Match Point (ASOUE)

Chapter Four

The vibe didn't improve on the way home. Violet tried to distract everyone, chatting away and keeping the conversation light, but it was as though Klaus was a black hole. Even just sitting there quietly, he seemed to be sucking out all of the joy in the car as he stared into space. I couldn't blame him though. I knew what it was like to lose a match you expected to win. I knew how it felt to wonder if you were good enough, if all the times you'd won before were just plain luck that was now running out.

Somehow, despite us being in a seven seater, I had ended up beside him, with Violet and Quigley on the row in front of us. The pair had descended into quiet chatter, Violet having given up on trying to improve Klaus' mood, and they were animated as always, though I wasn't listening to whatever it was they were talking about. That left me to scroll away on my phone, knowing that the stoic young man beside me was in no mood to talk. Which suited me just fine. I was more than happy to look through social media and, now that Quigley wasn't there to look over my shoulder, I quickly tapped my name into the search bar.

The results came up immediately and I scrolled for a bit. There were still mentions of my previous match, as well as Duncan's article, and posts that compared me to the rookie Carmelita Spats. Then I changed the setting to most recent, and my screen filled with pictures of Quigley and I sitting in the box, watching Violet's match. As usual, I was making an array of unattractive expressions. People seemed to love screenshotting videos of me talking or reacting to things, and then posting the funny pictures they managed to get out of it. I scrolled past those quickly, finding it disconcerting even now to see so many pictures of myself taken not even an hour ago. Not even an hour ago I was there, watching the game, and now that was all over the internet. That would never not be strange to me.

I scrolled a bit more, going down a rabbit hole until I ended up on a picture of Quigley and I, standing and clapping after Violet won her match. Miserable as always, it was captioned, and I felt my heart sink, knowing my coach was about to have my head. As I looked at the picture, I couldn't even deny that I looked pissed off, despite feeling anything but at the time. I just happened to have a resting bitch face, which I had remembered to school into a smile, but not quick enough to avoid this screenshot apparently. Before I could stop myself, I had tapped on the post, bringing up the comments. One user had defended me, saying that people always had to find something to pick at, but that one just washed over me. The one that stood out was a clip of the very moment the offending screenshot had been pulled from. It started to autoplay, showing me frowning as I clapped before I suddenly pulled my face into a smile that looked fake as hell, even to me. The user had captioned it "Quick! Pretend to look happy!"

I swallowed thickly, feeling my eyes start to prickle. It was so stupid- both what they'd said and the fact that I had looked at it in the first place. But it just felt like I couldn't do anything without my actions being taken the wrong way. I needed to stop looking at social media, and I needed to stop searching myself up. I would be better off not knowing what people were saying, especially since it was hurting me. But it was like an addiction. I told myself every time that it would be my last, but I couldn't stop.

I blinked a few times until my eyes cleared, not wanting to cry in the car when I had no way of explaining the reason behind it without exposing that I had gone back to my old ways, despite convincing everyone I had stopped. Then, I looked up from my phone, wanting to see how far away we were from the airbnb, but instead I caught Klaus staring, both at me and my phone. Panic surged through me and I quickly locked my screen and shifted my entire body away, staring out of the window so I wouldn't see the judgemental look he was mostly definitely throwing my way. He probably thought I was in love with myself, searching myself up like that, when in reality it was closer to the opposite. But as long as he didn't tell anyone, I could tell myself that I didn't care. I had enough to focus on than the opinions of Klaus Baudelaire.