Everybody's Fool

1 | The Status

THE STATUS

"But people are oceans," she shrugged.
"You cannot know them by their surface."

Beau Taplin

■

IT ALL STARTED with a simple request.

"Hey Jake, let me borrow your laptop."

"Nope," he said.

"Come on, please? Delia just texted me and said she posted a video on her Facebook wall that she wants us to see." I waited, smiling cheerfully when he looked my way. That always got him. The cheerfulness. He blew out an exasperated breath and shoved his computer towards me.

"One of these days, you're gonna have to find another way to get your internet fix. You can't freeload off of me and my Facebook account forever, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I said smiling, popping the lid of his laptop open. I pulled up a new window in the search engine. While I waited for the page to load, I thrummed my fingers on the keys and Jake shifted his leg on the couch to jab my leg with his foot.

"Go lighter on the keys! And keep it down while you're at it, I'm trying to study."

"You're watching compilation videos on Youtube, you moron," I said after looking over at him - he had his iPad nestled in his lap. "And we've been in school for two days; nobody has homework yet."

He held up a finger. "Shush," he said pleasantly.

I rolled my eyes and looked back down at the laptop screen. As per usual, Jake had a million notifications, several unread messages and just as many friend requests. Scrolling down the newsfeed, looking for my cousin's post, I wondered idly for the hundredth time what it must feel like to be as popular as Jake was. At our last school in Albany, Jake was the most popular junior in school. We'd only been in Hargrove High for two days and in Meriden, Connecticut for fourteen, and Jake had already made about three hundred new friends. In the lunchroom today, the seniors at the center table were all beckoning for Jake to come join them and though he offered to sit with me (at the unpopular, unfrequented corner table) I sent him off towards the cluster of jocks and cheerleaders. Although we're twins and we share a lot of things, we'd never shared the same social circles. Mine were nonexistent, for one thing. His were innumerable.

"Jake, did Delia change her profile pic or something? I'm not seeing her..." I muttered as I scanned the newsfeed. My eye caught on the picture of the pretty cheerleader - the school's golden girl, apparently - and that was when I saw it.

The status.

I felt a prickle along the back of my neck. The comments written beneath it were crass, especially those made by Mark Bradley. I didn't know it was about me, not until I saw Mallory's comment.

Are we talking about Marilyn Rivers? Hot Jake's sister? Because what went wrong there...

My face filled with heat. I stared, riveted at the screen, and as the words slowly began to sink in, my heart started to pound. I clicked the option to see more comments and read the rest of them slowly. I stared at them so hard the entire screen started to blur, going in and out of focus.

"You're such a dipthong, Marli, I've told you a thousand times, just type her name in the search box," Jake swung his legs off the couch and leaned over my shoulder, but stopped when he saw what I was looking at. "What the hell?"

I didn't answer; my throat felt like it had dried up. I stared at the words sliding in and out of focus and then lifted my hand to press my teeth into my thumbnail. My brother was silent next to me. I could feel his breath come and go, gradually increasing with anger.