’m looking.
Painted in deep turquoise on the center of the canvas is the Statue of Liberty, piggybacking on an African-American slave. The slave is sweating with the exertion of carrying the statue, and bleeding from whip wounds on his chest. Behind him are hundreds of other slaves, getting smaller and smaller as they fade into the background; into the fabric of the American flag. The colors are vivid and textured, and the light and shade are so expertly manipulated that the Statue’s torch seems to shine only on her, not the slaves below.
Damn, Carson is talented. He’s good at basketball – hell, he’s great at it – but this? This is another level. It’s so good I can barely breathe.
The soft reggae remix ends. Before the next song begins, Carson twists back to the canvas, and he catches sight of me in the corner of his eye. Our gazes lock through the window. Something unreadable crosses his face. My gut instinct is to go to him, to tell him how incredible his work is. How incredible he is.
And then I remember. He betrayed me. He sold me out.
As I blink away my awe at his talent, another song starts, and I walk away toward the fresh air I thought I craved. But at the sight of Carson, I know the truth.
All I crave is him.
6.13 p.m.
Betty has gone out to one of her ludicrous evening classes. They run them for free at the community center – I think Friday nights are yoga finger-painting, whereby they have to paint nude pictures of each other while holding impossible poses. Laugh all you want, but Betty now has the flexibility of a double-jointed circus freak, and the paintings get less creepy the more you look at them.
So yeah, she’s out all night, meaning I have some time to do some digging around on the internet to see if I can figure out who exactly made my life a living hell – and why – since the school board apparently gives precisely zero shits. Betty’s absence is doubly beneficial because a) I can cry all I want in the process without worrying her, and b) I don’t have to share the Wi-Fi, which is a bonus because she’s always downloading movies illegally, despite the fact she’s never once been able to successful open any of the files. She is the world’s worst pirate.
I make myself a pumpkin spice latte using bargain-basement coffee creamer, and settle down on the couch with Dumbledore and a box of tissues at the ready [which means a very different thing to teenage boys, I’ve come to understand]. And then I open the World Class Whore website.
The first few pages of the blog are just links to all the media coverage surrounding the scandal, usually accompanied by charming captions from the site owner such as: “This is what happens when you’re such a world class whore!” Even though it still stings, I’m not interested in this. I need to go back to the beginning.
I press “previous page” until I hit pay dirt. The very first post. The picture of me having sex with Zachary Vaughan on a garden bench. Caption reading: “Izzy O’Neill, slut extraordinaire, in action.” There are some tags too: #slut #whore #sex #bitch #noshame. Below are 1,704 comments.
Crap. When I first found this site, the picture only had two comments, both from anonymous users and both fairly standard iterations of what a slut I am. But 1,704? How am I supposed to sort through all of these?
I start with the top-rated comments. Trawl through dozens of posts about how nobody will ever take me seriously after this, about how I’ve ruined any hope of a career, about how I deserve to burn in hell for all of eternity because I’m having sex outside of marriage. Huh. Maybe Castillo is a prime candidate.
What I’m really looking for are replies from the owner of the WCW blog themselves, anything I can use to glean hints from, but there are surprisingly few. Just the odd “preach” or “amen!” or “God bless” when someone particularly vile says something derogatory about me. So I guess the site founder is on the religious side of things, which is not exactly a surprise, but that’s about all I’ve got.
A quick flip through Facebook shows me Vaughan got his offer from Stanford. There are 403 likes and 189 comments on his status, not one of them mentioning his dick pic. I don’t know why I’m even surprised.
I open a new tab: Twitter. I haven’t checked it once since this all kicked off, and I’m not sure I’m emotionally prepared for the inevitable deluge of hurtful slander being thrown my way. But then I think, how much worse can it possibly be? Everything horrible that could potentially be said about me has already been thrown out there in the public domain. There’s no stone left unturned. It’s been well established at this point that my lopsided boobs and I deserve the most painful of demises. So, Twitter, do your worst.
After scanning my tags, searching my name and scrolling through the feed for ten minutes or so, I’m not surprised by the insults. There really is nothing new. Not from the hundreds of politicians and right-wing journalists and religious organizations condemning me, nor from the regular people reacting to the story, nor from the school kids I genuinely believed were my friends. The tweet from deadpan queen Sharon – “Am I the only one who doesn’t see the appeal? Girl should rly lose some weight before her next nude leaks” – hurts a bit, especially after I took her under my wing and invited her to appear in our sketches, but I move on as fast as I can.
Ted Vaughan is louder than them all, vehemently posting every hour about me and his angelic son. I’m scum, I’m a whore, I have no self-respect, I’m everything that’s wrong with millennials. I’m out to destroy his son’s life, to sabotage his future career, to make him look like the bad guy when really I’m the one who has no place on this planet. Blah blah blah.
But what I am surprised by is the sheer number of people defending me. There’s support from other teen girls fighting my corner, saying I’m beautiful and unapologetic and deserve respect no matter what. From feminist organizations discussing consent and misogyny. From columnists exploring gender inequality and slut-shaming, demanding that Zachary Vaughan be held to the same level of public scrutiny for his dick pic.
For every negative comment, there’s a positive one to match.
It should feel good, but it doesn’t. It’s too much. This is all too much.
Betty is out. Ajita and Danny both hate me. Even Dumbledore is more interested in licking his own asshole than cuddling with me.
The whole world is watching me suffer. Enjoying it even. Everyone knows who I am, everyone has something to say about me. And I have never felt more alone in my life.