My Life Undecided (24 page)

I breathe out a heavy sigh and sink down into my chair, feeling like an enormous weight has just been lifted.

Wel , that explains it!

There must be some kind of glitch in the program. A systemwide failure that’s causing the whole site to go cuckoo. And now they have to

shut everything down to fix it. That makes so much sense! I mean, how else can you explain an 797,000-hit spike overnight?

You can’t.

This is the only plausible explanation.

I navigate over to the Help section, tap out a quick e-mail to the support team listing out the details of my issue, hoping it’l help them in their

quest for a solution, and book it out of the library to my first-period class.

I can just picture the site’s IT team, somewhere in Silicon Val ey, California, running around the office like headless chickens, shouting out

orders to one another, trying to sort out this embarrassing technical hiccup that’s causing everyone’s blog to go haywire. It almost makes me laugh.

But I have faith that they’l figure it out. That this glitch wil be fixed. And when I come back to the library at lunch, al wil be right again.

Monday, November 15

Dear BB4Life,

Thanks for notifying us regarding the unusual y high volume of traffic on your blog. After further review, we have not found any

functionality issues in your account and we can attest that your blog hit counter is, in fact, working correctly.

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,

Your Blog Support Team

Where There’s Smoke…

22,980.

That’s how many comments have been left on my latest blog posting.

Twenty-two thousand nine hundred and eighty people have felt the need to remark on my decision to forgive or not forgive Shayne Kingsley.

My head is spinning so fast, I can barely focus on the screen long enough to read a single one of them.

I take a second look at the hit counter. It’s over a mil ion and a half now. A mil ion and a half. As in the population of Idaho. As in the amount

of money it would require to buy a house in my mother’s new subdivision development.

And it’s not stopping there. It just keeps going up. Every time I refresh the screen.

Like a wildfire.

It starts with a basic match. Struck innocently enough to light the way through a dark clump of trees and then it slips from your fingers, and

before you can react the entire forest is ablaze.

Maybe I real y am an arsonist.

I quickly close the window. As if making it disappear from my screen wil also make it disappear from my life. Obviously, it doesn’t work.

Because the image is seared into my brain. So I open it back up again and stare numbly at the screen.

My heart is hammering in my chest. My fingers are cold and clammy against the buttons of the mouse.

Who are these people? Where did they come from? How do they know about my little, insignificant blog?

Last week this blog was nothing and today it’s the toast of the Internet. How long wil it take people to figure out who wrote it? How long wil it

take them to put the pieces together and deduce that, like BB, I also joined the debate team and tried out for the rugby team and chose to read The

Grapes of Wrath, and nearly choked in the cafeteria?

My estimate: not very long.

Which means I have little time before al hel breaks loose.

A hand lands on my shoulder and I nearly jump out of my skin.

“There you are!” Shayne’s voice echoes through the entire library, despite the “Quiet Please” signs that are plastered on every wal . “What

are you doing in here?”

There’s a clear disdain in her voice as she glances around the room, taking in her surroundings as if she’s seeing them for the first time. A

secret chamber discovered in a house you’ve lived in al your life.

I dive for the mouse, trying to close the window before Shayne catches sight of it. But it’s too late. “Oh,” she says, glancing at the screen and

rol ing her eyes. “That. Please don’t tel me you’re into that thing, too?”

Way too late.

My breath catches in my throat.

Shayne Kingsley knows about the blog.

Shayne Kingsley has read it.

It’s already happening. I’m already doomed.

There’s no way she doesn’t know it’s her I’m talking about. She has to at least recognize herself. Could this be the real reason behind her

apology? Could she have read the blog and now be setting me up for some kind of retaliatory revenge scheme?

“Everyone is talking about that stupid blog,” she continues.

“They are?” I manage to say. But it’s barely a squeak.

“I think it’s total y overrated.”

I search her face for a clue. A flash of accusation. But I don’t see anything.

