But in this moment, it doesn’t matter what I thought, not at fourteen and not right now — because the anger is suddenly so white-hot that I can’t stop myself from saying what I say next.
“But you did.” My voice is shaking. I don’t want to say it, but it feels like I’ve been pushed and pushed to an edge that I can’t lean over anymore, and it’s all just falling out. “You did know better, and you came out here anyway, and wrecked things with Mom when you could have just stayed and let it be.”
Paige doesn’t hesitate. She says it with a conviction so quiet and firm that I know there’s no way it isn’t true. “I came to New York because of you.”
The indignant breath I was sucking in stops in my throat, almost painful. It hovers there in the awful silence, as I scramble to make sense of something that makes too much sense all at once.
Some of that firmness is gone when Paige continues, like her voice is farther away than it was moments ago, farther even than the miles separating us. “I came because I thought you’d get eaten alive. And I thought — I thought maybe Mom would see how miserable we were and change her mind.”
I close my eyes, already anticipating the wave of regret before it crashes into me — only it isn’t a wave. It’s searing, like my blood is suddenly on fire with it.
“But you weren’t miserable. It only took you a few weeks to fit in. And I…”
She stayed miserable. I remember. The slammed doors, the long walks — the way she went from being one of the most popular girls in her old school to being this angry, pale version of herself, stalking in and out of the apartment like a ghost.
“I didn’t know.” My eyes are stinging, my face burning. I don’t know what to say, except to say it again: “I didn’t know.”
There’s a beat. “Yeah, well.” The words are wet, like she’s crying too. Before I can say anything else, she says, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”
Then she hangs up. I don’t try to call her back; I know better than that. And I know better than to think that whatever just fractured between us won’t eventually heal. But it still hurts just the same, in some core of me that I thought was too deep to be shaken.
All this time, I have blamed Paige and Mom for the fights that tore us apart. I never once thought the root of it all just might be me.
Pepper
I wake up the next morning feeling like I’ve been smacked by an MTA bus. In the five hours or so I manage to sleep, the internet sure hasn’t. Before I even fully peel my eyes open, I see there are no texts or calls from Paige — but that worry is almost entirely forgotten when I realize there’s a Twitter Moment, a Hub Seed article, a Jasmine Yang video, and a few other viral sites with roundups of the memed versions of me. People have been photoshopping the Big League Burger bag, first with other logos, like one from a recent superhero movie that flopped in theaters. Then people started labeling it with things like “your hot takes on Twitter.” It’s come so full circle, someone wrote “seeing this meme 15 times on my dash in one minute” on it.
There’s even an article on Know Your Meme talking about the origins of the meme, which has officially dubbed it “Vomiting Girl.”
Points for originality, I guess.
I don’t even dare Google my name to see what comes up now. I pull the covers up over my head the way Paige and I did when we were little kids and shut my eyes, willing myself to disappear between the sheets, or wake up to find the whole thing is some bake-sale-sugar-high-induced dream.
Eventually my mom knocks on my door, looking more spent than I’ve ever seen her. She’s in her work clothes and her hair and makeup are done, but her posture is all wrong for it, like someone else dressed her. She doesn’t look angry, which is why I’m not expecting her to say, “Your vice principal just called. You’re suspended for two days.”
“I’m what?”
She stays there in the doorway. “That boy confessed to making whatever app it is the school’s been emailing about. Rucker said you intentionally withheld information about it to protect him.”
I grit my teeth. Level her gaze as if I’m not pajama-clad and lying in bed, but on equal ground. “Well, then, I guess I’m not going to school today.”
My mom blinks, but recovers. “That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
I can’t believe we are having this conversation as if she didn’t just burn a Pepper-shaped corner of the internet to the ground. “What about you, Mom?”
“What about me?” She still hasn’t moved from my doorway, like she’s some kind of vampire who needs my permission to cross the threshold. “I saw this coming from a mile away, and I tried to stop you. And now you might have just compromised your entire future over this stupid boy.”
I consider standing, the anger so electric under my skin it feels like I have to, but even that seems like too much of a concession. “For someone so concerned about my future, you sure don’t seem to care that I’m the literal laughingstock on the internet because of you.”
She’s already shaking her head. “What on earth are you—”
“Jack and I ended the Twitter war. It was ridiculous from the start, and then it got way too personal, and it was over. But you just had to get another stupid, cheap shot in, didn’t you?”
“There was no reason for it to get personal, which is exactly why I’ve been saying you shouldn’t—”
“But it is personal, Mom. For me and obviously for you, because this whole thing with Girl Cheesing wasn’t a coincidence, was it?”
Her arms are crossed so tightly against her chest that her whole body looks like it’s on the verge of snapping. Her lips are drawn, her eyes skimming the floor, and when it’s clear she isn’t going to immediately answer, I go ahead and plow on without giving her the chance.
“Anyway, it doesn’t get any more personal than this. Jack’s brother responded to your tweet with a picture of me that’s all over the internet now. It’s bad enough that I’m actually glad I’m suspended.”
That sure gets her attention. “What are you talking about?”
I pull my laptop from where I abandoned it on the other side of my bed, and open it to nearly two dozen open tabs of meme roundups and Tumblr posts and some website’s super creepy deep dive into my life, including old Facebook photos from Paige’s account. My mom sits on the edge of my bed, and I watch her flit through them, feeling a grim satisfaction in watching the way the shock loosens the scowl on her face.
She closes the laptop and holds her hand there for a moment. “I have to ask. Are you drunk in that picture?”
“No, Jesus, Mom. I had food poisoning.”
She nods and puts a hand up in defense of herself, brushing the matter aside so quickly that at the very least I know she believes me. Then she goes very still, seeming to absorb it all. I watch the familiar shape of her face, the frown that says there is a problem but she’s going to find a way to solve it, but it doesn’t last nearly long enough. We both know there’s nothing we can do.
“I’m sure this will all blow over in a—”
“I have voicemails on my personal cell phone from national publications requesting comments, Mom. This isn’t blowing anywhere.”