HDU (4 page)

And I don’t?
Amanda frowned.
 
Her shoulders
slumped as she answered her own question.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I’ve just been
busy… writing,” she answered.
 
It
wasn’t entirely false.
 
She did add
commentary to each of her posts on HDU, and that counted, didn’t it?

Tandy cooed.
 
“Oh honey, good for you keeping yourself busy.
 
Better to be active than idle when you don’t have a job.”
 
As if that weren’t enough, she added,
“Not everyone can be a cheerleader for the Rams! ”

Amanda dug her nails into the seat of her booth and forced
a nod of agreement, trying not to glare as she looked up at Tandy, at her
terrifying cornflower eyes and the spider lashes that framed them to look even
more manic than her lipstick-adorned smile.
 
She, as a middle-aged mother, had always been strangely
obsessed with Megan’s life, as early as Megan’s first year in middle
school.
 
She practically idolized
her.
 
It was strange and pathetic
and irritating that a grown woman could be so childish, but it wasn’t as if she
was the only one.

“Have you been watching the Rams?” she asked, herding
her young sons over and seating them across from Amanda in her booth.
 
They kicked at her legs from under the table.
 
“We watch all the time at our
house so we can see Megan on the sidelines.
 
I have to pause the game whenever I see that pretty face and
just think, ‘I used to drive this little girl home from school when her mom had
to work late, and now she’s a star on TV,’” Tandy recalled with breathless
amazement.
 
“And it looks like she
got taller! Did she get taller?”

“I didn’t notice,” Amanda said, breaking the yolks on
her fried eggs with a jab of her fork.
 
“Maybe she grew a few inches since I moved away.”
 
She never bothered sounding logical
around Tandy.
 
She just said
whatever qualified as conversation, hoping it would be sufficient enough to be
soon left alone.

“Well, I bet she could model now because – oh,
oh
!” Tandy yelped so loud that the
diners who weren’t already looking turned over.
 
“
I
remember what I
wanted to ask you about.” Her pudgy fingers curled around her lips like an
excited schoolgirl.
 
“Your mother
told me that you had found yourself a boy over in St. Louis!”
 
 

Please, no
.
 
Amanda grit her teeth.
 
That was the last thing she wanted to talk
to Tandy Mueller about.

“And if you somehow managed to find yourself a boy,
that Megan must’ve found herself a man!”

Amanda swallowed hard.
 
Actually,
that
was
the last thing she wanted to talk to Tandy Mueller about.
 
She averted her gaze and quickly
signaled to her waitress for the check.

“Well? Did she or did she not?” Tandy persisted,
poking Amanda’s cheek with her finger.
 
Amanda swatted her hand away hard, making a loud
smack
sound that prompted more than a few gasps.

“She found herself a
boy
,” Amanda answered tartly, standing on her feet and pushing past
Tandy.
 
“Mine.”
 

~

Amanda’s cheeks burned red as she tried to start her
car in the parking lot.
 
Through
the windshield, she could see every face in the diner staring out the windows
at her.
 
She had literally shoved
past Tandy Mueller and marched out of the chiming doors, hot tears brimming in
her eyes because she was quickly regretting her decision.
 
Within fifteen minutes, the entire town
would have heard about her outburst, solidifying her status as Merit’s newest
nutcase, their latest recluse who would die alone with forty cats.
 
She would replace old Ada Bayliss as
the punch line of every joke, and the town would start speculating about
her
probable meth and pill addiction.
 
There would be rumors about her on the
town Internet forum within the hour.
 
With a single agitated gesture, she’d hit Merit’s rock
bottom.

But she couldn’t help storming out.
 
She couldn’t take any more of Tandy
Mueller or her gossip minions.
 
They as adults had loved picking on her since she was in middle
school.
 
She was their easy target
– Megan’s quiet but sarcastic sidekick who alienated older people with
her odd humor while Megan won them over with a bat of her lashes and a lilt of the
voice.

That was how
she got Brandt
, Amanda thought, hiccupping as she recalled the way her
first real boyfriend used to look at Megan.
 
She had never thought to worry then, too convinced that his
love for her outweighed his lust for Megan.
 
And she figured it wasn’t a big deal – in high school,
she had gotten used to her one boyfriend’s wandering eyes around Megan.
 
It wasn’t as if anything ever
happened
.
 
It was impossible – she would’ve known immediately in
such a small town.

In St. Louis, however, she could have gone forever
without knowing.
 
At first, she
wished she hadn’t even found out.
 
No
one would have ever told her either, because no one even knew.
 
But after what she called “a drunk
mistake,” Megan decided that Brandt was to be more than just a fling, and who
was Brandt to turn her down? She was a Rams cheerleader for God’s sake, and he
was a nerdy chic barista with non-prescription eyeglasses.
 
And Megan always got what she wanted.

So with that, Amanda’s first real relationship ended,
as did her time in St. Louis.
 
She
was dumped by her boyfriend of seven months and by her best friend of eleven
years.
 
“It’ll be awkward if you
stay,” Megan had reasoned.
 
In her
post-breakup fog, Amanda simply nodded and went.
 
With only Megan’s name on their lease, what fight could she
put up anyway?

What an idiot I
was
, she thought to herself as she sat in the car in her driveway, still
smelling like greasy L.J’s Diner.
 