“Have you read it?” My voice is trembling now.

She stares down at her manicure, as if even the maintenance of her fingernails interests her more than the topic at hand. “Yeah, I read some

of it last night after DishnDiss posted it. But I real y don’t see what the big deal is. So some girl needs help figuring out her life. What else is new?”

“Wait a minute.” I rewind her words until I reach the part that strikes me as odd. “DishnDiss? As in DishnDiss dot com?”

She looks at me like I’m clearly stupid. “Um, yeah.”

“They posted it on their site? The site that’s read by mil ions of people a day?”

“Duh,” she says, clearly getting bored with this conversation. “How else would you have heard about it?”

I scramble for words but they’re coming out in short, incoherent clumps. “Uh…I…don’t…”

“Whatever.” She spares me from having to finish. “So not interesting. Let’s go to lunch.”

I don’t know if it’s the shock, or the fact that I’m stil just trying to find my footing in this overturned world of mine—like a baby horse trying to

walk for the first time—but I don’t argue. I let myself be led down the hal way and into the cafeteria. And before I know it, I’m right back at the center

table, occupying the coveted spot next to Shayne Kingsley.

As if I never even left.

Under the Radar

Everyone is talking about my blog.
And debating about the fate of BB and Her Royal Heinous’s friendship like it’s a feud on an MTV reality

show. Meanwhile, I just sit there, listening to people go back and forth, trapped in the constant fear of exposure. Convinced that any minute now

someone is going to walk up to the table, point to me, and go, “Hey, you’re BB4Life, aren’t you?” And then everyone else wil turn and stare at me in

astonishment as the gears in their heads start turning and the puzzle pieces start fal ing into place.

Thankful y, “that stupid blog” is the very last thing Shayne wants to talk about. And she makes her objections very clear about five minutes

after we sit down.

“Can we please talk about something else?” she whines. “This is such a waste of brain activity. Besides, BB is a loser for even

contemplating forgiveness. If her ex-best friend real y dicked her over that badly, then why is this even a decision to make? Her Royal Heinous is

clearly a major biatch. End of discussion. Let’s talk about something else. Like the winter formal. Ooh! Or the fabuloso sweet sixteen my father is

planning for me next month.”

And for the first time in my life, I’m actual y grateful when everyone obeys her command like sniveling dogs fol owing their alpha leader and

the subject is promptly changed.

I duck out of lunch early, claiming to have to print something out before English class, and make my way back to the computer terminals in

the library. I go straight to DishnDiss.com and rapidly scrol past the custody battles, eating disorders, and stories of leaked sex tapes, until I find

what I’m looking for.

It’s not long. It’s not complicated. And yet, after reading it, everything about the last few hours makes perfect sense.

How lazy have teenagers gotten these days?

When I was fifteen, we didn’t have blogs and online pol s.

We actual y had to make our own decisions. And we had to walk to school…uphil both ways…in the snow.

Click here to vote on a hopeless girl’s life.

This is bad. This is very, very bad. This could be the end of me. For heaven’s sake, it’s listed under the “Diss” column! I’ve been publicly

dissed by the most wel -known gossip site in America! If people find out that this blog is mine, I’l never be able to recover.

It’s no wonder I didn’t see this until now. I haven’t looked at DishnDiss.com since Shayne dissed me. Because there was no reason to.

Staying up-to-date on al the latest gossip was always Shayne’s thing. Not mine. I honestly couldn’t care less which celebrity was knocked up and

which one was caught red-handed in a fashion faux pas. But Shayne did. And therefore, I was expected to as wel .

And in that moment I realize why no one can identify me as the mysterious blogger behind MyLifeUndecided.com. Why I seem to be the only

person at this school who actual y knows the blog belongs to me and not “some random person in Ohio” as a few of the readers have speculated.

