It was everywhere.
Star leaned over my shoulder and stared at the screen in horror, a hand over her mouth. I just gazed at my laptop like I was looking straight through it. Feeling empty.
"Oh my God, Luca, you weren't kidding," she uttered quietly, her jaw wide open. I frowned at the screen.
"Why would I have been kidding?" I said blankly. "I had no reason to."
"But I seriously underestimated the... damage it could do," Star murmured, using the exact same words I used before.
"What? Have you never had a run-in with the internet before?" I glared.
"Sorry," she mumbled apologetically. "I'm just not a Facebook person... I'm more of the Instagram type, to be honest. You know, cute little filters and captions and-"
"Cut the internet talk and help me get this picture down."
It was awful, let me tell you that. I can't even begin to describe it. To this very day I don't know how James could be so cruel.
He'd obviously found out somehow who Kim was, and had even tracked down some photos of her from somewhere on Facebook. Then he'd paired a photo of her with the less-than-flattering snapshot of my new haircut, and made the most embarassing online post in history.
'My roommate Luca Jones got a new haircut the other day. I've gotta say, it's pretty sweet ;)'
It probably would have been okay if the Ken doll had been the nerd I'd originally expected him to be. If he didn't have many friends, the photo wouldn't be such a big deal.
But James had been at the school all of last year, and he was already one of the academy's biggest, most popular kids. Future football star, total lady's man, and let's face it- complete school hottie. All the girls were friends with him, he had almost every guy in the school practically orbiting around him, and even most of the teachers were his personal fans. The entire school would know about my 'buzzcut' by tomorrow.
"What am I going to do?" I said. Suddenly, the grimness of the situation became all too real, and the emotion finally came. I buried my head in my hands.
"You could just... ask him to take it down," Star shrugged, sitting down on my bed. I turned to her in despair.
"You seriously think he's the 'save-your-feelings' type? Star, he's my roommate. I know James, and I know that he wouldn't take that picture down unless somebody like freaking Madonna was asking."
"Oh." She sounded defeated.
"I mean, hell, if any hot girl came and begged him, he'd take it down in a flash. But I don't exactly have any beauty queens on speed dial-"
"I'll Facebook message him now." Star said it like it was no big deal, but suddenly, the idea was flashing right in front of my eyes.
"Of course! Flirt with him, Star, he'll delete it in a heartbeat."
She rolled her eyes at me. "Duh. What'd you think I was gonna do?"
And basically, that little statement was every part of Star rolled into a single sentence. I nearly face-palmed, but managed to stop myself.
"Alright," I forced myself to say, because inside I was grateful. It was just difficult to show. "Thank you. But I thought you didn't have Facebook?"
"Oh, I've got Facebook," she replied. "But this sort of trash is the reason I don't use it."
"Are you friends with the Ke- James?" I asked, quickly correcting myself. It could be quite difficult to convince James to accept a request, now that he knew about Star and I being friends. But then again he seemed like the easy type, if I'm completely honest. It didn't have to be a challenge.
" Maybe," Star shrugged. "I haven't been on here, for, like, half a year. I'll have to check my friends list."
The school was big, and there were a few hundred students, but the fact that Star had been here three years and James two was enough to reassure me there was still hope. Maybe they would be linked through mutual friends on there or something. But then again, Star might not have even used Facebook much last year- and now I knew exactly why. This type of sh*t could put you off the internet forever.
She tapped into her Facebook easily, remembering her password as if it were just her name. I don't know, maybe it was. The second she was in, she started scrolling through her friends list, hunting for a 'Ken Astin'. Oh, pardon me, James.
"What's his surname?"
Due to the fact I was just thinking about this, I could answer quickly, and she could find him in an instant. I hadn't bothered fiddling around much on Facebook in the past week or so, and I certainly hadn't tried sending him a friend request. God, that would pretty much be suicide- I imagined him Facebook messaging me stupid comments from the other side of the dormitory. And so, since we weren't friends, his profile picture took me by surprise.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said in disbelief. It was probably the cheesiest profile picture ever taken for Facebook, and usually lame selfies like this popped up everywhere, so I shouldn't be surprised, but for James...
I didn't even have the words to explain it.
As his profile filled the screen, I almost burst out laughing. His picture was him and a familiar-looking blonde girl, all huddled up together smiling like they were in Disneyland or something. Her hair was flat and straight and she had so much lipstick on, I was surprised James wasn't caked in stains from it. He was standing beside her, grinning and putting on a stupid macho look that made him look like a wannabe Superman.
"That's Bridgit," Star suddenly said, and when I saw her face she looked like she was sucking on a lemon. The mere sight of the new Queen of the Party on the screen was enough to make her sick. At first I was worrying about that pissed look on Star's face, but then I went back to worrying about why Bridgit was in James' profile picture.
"Why's Bridgit on here?" I asked, scanning the page in search for clues. It only took me a moment to work that one out.
"Status- in a relationship," Star read aloud. She looked really mad now, but I wasn't going to tell her that. I'd have to be suicidal to tell a girl how angry she looked. Anyway, I had different things to think about. Like how the hell James was currently in a relationship.
"Jesus," I exclaimed, stretching over her shoulder to view the screen. Sure enough, there it was. Right there in black and white- 'in a relationship with Bridgit Evans'. It occured to me that now our entire plan was basically about to come crumbling down, but that wasn't the biggest thing for me right now. I couldn't believe it.
"Who would have thought that womanizer could mantain an actual, long-time relationship?" I exclaimed, almost to myself, because Star seemed too wrapped up in cursing Bridgit to hell to notice. When I returned to reality and she was still swearing- well, not really, but you know, just hating on the girl- I had to ask what was up.