I should’ve at least smacked the bitch
.
 
Since breaking up with Jake Pearson
sophomore year, Megan had never once wanted a real boyfriend.
 
She had too many options, and those
options more than quadrupled when they moved to St. Louis.
 
So why did she have to choose Brandt?
He was the only boy that Amanda had ever loved – she was fairly sure of
that.
 
Megan, on the other hand,
had never loved anyone but herself.

Amanda snorted.
 
Other than Liam Brody
, she
thought.

Liam Brody
!
She had somehow forgotten about him in the past hour.
 
How did she keep forgetting about him? Hastily, Amanda
stumbled out of the car and into the house.
 
She thanked God that no one was home and flipped open her
laptop, her heart skipping a beat upon loading her email.
 

Inbox (1).

She clicked.

Pretty,

I want to be offended by you, but
I’m kind of amused.
 
Okay, really
amused.

And I should tell you that I like
your idea about a Plain Jane.
 
I’m
sure you were kidding, but I really do.
 
What an accidental genius you are, Pretty.
 
While I don’t think I’m ready to take a bride, I suspect I
could get some positive results by simply dating someone “ugly” (you said it,
not me).
 
Hopefully, you’ll
reconsider my offer and agree to post the first story about me and my hideous
girlfriend.
 
All I need is your
reformed opinion on me to spark a herd mentality.
 
Yes, I’m asking you to post a nice story and say something
sweet yourself.
 
I know, I’m asking
for a lot here.

But now I’m letting you name your
price.
 
Whatever you want, I’ll
give you.
 
Think I’m kidding? Try
me.

-- Liam

- Chapter 2 -

As predicted, stories began to spread about town like
wildfire.
 
The rumor mill alleged
Amanda to be on everything from bath salts to meth by the night of her
outburst.
 
By morning, there was
talk of her being moody on account of being pregnant.
 
The speculation made its way from around
town to her dark bedroom by way of her mother.

“You just gotta apologize to Tandy Mueller,” her
mother said tiredly as she leaned against the doorframe.
 
“Find it in your heart to forgive her
nosiness, Mandy, so we can all get past this.”
 
But it was pointless, and Amanda knew it.
 
Even if she
was
able to forgive, there was no getting past anything.
 
She once had neighbors who had moved to
Indiana because of Tandy Mueller’s rumors.
 
In a small town, they followed you like a hungry dog, and to
make matters worse, Tandy had a penchant for immortalizing her tales on the
Internet.
 

Amanda didn’t bother searching for her name on the
town forum.
 
It was there –
she didn’t have to see it to know it.
 
With those posts, her fate in Merit had been sealed.
 
She was an outcast, a leper.
 
People had been waiting for this day
for years.
 
They had resented her closeness
to their pride and joy.
 
They had
suspected she was an odd one for awhile now, undeserving of Megan’s company.
 
All they wanted was to confirm that she
wasn’t high and mighty, that she couldn’t in fact survive the big city.
 
And finally, they had.

“Please leave me alone, Mom,” Amanda asked
feebly.
 
To her relief, her mother
obliged.
 
All she wanted to do was
stay in her room forever – or at least until she planned her escape.
 
She could move to Texas.
 
Austin always called out to her for
some reason.
 

Or she could move in to some friend’s house.
 
Amanda thought hard before cursing her
inability to keep friends.
 
She had
been close to two or three people at community college, but they had all lost
touch by graduation.
 
Not that she
wanted to stay in Missouri.
 

She had one cousin in California, but she didn’t even
know where, which spoke to how close they were anyway.

Ding
.
 
The sound of a new email snapped her
out of her thoughts.
 
She had put
on a sound notification since her correspondence with Liam Brody, but she
hadn’t even responded to his last message.
 
What could she possibly ask for from him? He had told her to
“try” him, but asking him to say, finance her life in a new, to-be-determined
city seemed excessive.
 
And stupid.

To both her disappointment and relief, the new email
was not from Liam.
 
It was a
notification from her HDU mailbox.
 
FilmFreak had messaged her.

Message from FilmFreak (Moderator) to
PrettyKitty29 (Moderator):

Hey Pretty,

I was wondering if I could ask you
permission for something kind of strange.
 

You approved a post this morning that
someone submitted about Natalie Bell, that vapid reality star airhead.
 
I know we’re not supposed to delete posts,
but can I delete that one please? I know it sounds weird and irrational and
random, but… yeah.
 
I just can’t
deal with it right now.
 
Thanks.

- FF

Amanda frowned.
 
FilmFreak usually signed his emails with a heart, but that was
actually the least of her concerns.
 
There was no deleting of posts on HDU without a proper reason.
 
He knew that.
 
She mulled over his message for a few minutes, grateful for
a distraction from her own troubles.
 

She quickly found the post about Natalie Bell.
 
All it said was that the former reality
star was one of several actresses being considered for a new pilot on FOX.
 
What could FilmFreak find so offensive
about that? Was Natalie Bell his Liam Brody? It didn’t make sense though.
 
She was a harmless reality star with a
reputation for being bubbly and sweet.
 

Perhaps there had been some rule breaking in the
comments – racist, sexist, and bigoted remarks were prohibited and
grounds for being banned.
 
But
Amanda found nothing.
 
There were
only forty comments – the average post had almost two hundred – and
they were all rather positive in nature.