Royals

Chapter 60

After our conversation, Samantha quickly fell asleep. As I heard her soft snores, I rolled onto my back and stared at my decorated ceiling. When I first came to England, I severely suffered from insomnia, so I stuck a few glow in the dark stars up there to give me something to look at.

Tonight, my long-past insomnia kicked in, and after hours of being wide awake, I crept down the hall and made my way into the living room. Snatching my laptop off the coffee table, I ensconced into the sofa and powered it up. Slowly, I typed twitter.com into the search bar and waited until the familiar backdrop appeared onto my screen.

Shakily, I typed @E.Brazki into the username slot and vodka101 on the password line, pausing momentarily before clicking the enter button. The last time I was on this website was during my plane ride to England, and the only thing I had done was admittedly immature: I had blocked Joey.

Two rapid seconds later, an explosion of tweets appeared on my timeline. Careful not to accidentally favorite or retweet anything, I maneuvered my way through my account. I scoffed at the old picture of Joey and me that remained as my profile picture, and I went directly to view my notifications.

A tremor of guilt ran through my body as I noticed the few dozen tweets asking where I had disappeared off too. Lillia, Brandon, Jake, Ashlynn, Annabel, Claire, Penelope, Michael, and even Jared had requested that I "check my phone" and were questioning my whereabouts.

A few students from school had tweeted asking if I had switched schools because I was embarrassed of my fight with Hanna Mason, but I rolled my eyes and scrolled past those tweets. I found a few "throwback Thursday" photos that my friends had tagged me in, expressing how much they missed me, and I let out a sad laugh.

Seeing nothing too significant, I switched over to my direct messages. I found all the same messages from all the same people. "Where are you?" "Thanks for saying good-bye..." "I hope you're safe." "Is England everything you thought it'd be?" "I hope you're having a better time than you would here." "Be happy." "Start fresh, girl. You deserve it."

I scrolled through them carelessly, only stopping when I reached an ancient conversation I had had with Joey. I clicked on his profile page, and forced myself not to read his tweets. Wanting him to know that I was over him, I unblocked him and returned to my home page, not necessarily ready to follow him again just yet.

I scrolled through my timeline and soon realized that everyone was at Penelope's Halloween Bash in Chicago. I found various pictures that were taken of my drunken friends and glided past the ones of Lillia, Jake, and Joey.

I was a bit confused when I saw Joey dateless. Either Aubrey and Joey broke up for good, or she simply couldn't make the party. Wanting Joey to be happy, I hoped for the latter.

A nostalgic smile fell over my expression when I saw the dozens of alcoholic drinks spread along the countertops. As much as I wanted to deny the fact that I missed the parties, I couldn't. I tried convincing myself that my English friends were able to have fun without alcohol, but in the back of my head, I knew I liked my American friends better.

A notification popped up on my page, and I crumpled my eyebrows as I clicked on it.

@J.Blanzata followed you!

How had he known so fast that I had unblocked him? Was he constantly checking my profile to see if I had unblocked him? No, that couldn't be it.

I took a deep breath before following him back. After the tiny icon turned blue, I exhaled deeply and went onto my profile page. I found a picture of Anastasia and me from last summer at the beach, so I uploaded it as my new avatar. I couldn't give Joey the satisfaction of having himself in my profile picture any longer.