Any teenager in their right mind would probably be humiliated. But I can’t stop staring at the four of us, at the proof I didn’t just gloss over the memories in my head — it really was this simple, once upon a time.
The article mentions we live in New York, even says we go to the same school, although it does us the small mercy of not mentioning which one. The article pivots then into a summary of everything Jack and I have tweeted at each other so far, a weird little digital scrapbook of our clashes. I see the first ever tweet he sent, the quote retweet about our new menu items, and see he’s paused to look at it on his screen too.
“The tweet that launched a thousand other tweets.”
“To think we were only mildly sleep-deprived, then.”
The article shifts into all the repercussions of our tweets, some of which I am already aware of, and others I decidedly am not. For instance, I’d seen the hashtags, even responded to a few of them — but I had not seen the literal fan art depicting Girl Cheesing’s and Big League Burger’s mascots fighting each other in comic panels, the freckled little girl and cherubic little boy fighting by chucking food at each other.
We get to the line about the joking-but-not-quite-joking fan fiction shipping an older version of the mascots and both of us react so viscerally, several heads swivel to stare at us in the hallway.
“They’re shipping them?” Jack blurts.
I shake my head. “They’re minors, for god’s sake. This is unholy.”
“Forget shipping them,” says Pooja, taking her phone back from me and scrolling down to the comments section. “Now they’re shipping you.”
My face is burning before my eyes even land on the first few of them.
lilmarvin 4 minutes ago
Omg, TELL me they’re dating!
kdeeeeen 11 minutes ago
Okay but I need ALL the AUs about this on tumblr, stat
SuzieQueue 14 minutes ago
Sry shakespeare twitter is the new r&j
And then, as if she were the moon controlling this new internet tide, I finally see what Jasmine Yang titled her video about us: “Cheese-Crossed Lovers.”
I can’t look at Jack. I can’t look at anyone. I don’t even know what this feeling is — not embarrassment. No, it’s more all-encompassing than that, something I can feel burning from the tips of my ears to the bottom of my heels. It feels like there’s a spotlight on all 360 degrees of me, like there isn’t a single part of me that isn’t exposed.
“Pepper?”
My voice sounds strange even to my own ears, like it’s underwater. “This is … wow.”
The bell rings. Neither of us moves. Pooja and Paul collect their phones and hover for a moment, before giving us harried, sympathetic goodbyes and taking off down the hall with the rest of our classmates.
Jack’s the one to break the silence: “Are we gonna make this weird?”
I let out a relieved laugh. “Oh, definitely.”
“Cool, cool. In that case, I better get ahead of the rumors that are going to spread about us by telling everyone you have cooties.”
“In that case, I’m definitely telling everyone you sleep in Hello Kitty pajamas.”
Jack’s half grin is curling. “I’m going to tell everyone you chew raw garlic after every meal.”
I can feel the laughter bubbling up my throat. “I’m going to tell them you drink pool water. Oh wait! You did.”
Jack shakes his head. “You’re just neeeever gonna let that one go, are you, Peppero—”
The bell rings, and we startle at the sound. We’ve leaned in so close to each other laughing, it’s a miracle we don’t end up knocking our heads together, our eyes both going comically wide like we’ve never heard a bell before, like they haven’t spent years dictating every second of our teenage lives.
But then for a beat, neither of us moves, staring at each other like our eyes are snagged there.
“Class.” The word comes out in a blurt; like it’s not a real word, but some gibberish I made up.
“Oh, yeah, that,” says Jack. He falls into pace with me. “Wait, no, I’ve got independent study this period.”
He turns and heads abruptly to the other end of the hall. I watch him go, all tall legs and long strides, and realize just before I turn back that I’m still smiling like an idiot. Somehow, though, I don’t have it in me to stop.
Pepper
I miss my mom when she’s gone, but it is perhaps the biggest mercy the universe has ever bestowed upon me when she calls to let me know she’ll be extending her time in California, where she’s overseeing new BLBs opening in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“Listen,” she says, “I’m sorry things have been so … tense lately.”
I don’t say anything, aching at the sound of her forgiveness, not understanding just how badly I wanted it until she is giving it.
“I’m sorry too,” I say. I don’t elaborate — I figure if she’s letting the whole Hub Seed article thing fly, then there’s no reason for me to bring it up so she can be annoyed about it all over again.
“When I get back, let’s … have a weekend. Just for us. We’ll go upstate. Hang out on a lake.”
I open my mouth to tell her that’s basically impossible — I have swim meets every Saturday, and she’s always catching up on emails and taking calls on Sunday. And even if we could steal away for a weekend, I don’t want to go upstate. I want to see Dad and Paige.
But Thanksgiving is right around the corner. At least I have that to look forward to, even if it’s bound to be so tense when Mom and Paige finally end up in the same room that three kinds of pie won’t be enough to ease it.
“Yeah,” I say instead. “That sounds good to me.”
I don’t hear from her much for the rest of the week, which isn’t all that surprising. When Mom gets engrossed in a project, she’s like me — she’s all in and can’t split her focus. But I am surprised I haven’t heard a word about the latest Twitter debacle, especially when a final tally of the retweets declares Girl Cheesing the winner, with a whopping twenty thousand more retweets than ours.
Jack’s waiting for me Thursday morning, earlier than he usually is. There’s a to-go box propped on his desk, a sight I’m not unused to seeing — he and his brother are constantly bringing sandwiches and leftover salad they podged together from the deli. Only this time when he opens it, it looks like the candy aisle of Duane Reade threw up into it.
“What … is that?”
“Kitchen Sink Macaroons,” says Jack.
They’re crumbled either from getting roughed up on the way here or because of their very makeup, but I have to admit — however begrudgingly — they look delicious. Like the Monster Cake version of macaroons. He holds out the box to offer me some.
“Oh, man. Are these Feel Sorry for the Loser Macaroons?”
“More like Waving the White Flag Macaroons. Also Sorry I Got You Banned From Baking Macaroons.”
I take one. “Well, you did win.”
“Unfairly.” He scratches the back of his neck. “So, listen — you don’t have to … send a tweet acknowledging it. I mean, we already won. No point in rubbing anyone’s face in it.”
I take a bite of the macaroon, studying him carefully. It’s good. And I am a person with extremely high baking standards. It’s just the right amount of crunch, balanced with just enough gooeyness, courtesy of the chocolate and the caramel and a whole host of other flavors I’m still trying to identify.