Unfriended (22 page)

From the quiet safety underneath my covers, I could hear life going on around me, a world I felt myself drifting further and further away from. I could hear cars driving by on the street outside. I could hear my father walking around downstairs, opening and closing the fridge, watching baseball. He’d knock on my door, and bring me peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches that I left untouched. I could tell that he was getting worried, and I was sorry about that, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

My world had shrunk down to the size of my bed, and I liked it that way. It was quiet, and peaceful, and nobody was out to hurt me, or was forcing me to hurt other people. At some point, before I drifted back to sleep once more, it occurred to me that if I’d just stayed there to begin with, I could have avoided a lot of this mess.

On Friday, my father stood in my doorway with the phone, talking to my mother in London. “I don’t know,” I could hear him saying in a low, worried voice. “She hasn’t gotten out of bed in days. She says she has the flu….” There was a pause, and I could hear my mother, faintly, talking on the other end, an ocean away.

I heard my father’s footsteps coming closer, and sighed and pulled the covers away from my face. I winced at the brightness of the room, and the light that was hurting my eyes.

“Mad?” he asked from the foot of my bed.

“What,” I muttered, turning my face into my pillow once more.

“It’s your mom, kid,” my father said, holding out the phone to me. “She wants to speak to you.”

Even though it felt like my mind was working more slowly than usual, I knew that refusing to talk to her—while we were on an international phone call—was just going to make things worse. Feeling like I was moving through molasses, I sat up slowly, getting a head rush as I did so. When I was sitting up all the way—and exhausted by this—I reached out for the phone. My father handed it to me, and I lifted it to my ear with effort, as the phone seemed much heavier than it had a few days ago. “Hi, Mom,” I rasped. I cleared my throat, but it felt like my vocal cords had rusted over in the days of not speaking.

“Madison, are you okay?” my mother asked me over a slightly crackling connection. She sounded equal parts concerned and skeptical. “Because your father is
worried. I’m worried. If you’re actually sick, you are going to the doctor. But if you’re just moping, it’s time to get out of bed and go back to work. Okay?”

I started to open my mouth and tell my mother why this wasn’t exactly
moping
, but decided against it, as the very thought of trying to explain tired me out. I looked at my father, standing at the foot of my bed, and saw how anxious he seemed. I knew that this wasn’t an idle threat. If I told her that I just wanted to go back to bed, I’d find myself en route to the doctor, who would no doubt tell me that there was nothing wrong with me. “Fine,” I muttered into the phone. “I’ll get up.”

“Good,” my mother said. She took a breath, and when she spoke again, I could hear that the concern hadn’t entirely left her voice. “But what is this about, honey?” she asked. “Did something happen with your friends? With Nate?”

Just hearing Nate’s name felt like a slap in the face. I cleared my throat again, trying to keep my voice neutral. “No,” I lied through my teeth, hoping that the connection was bad enough that my mother wouldn’t be able to hear this. “Everything’s fine. I’ve just been … tired.”

“All right,” she said, but I could hear some disbelief lingering in her voice. “But I’m going to be calling and checking in. And I don’t want to hear that you’ve gone back into hibernation, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, trying my best to sound convincing. “Sounds great.”

“Good,” she said. “Now let me talk to your father again, okay, sweetie? Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” I said. “Bye.” I handed the phone back to my father, who smiled at me and headed out of my room, talking to my mother, closing the door behind him.

Sitting up in bed, I looked around my room, still squinting at the sunlight streaming in through my windows. I wanted nothing more than to lie back down again, pull the covers back over my head, and return to my quiet cocoon. But apparently, that was no longer an option. I tried to remember what day it was as I glanced over at my bedside clock. If it was Friday—which I wasn’t entirely sure of—it was still early enough that I could make it to work on time.

I pushed myself out of bed on legs that felt weak and wobbly—which made sense, considering I hadn’t been eating much over the last few days. I walked into my bathroom, hand resting on the wall for support, and cringed when I saw my reflection. I tried to remember the last time I’d washed my hair, but gave up when that became too challenging.