"Why do you even care if she's dating Ke-James?" I said, a little confused.
"The girl's always better," she replied. Simple as that. "She's always been just behind me for everything, you know? Second most popular girl in school. Second prettiest, second most-liked, just second best. She's been here since I joined, and she's in our year. Always second best right up until now."
"No offence, Star, but you were never really the best to James," I admitted. "I mean, had he even met you before today?"
She shook her head, eyes still glued to the screen. "No. But that's not the point."
Like I said before, girls are stupid. And this was just proof of it. "What is the point, then?"
"She's got a boyfriend now, too," Star spat out sourly, as if I should have already known that dating was the one-way ticket to high school superstardom. "A boyfriend, a body, and a crown that belongs to me."
"Oh for God's sake, Star," I said, finally getting fed up by all of it. "You're being stupid. It was literally a plastic tiara from a two-dollar shop. Why the hell does it matter so much?"
"I don't know," she answered, smiling weakly and trying for a slight attempt at humour. "It cost me two bucks, so I guess that's why I'm so hung up about it."
"You're loaded. It doesn't matter," I deadpanned, and she turned away from her screen to smile faintly at me.
"You're full of it. You know that, Luca?" I liked it when she joked around. It was normal Star, and I couldn't deal with the other versions of her. This was not a freaking one-woman musical. "Alright, back to matters at hand. I can't sweettalk a man who's dating Bridgit Evans."
I thought this one over for a moment, considering it carefully. She probably would have been right if we were discussing a normal, proper boyfriend, but this was James Astin. He'd jump on top of any hot girl who even looked his way; if he was dedicated, I was the new captain of the football team. I'd be a better boyfriend than him, and I'd never dated a single soul in my sixteen years of life.
"I would say you can," I admitted. "I don't really think he's much of the dedicated sort."
"What, are you suggesting he'd cheat on Bridgit?" Exclaimed Star in mock surprise. I nodded, and an evil grin crept across her lips. "Well, then I say let's go for it."
Sometimes her hatred towards Bridgit was annoying, but at times like this, it was awesome.
She tapped the chat bubble at the bottom of the screen and scanned through her list of friends to find his name. Sure enough, he was online. Probably not a stroke of luck- more like a stroke of James-just-really-wants-to-see-Luca-drown-in-the-embarassment-and-that-works-for-us-at-the-other-end.
"What am I meant to say?" Star asked, looking at me as if I knew how to sweettalk the school hunk. I shrugged, having no clue how to answer.
"How am I meant to know? I don't spend my free time chatting up guys. Or even girls, for that matter."
"Yeah, right, Luca. I know you're a chick magnet deep down inside," she teased, and I felt my cheeks get red as she began typing a message.
'hey james, those pics of luca were pretty funny ;)'
She sent the message, and it went whizzing into the sky, bounding off satellites and stars until it came rocketing down back to earth and into the academy again. James didn't reply for a moment, and I started to wonder if he actually had the brains to see through the plan, but then he messaged us back. Unfortunately, it was bad news.
'im not tkng it down huntly, bzz off.'
It was time to start begging. He could see right through us.
'pls? come on, i like u a lot, and u sm like a cool guy. just do this 1 thing 4 me.'
James wasn't budging. 'not tkng it down'.
Star sighed. "There's no point in wasting our time like this, Luca. It's pointless. I need to go talk to him myself."
"Why would you do that? His face is incredibly off-putting in a conversation," I warned her. It took a minute for me to realize how incorrect my comment sounded, but Star didn't say anything.
"Look, I know you want to believe he's an absolute jerk and a loser and ugly and all that rubbish, but let's face it. He rules half the school. I'll try talking to him, but you've got to understand that he's got just as much power as me in this place. I doubt he'll take it down. You're probably just going to have to live with it."
I buried my head in my hands again, clueless as to what we were going to do. Right now there were pictures of Kim's name scratched into the back of my head, whizzing through space and time to shimmy down the internet threads of earth and slide into everyone's phones. This was incredibly embarassing. Why didn't James just tell everybody I had diarrohea or something? It would have been a lot faster, and over with quicker. Those photos would be out there forever now.
I imagined it. People saving my head to their phones. Setting the embarassing images as wallpapers on their iPads. People forwarding it to everybody they'd ever met in all of their lives. Goddammit, I could be one of those stupid login backgrounds on Tumblr, and I would have no way to stop any of it becoming the next viral sensation.
"I can't live with it," I insisted, feeling helpless as my mind ticked over the dramatics of it all. "Why, of all people, does my roommate have to be king of the school?"
"At least he didn't steal the popularity crown off you," Star shrugged, trying to make me feel better in her own not-very-helpful way. "You know, your situation with James is probably easier than my situation with Bridgit."
I kind of wanted to hit her then, but no. I do have morals. I would never hit a girl, and besides, that would have been completely un-Luca like. So I just breathed in and out deeply, trying to regain control of my shaking fists, and said calmly, "shut up."
"Hey," Star said as she reached the door, ready to go hunt down James. "You know something that's kind of weird?"
I bit down on my lip. "What?"
"Bridgit's, like, the new queen of the school, and James is the king. They're basically a brand-new power couple."
That one made me smile, and a joke flew into my head. "So you're saying they're the Beyonce and Jay-Z of the academy?"
Star laughed, and nodded. "Exactly."
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This is terrible and short and I'm really sorry, but I felt obliged to update. I hope you at least sort-of liked my horrendously disastarous writing this chapter.
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