Because after I was official y excommunicated from the United Church of Shayne (and before I became a local hero), I was invisible. I was no longer

a subject of public speculation. I was no longer talked about, observed, analyzed, studied, or emulated.

And now with the details right in front of their eyes, the evidence al lined up for everyone to examine, the answer couldn’t be more obvious.

And yet, in the shadow of Shayne Kingsley, no one can even see it.

Wel , almost no one.

Believe it or not, there is one person who knows that I joined the debate team. That I tried out for rugby and got my butt handed to me. That I

went on an extra credit field trip to see chopped-up human bodies for health class. And that I nearly choked and died in a hidden back corner of the

cafeteria.

There is one person who knows the real me.

Not as an extension of Shayne Kingsley, but as an entity in and of myself.

Brian “Heimlich” Harris.

My debate partner. Or soon to be ex– debate partner.

I slow to a stop outside the door to my English classroom and think about the implications. What if he knows? Wil he be upset? Or wil he

think it’s kind of funny?

And then, as though I’ve telepathical y summoned him, suddenly he’s standing right next to me.

“Hey, you,” he says, poking me in the arm.

I jump nearly a foot in the air.

Brian chuckles. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

I force out an uneasy giggle. “Hi.” And then I simply stare at him and wait. Wait for the bomb to drop. Wait for him to confirm my worst

suspicions.

“What?” he says, wiping his nose and mouth. “Do I have something on my face?”

I hastily shake my head. “No, I’m just…I’m just wondering if you have anything to tel me. Or talk to me about.”

He raises his eyebrows inquisitively and then a flash of realization settles onto his face. “Oh,” he says, lowering his voice and dropping his

head closer to me. “That.”

Just as I suspected. He knows.

“Yeah,” I say, cringing. “That.”

“Actual y, I do want to talk to you about that.”

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the worst. “Okay.”

“But not here,” he declares, glancing around. “Meet me outside Debate Central after school.”

My whole body slumps. I real y just wanted to get this over with. I don’t want to have to go through the rest of the day with this hanging over my

head. But I suppose he’s right. Class is starting in less than a minute and this conversation is going to take much longer. So I nod and say, “Okay.

That sounds good,” before fol owing him into the classroom.

Dished and Dissed

As soon as the final bell rings
, I don’t even stop off at my locker, I just head straight for Debate Central and I wait. Brian shows up a few minutes

later with a playful grin on his face.

Wel , I think, if he’s pissed about this blog, he certainly has an interesting way of showing it.

“So,” I prompt anxiously.

Brian motions to the open door of the debate room. “Shal we?”

I nod and step inside. Because Ms. Rich is at a faculty meeting we have the classroom to ourselves. Brian takes a seat at a desk and I

quickly fol ow suit and col apse into the one next to him.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask, reminding myself to take deep breaths and try to hear him out without total y freaking.

Brian suddenly appears very nervous. He keeps looking down at his hands and avoiding eye contact. “Wel ,” he begins timidly. “I wanted to

talk about this weekend.”

“This weekend?” I repeat skeptical y. “What about this weekend?”

“I mean, what happened over the weekend,” he rephrases.

I furrow my eyebrows at him. “You mean, because this weekend is when you read it?”

He matches my confused expression. “Read what?”

And then I freeze and squint at him, trying to draw information from his eyes. “Is this about something you saw on DishnDiss.com?”

His face twists in more confusion. “What’s Dishndiss.com?”

Oh my God. He doesn’t know!

I should have realized. I mean, Brian is probably the least likely person in the world to read Dishndiss.com. He’s too busy reading Time

magazine and Newsweek for relevant il egal immigration articles. Why would someone like Brian Harris, bless his soul, care about celebrity

gossip?

“So, this isn’t about anything you’ve read recently?” I confirm, studying his face for clues.

“No,” he replies, stil somewhat lost. “It’s about what happened at the overnight debate tournament.”

And then it suddenly dawns on me.

He wants to talk about the kiss.