My reflection showed me just why my father had been worried. I looked exhausted. I was pale, my hair was tangled, and my eyes were puffy. But most of all, I looked … defeated. Like there was no life in me anymore. I didn’t like it, and stared at myself for only a moment longer before turning on the water in the shower, preparing to join the world once again.

“What happened to you?” Kavya asked as I pulled open the door to the smoothie shop. Sitting in her usual spot on the counter, she looked up from her phone and frowned at me. “You look like crap.”

I glanced in the reflection of the window and felt a momentary wave of relief that she hadn’t seen me earlier that morning, when I’d looked about fifty times worse. I had thought I’d managed to pull myself together a bit, but even so, I could see that she had a point. Mostly, I just looked—and felt—worn out. It might be enough to push me into finally trying a wheatgrass shot. “Hey,” I murmured, with a voice that still felt scratchy. The molasses feeling had lingered. The lights of the shop were brighter than I remembered, and everything seemed louder after the quiet solitude of my bed.

I walked slowly over to the counter and ducked under it, walking past Kavya and into the back hallway to hang up my purse. Out of habit, I took my phone out of my purse, ready to put it in my jean shorts to have with me for the day. But after a second, reality hit me and I put the phone back in my purse. There was no point in having it with me during the workday—it wasn’t like I had anyone that I could talk to. “Where are Daryl and John?” I asked, zipping my purse back up.

“In the freezer,” Kavya called, her voice punctuated with the faint sounds of her texting.

I had a pretty good idea of what they were doing in the freezer, but I climbed the two steps up to it anyway and pulled open the heavy silver door. The first thing I noticed when I stepped inside was that it wasn’t cold. Which struck me as a problem, since being cold was pretty much its main function. Daryl was sitting on the ground, flipping a coin in the air and catching it on the back of his hand, while John teetered on a ladder, peering at the contents of the top shelf.

“Hi,” I said. John turned around quickly at the sound of my voice, and the ladder wobbled dangerously. After it had settled again, Daryl looked up at John, frowning.

“Dude,” Daryl said, extremely after the fact, “your ladder’s moving.”

“Glad you made it back, Mad,” John said, turning around and sitting on the rung above him. “Do you know how to open the register?”

“I’ll give it a shot,” I said. I looked around the freezer
once again for some explanation of why they were both in there, and why it was currently so balmy. “Is the freezer broken?” I finally asked.

“Nah,” John said. “We just turned it off while we were in here. The switch is right outside the door. I can’t find the mangoes, and it was getting really cold.”

I was about to point out that it probably wasn’t good for the fruit to keep defrosting and refreezing, but didn’t feel like I had the energy to go into it, and just nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you guys out there.”

“Glad you’re back,” John said, standing up and setting the ladder swaying again. “We missed you.”

I gave him my best attempt at a smile, but it felt like I hadn’t used those muscles in a very long time, and I was no longer sure, exactly, how to go about it. I stepped out of the freezer and closed the door behind me, just in time to hear a loud crash and then, several seconds later, Daryl’s voice saying, “Dude. Ladder.”

Kavya didn’t appear to have moved since I’d left. I pushed myself up to sit on the counter by the register side, feeling exhausted after even that small—and unchallenging—interaction.

“So?” Kavya asked, looking up at me during a break in her texting.

“They’re getting mangoes,” I said, nodding at the freezer. “In theory.”

“Not them,” Kavya said dismissively. She closed her phone and raised her eyebrows at me. “I mean, where were you? Were you really sick? I thought you were lying, but after seeing you now, I totally believe it.”

“Kind of,” I said, not wanting to get into it. I glanced out the door, thinking that now would be a great moment for a potential customer to wander by in search of iced, blended refreshment, but the shop remained empty. I turned back and saw that Kavya was still looking at me, waiting, going so far as to ignore her bleating phone. “It’s a long story,” I said with a sigh, wondering how to distill this to the Cliff Notes version. “Well—you’re on Friendverse, right? So—”

“Ugh, no,” Kavya said, shaking her head, her voice heavy with disdain. “Why, are
you?
Friendverse is
so
six months ago.”

I stared at her, stunned by this. “Wait, what?” I asked.

Kavya gave me a patronizing smile, clearly happy to impart her California wisdom. “Friendverse is what everyone was on
last
year. But there was a mass exodus this spring. I mean, they add Status Q and Constellation in the space of a couple months? Just pick one thing and stick to it, am I right?”

“So,” I said, trying to get my head around this. Like I had when I’d learned that Connor had defected from all the sites, I was still having trouble understanding how this was even possible. “Does that mean you’re not on
anything?”

“Um,
no
,” Kavya said slowly, as though I wasn’t too bright. “Everyone in L.A.—everyone cool, that is—is on Zyzzx.” She sighed. “Have you even heard of it?” she asked.

“Zyzzx,” I said, repeating the way she’d said it. I’d started hearing about this site a few months ago,
but nothing specific, except that nobody knew how to pronounce it.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s pretty much the only place to be. And it’s all about actually
connecting
with your friends, not posting stupid quizzes for the world to see. I’ll see if I can get you an invitation.” She looked at me closely, as though appraising my social status, and frowned slightly. “Maybe.”

“Wait, you need an invitation?” I asked.

“Um, yeah,” Kavya said, picking up her phone and starting to type on it again. Clearly, she had been separated from it for as long as she was able. “Zyzzx is exclusive. You need an invite from a current member to join it. But I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Thanks,” I murmured. I wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Kavya’s dismissal of Friendverse, Status Q, and Constellation. The fact that there might be an alternative was something I’d never even considered before.

“Mangoes!” I glanced up to see John, looking a little worse for wear, hoist the cardboard box triumphantly over his head. Daryl shuffled along behind him, taking his usual spot on the counter by the blenders, and picking up the remote for the store’s TV. He flipped channels until he found one of his
telenovelas
and cranked the volume. Kavya rolled her eyes and sighed loudly, and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that four employees were far too many for a very small smoothie shop.

When the bell above the door jangled, signaling a customer, I was thrilled to actually have something
to do—until I turned and saw who the customer was.

Kittson Pearson, looking both very tan and very angry, was barreling across the store toward me.

I could feel myself start to panic. I had no idea how to handle this. If Isabel was watching me on Constellation, she would see that Kittson and I were aligned, and I would have no way of letting her know that I wasn’t going against her rules. Somehow, I hadn’t considered the possibility that one of my friends might come looking for me. And if this was going to happen, I never would have thought that Kittson would have been the one to show up.

“Madison,” she fumed, taking her white sunglasses off and perching them on top of her head, like a headband. “I am
not
happy with you right now.”

I glanced around at my fellow employees, all of whom were ignoring their phones, boxes of mangoes, and Spanish-language soap operas, respectively, in favor of the drama currently unfolding in front of them. “I know,” I said, trying to keep my volume down, even though there was no real point to that, as everyone else was only a few feet from me and could hear every word I was saying. “But I can’t talk to you.”

Kittson stared at me for a long moment, and then shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “I just came back from the Hamptons,” she said. “On a
bus
. You are going to talk to me.”

“Can I get you a smoothie?” John asked, nudging me aside to give Kittson a lopsided smile. “Because we … you know … have them here.”

“Yeah,” Daryl echoed a moment later.

“I’m not here for a smoothie,” Kittson said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, you
are
in a smoothie shop,” Kavya said, getting up from the counter. I could see her giving Kittson the fellow-pretty-girl once-over, and I saw Kittson doing it right back to her.

Kittson looked at Kavya for a long moment, and I knew her well enough to tell that she was deciding between a comeback and asking Kavya what eye shadow she was wearing.

“Kittson’s a friend from school,” I said quickly, trying to prevent a potential showdown. “But she was just … um … leaving.”

Kittson blinked at me, and I saw real hurt cross her face. “Madison,” she said, her voice soft and a little surprised. “What is happening? Talk to me. I’m worried.” She paused. “And angry,” she added. “Let’s not forget that.”

“I know,” I said. I could feel my heart beginning to race. I needed to get Kittson out of there, and fast. I hadn’t gone through all of this only to have everything ruined because she refused to take a hint. “But …” I looked around helplessly, and my eyes fell on the freezer, the door propped open with the bottom of the ladder. It took a moment for my brain to kick into gear, but once it did, I realized there might be a way to talk to Kittson in private. “Okay,” I said, nodding. “Let’s talk. Follow me.”

“What is this?” Kittson asked as she stepped inside and I pulled the metal door to the walk-in shut.

“It’s a freezer,” I said. I turned to her and pointed at her purse. “Your phone,” I said, hearing the urgency in my voice. “Shut it off.”

Kittson, maybe hearing something in my tone that told her I wasn’t kidding, pulled out her phone and turned it off without comment. “If this is a freezer,” she said, dropping her phone back in her bag, “why isn’t it cold?”

“Never mind,” I said impatiently. Even though I didn’t think that there was a way for Isabel to see that Kittson was here with me, I didn’t want to take the chance and prolong this interaction. “Look, I’m really sorry,” I said quickly. As I said the words, I realized just how much I meant them. I
was
sorry—that all this had happened, and that I was putting my friends through this without giving them any kind of explanation. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, less flippantly this time. “I wish I could tell you what’s happening. But I can’t. And you’re just going to have to believe that I’m doing what I have to.”

Kittson looked at me steadily. “Madison,” she finally said, “this is getting weird. And why can’t you tell me what’s going on? It’s not like anyone can hear us. We’re inside a freezer.”

“I know,” I said. “But …” I looked at Kittson, who was standing with her arms crossed, a concerned expression on her face. And it was like an invisible hand squeezed my heart a little. I hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be to face one of my friends and not be able to talk to them. And I felt a wave of affection for Kittson, this girl
who I hadn’t even been friends with at all a few months ago. I cleared my throat and looked down at the concrete floor. “I can’t,” I murmured. Silence fell between us in the freezer, and though there was a piece of me that really wanted her to stay, there was another piece of me that wanted her to leave, and as quickly as possible. Because having her there and not being able to talk to her was somehow worse than not talking at all. I looked up to see her staring at me, shaking her head.

“I don’t know who you are and what you’ve done with Madison,” she said, her voice clipped. “But the Madison MacDonald
I
knew wouldn’t be giving up like this. The Madison I knew didn’t walk away without a fight.” She looked at me for another long moment, disappointment clearly written all over her face.

I felt my shoulders slump a little. Her words stung, but there was nothing I could do. “I need to get back to work,” I said quietly.

Kittson looked at me searchingly for another moment. “You’re really not going to tell me what this is about?” she asked.

I looked away, so I wouldn’t have to see her expression when I shook my head. “I think there’s a customer,” I said, now just wanting this to be over as quickly as possible.

“How can you tell?” Kittson snapped.

“Because,” I said, heading over to the door and starting to pull it open, “on the front door, there …” I stopped short, realizing what I was about to say, and how it might—
might
—be able to give Kittson a hint as to what
was really going on. “On the door,” I said, turning to face her, “there is a bell.” I put the most emphasis on the last three words.

Kittson frowned, but a second later, understanding passed over her face. “You mean …” she started.

I pulled open the door the rest of the way. “I should get back,” I said, holding the door open for Kittson, who still looked lost in thought. “Just so you know,” I said quickly, suddenly remembering that her secret was not, in fact, safe with me. “I didn’t tell anyone about the thing that happened in the Hamptons. But I’m not the only one who knows.” I looked at her steadily, hoping that she understood what I meant.

She wrinkled her nose for a second—as she always did when she was thinking hard—but then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for the heads-up.” She stepped out of the walk-in and I shut the door behind her, then hit the switch on the wall to turn the freezer back on, hoping we hadn’t done too much irreparable damage to the fruit. “But whatever this is,” Kittson said in an urgent voice, causing me to turn back and look at her, “don’t just give up like this. It’s not like you, Madison.”

She stared at me for a moment longer, like she wasn’t quite sure who I was. Then she shook her head, put her sunglasses back on, and headed out of the smoothie shop.